So, this podcast is directed towards women because often women are the organizers and they are the ones who tend to struggle to have passion. But what if there was a way to actually organize your life so that passion is a consistent desire and fulfilling activity?

That’s what I want to talk to you about.

As Jesus followers, we are invited to do things that aren’t the societal norms.

I think that passion for women is fairly “natural” for the first 2-3 years of a relationship/marriage. And after that it requires intentionality.

She just stops feeling it… nothing against that specific husband necessarily, she switches to life, busyness, mom – mode. And the attracting-that-guy-mode which heightened libido fades.

BUT! As a wife, you can organize your life, your thoughts, and your pursuits in a way that causes you to desire sex, but it requires intentionality for women.

I vowed that on our wedding day, and it will never be negotiable. That’s called exercising faithfulness to my marriage vows. Is it a “duty”? That’s a gross way of thinking about loving a person—not to mention the most important person of your life.

Is a husband accepting, encouraging, and listening to his wife’s heart a duty? It would be gross if that’s how he thought of it. But, both are expectations of faithfulness as a married person.

Both are opportunities for them to bless each other and fulfill God’s will at the same time.

Blessings,

Belah

PS If you’d like to join the free training for women all about confidence in intimacy — which will be available for a limited time — go to delightyourmarriage.com/sc

If you’d like to find other free resources go to delightyourmarriage.com/free

– transcript

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hi there and welcome. This is Bella. And I want to thank you so much for joining. So today this message is directed towards women. And the reason is, is because I have an awesome program, I am relaunching called intimate freedom. And so far the women that are in the program are just thriving, it’s beautiful to see their marriages just come to life and their libido increasing and their excitement around intimacy growing and just being able to share this journey with other Christ centered women that are really loving their husbands well and wanting to live in accordance with God’s will for their lives. And so if you are interested in that program, I’ve got actually some free videos coming up that are just I think, phenomenal training. And it’s all about confidence in intimacy, because I think those things go hand in hand for you to have freedom. And so those trainings, you can get at delight your marriage.com/sc. And when you go there, you’ll sign up and those free trainings are going to come straight to your inbox. So be aware, they’re going to be available for a limited time. So I definitely want you to sign up so you don’t miss those. And then, as you’re going through those free trainings, eventually, I will open up enrollment into the intimate Freedom program, where you can actually find out, you know, if this feels like the right fit, then you can join in the program and join with other women in these small conversations with. Yeah, just just a wonderful experience. So you’ll find out all the details. But first of all, get the free training for for sure. delight your marriage.com/sc. I’ve gotten amazing feedback and do it as soon as you can, because like I said, it’s going to be available for a limited time. All right, well, let’s talk about pleasure, passion. And the like, as being seasonal. I’m going to talk about what that means for women, and how this actually is an empowerment, rather than something that makes you feel bad. Okay, let’s dive in.

2:55
So growing up, I did not have many good examples of marriage. In fact, I can count them on one hand, the marriages that I would be happy to have when I got older. So one in particular was a woman who, when I actually ended up interviewing her, for my book, delight your husband, if you haven’t checked that out yet, you can delight your husband. But when I interviewed her for the book, because like I said, she was so integral in my growing up years, one of the things that I thought was fascinating that she said in that interview was that passion is seasonal. Passion is seasonal. And I thought that was really interesting, because as women, and of course she’s talking from the perspective of women. And as a woman, I agree that there are seasons of my life that I just cannot get enough of intimacy with my husband. And then there are times that it is an act of the will to get things started and then move forward. And when I say seasons, it doesn’t mean this is three, four months, it might mean that this is a portion of the month because of menstrual cycles. Or maybe it’s because we have just an easier go of life and things are calmer and simpler. And you know, there’s not a infant in our bed. You know, there’s different things that make intimacy and excitement around intimacy easier. And there are some things that make it harder. So as a wife, we get to organize our life in a way that makes passion more likely. So that our day desire has space. You know, we are not as women created to be workhorses. It’s natural for us to not want sex when we are in the masculine realm all the time. And I am, I love working hard. I love productivity, I love getting things done. I love planning, I love goal setting, I mean, on and on, that has been my life. And in even speaking workhorses, I grew up on a farm, I grew up, having horses, having tons and tons of animals, and lots and lots of work all the time, every single day, which was really good for me. But I’m happy, I’m happy, we don’t have animals anymore. But the point is, I’m not, I’m not afraid of work, I like it. And the point is that now as a wife, recognizing how vital intimacy with my husband, is, I get to organize my life in such a way that passion is more likely. So what do I mean by that? Well, my husband is not going to be filled up by just sex. That’s, that’s great. And that’s helpful and good. Frequency is important, I recommend somewhere around three times a week, if your husband is a high drive, if your husband’s lower drive, you know, one time a week, it’s good to talk about that sort of thing and ask him what what is his ideal, and maybe his ideal is a couple times a day, okay? I wouldn’t, I don’t think you have to do a couple times a day. But that helps you to recognize his drive is is high. And so then, okay, maybe I can’t do a couple times a day, maybe I can’t do every day, but maybe every other day, maybe every three days, you know, just get get a semblance of what would fill him up, like, get just a mindset of, of this is his desire. And then you can ice like I said, organize your life in such a way that, that you want to fill that and you can actually fill it. So, so frequency is great. And it’s very important. But that’s kind of the baseline, your actual enthusiasm, your desire, your pleasure, your visuals, your variety, all of those things in intimacy is what makes a sexual experience fulfilling for him.

7:44
Now, what I just described, cannot happen. If your mind is elsewhere, sifting through your to do list or you’re just trying to get this over with, or you don’t have time to this, you’re stressed out those sorts of things. You cannot you cannot love your husband well, doing that. And the way sex works, I think is it actually is motivation to be more in line with God’s will. I think it works that way for men. And I think that it works that way for women. Sex is I mean, our culture is obsessed with sex, you can’t go anywhere, you can’t look at anything without sex being part of it, whether whether it’s said out loud or not. There is sexual cues everywhere. And, and, and God made it to be fascinating. And, and we’re we’re wired that way. If you’ve listened to any of my podcasts before, you know that men have naturally about 11 erections a day, and God made it that way, every time they notice it every time it’s pleasurable, it’s just the way they were made. And there’s so much more I could say about that. But the point is that if he wants to have a wonderful sex life with his wife, he’s got to be a man that’s gentle, and kind and faithful and loving and peaceful. And let me tell you, do those remind you of the fruits of the Spirit? Because they are a man who starts looking a lot more like Jesus attracts his wife to him. And I want you to know that that is God’s will for a husband’s life is to act and look and smell and think like Jesus And I think women are built in such a way that they are attracted to that. They are attracted to that God. Jesus was the manliest of men. He is the absolute utter picture of strength and masculinity. And so when a man is wondering how to be a man, he just has to look to Jesus. And let me tell you, it is a natural aphrodisiac for his wife. So that’s, that’s for men. For women. Why is it that sex teaches us to be more in line with God’s? Well, well, I think a huge temptation, there are several huge temptations for women, but one of them is comparing themselves. We have a desire to be beautiful. I think that’s innate, we want to be attractive to our spouse. And it’s very easy for us to get in comparison mode with other women. And I’ve talked about this before. But the Bible says do not cover it. Anything. Don’t covet your neighbor’s oxen, or even your neighbor’s wife. And I think that is actually also an encouragement to wives, to not covet your neighbor’s wife. Sounds silly, but do not wish you had the body of someone else. Do not compare yourself, do not want what they have. Because here’s, here’s why it matters so much i and I’ve, I’ve worked with women and I have lived this, where we get obsessed with dieting, or the way we look or skincare or our beauty routines, or what we dress and how much we weigh. And, I mean, the shoes in our closets, I mean, those sorts of things. My goodness. I mean, that is our society as though that were femininity, as though that were a natural aspect of who a woman is, I think it speaks to a natural desire to be attractive, which is good, and anything godly and, and wonderful, if if it’s directed towards our spouse. But

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if we are in a place of unhealthy obsession around it, it means it actually pushes us away from our spouse, because we want to be perfectly beautiful to our spouse. And if we’re not, if we don’t think that we are, if we don’t feel that we are, then we won’t want him to see our body. So if we don’t discipline our mind and say, You know what? I love my body. I love the fact that God made it. I love the fact that I’m not responsible for the way it looks, my nose, my cheekbones, my neck, my clavicles every other part of my body God, God, designed and God made. So if I’m ever you know, going, thinking negatively about my body. I’m dishonouring God’s work. Like what is that? How prideful are we to say, we don’t appreciate what he’s gifted us in the body that he has gifted us. So that that’s, that’s a discipline before Jesus is that I’m not going to be obsessed with the world’s materialism and the world’s temptation to have some societal perfection that has nothing to do with Gods. It’s so far outside of God’s will. It’s just this achy, worldly mindset. And so my invitation to you is to say, I’m not going to be obsessed with that. Yes, you can wear makeup, you can make yourself look nice. But if it is becoming something that’s standing between you and being free, in intimacy, passionate and intimacy, pursuing your own pleasure and intimacy being present in intimacy that helps you to know that it is out of line with God’s will. It’s it’s like a red flag. It’s like whoa, hold on there. If you can’t be free and passionate and loving, to the most important person in your life, if you can’t love him the way he receives love, because you’re obsessed with your beauty or feeling like you don’t have what you should, then that’s a red flag. And that says your heart before Jesus is out of whack. And it is a character thing. It’s not a it’s nothing else, its character, its character. The other thing I think, is important. So the first piece is making sure that your heart is in check in terms of coveting, pursuing of beauty, comparing yourself to others, that sort of thing. So that’s, that’s number one. The second easy pitfall for women is busyness is busyness. And like I said, that productivity that, you know, getting things done the whatever season, you know, whether it’s stressing over Christmas presents, or whether it’s trying to get the kids into every activity in the world, or whether it’s, you know, parenting, to the utmost degree, I support those things. Those are good things. Those are good things, you know, wanting to give sweet things to others wanting to, to give your kids the best wanting to love them well. But if it’s happening at the expense of loving your husband, well, then we’re out of whack again, then we are out of whack, you’ve got to be thinking about who is your husband? Who is your husband, if he’s a once a week guy, then that needs to be a priority once a week. If it’s a three times a week guy, that’s your priority. Above, giving Christmas presents above, going to the soccer practice above, even having deep conversations with your kids, you cannot have a strong family unit. Unless your marriage is solid and strong. And sometimes I am I’m so empathetic, you know, I receive emails, thank you for trusting me with your emails, those that send them, I received them from a gentleman so often, where they’re like we have had a good marriage for 20 plus years. But intimacy has been either not frequent, or extremely unfulfilling, are both incredibly unfrequent. So

17:34
but they’ve had, you know, great children, they’ve had a good life. He’s done his best. And I have to, sadly, Question A wife who loves Jesus. But doesn’t think loving her husband in the way he receives love is important. And it breaks my heart and just witnessing these men suffer. And I just I asked you as if you’re a wife listening, search your own heart, search your heart here. If your husband isn’t over the moon what was the point of having a big wedding? What was the point of saying these Vows if you weren’t meaning them? Because he’s, he wants the intimacy. And it’s not. It’s the way that God made his heart. Alright, so that’s a little bit of a tangent. That’s a little tangent. But if you needed to hear that, let the Holy Spirit convict you. Because this is, I mean, this is transformational. It can be if you if you let it if you let God consume your heart in this way. He wants to give you a new mindset in this. Not the world’s mindset, his mindset, he created sex. He made it wonderful for your husband. And he made it wonderful for you. If you follow His will in other areas of your life, it can be wonderful for you as well. So we’re not stumbling by the obsession with beauty. We’re not stumbling by the busyness that crowds out any possibility for having time to even think about sex, much less have a bath, much less relaxed rest. We as women have to rest to have any kind of inspiration for desire to be different turned on. Stress for most women is a libido killer. It is a libido killer. So one thing that’s vital for our family, as we take a rest day, every week, a rest day. So it doesn’t mean we’re lazy. It means that we’re seeking to honor God’s words and the commandments is there’s there’s one in there about take a Sabbath. And I think it’s vital, it’s an opportunity for us to trust God. And and say, You know what, I can’t do everything. And even if I did have every single day, I’m going to let you God take care of this, the worries of this day, and I am going to rest and I’m going to relax, I’m going to spend time with my kids and laugh and have a good time, I’m going to relax with my husband, we’re just going to chill, we’re not going to have plans, we’re not going to do anything stressful, we’re also not going to talk about anything stressful, we are just going to relax. And you know what, sometimes we make love on that day. And that’s great. But you know, what I realized after thinking about this, so I might be contradicting a past episode, because I was thinking about this a little bit more, sometimes we don’t make love. And the reason is, is because I need that day to rest. So that actually fuels future days that I’m like, interested in making love because I am so rested, and relaxed and peaceful. So, you know, don’t assume like, Okay, we’re going to get a rest day, which means we’re going to make love and if a husband is listening, so so that’s my encouragement, set your life up. Again, this is to wives set your life up in a way that makes sure you don’t over commit, make sure you say no to things that are not the best, you know, I had to do something recently, where I loved this way I was serving in my in Well, in my church, actually, I loved so much about it, but I I realized that the energy it was pulling from me was causing my mindset to go in the wrong direction, or towards that thing. When I was with my kids, when I was with my husband, and it was it’s it was bad for my higher priorities in in my life, including dy Mdy M is extremely high priority. I feel like this is the calling God has on my life, at least in this season and the foreseeable future. And so I had to I had to uncommit I had to say in this in this season, I’m I’m this is really hard for me because I’m so grateful for, for all of you know, everything that you are and that it at it, uh,

22:27
but I’m going to have to uncommit to this in this season. And that was hard. That was hard. But the truth is I I am attentive to where my energy is going. And and that’s just where, where it was going. Another thing is, I have a lot of societal expectations, I just, I just decide it’s not worth it when I get to Jesus, is it gonna matter that my kids wore matching, I don’t know, shirt and pants all the time or that they had you know, extremely organized, whatever. No, it’s not. And so for me to obsess over the tiny things in in, which means I don’t get the most important things accomplished, like loving my husband well, and actually, genuinely wanting it. So what I want to invite you through all of this conversation is to organize your life in such a way that the passion that is naturally seasonal, becomes frequent. There will be times if you organize your life in such a way that you have more desire for intimacy, and that’s disciplining your mind around beauty, deciding your beautiful deciding that you’re confident, getting more insight and wisdom and all that you can go to delight your marriage.com/sc for an incredible video training for you for free, or any of my other resources I have for you. And organizing your life to have rest and peace and pleasure. delighting in the beautiful gift of life that God has given you. We can always be grateful we can always delight, rejoicing. Paul was in prison when he said Rejoice in the Lord always. He was in prison so he can rejoice in prison. I don’t know what you’re going through. But you can rejoice. You can. There is some way somehow Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. And you know one thing that’s fascinating, I think is the fact that Paul was in prison and he said that actually makes it more powerful, doesn’t it? So the fact that if you are are going through a hard time and you go through it. With such grace and beauty and gratefulness in the midst, why you are going to be an incredible testimony for others, when they need your insight and inspiration, when they’re in a hard time. So just a note that you having the right attitude and the right joy and the right mindset, during your hard time possibly, is actually going to help you help others. So think about the purpose is much more than just right now. It’s actually long term going to help others through you. So I would say focus on making your life in such a way that passion is more natural, it comes because you’re not stressed out all the time, you have time to focus on sex, you have inspiration, you have insight you have. So encouragement. And here’s the other thing, my husband is so good at encouraging people. So I’m, I’m much more of the like, teacher and in guidance and you know, I can do cheerleading, but sometimes it I mess it up. And so I think if he were here, he would just say, you are doing such a good job. Dear wife, you are doing such a good job, you wouldn’t have listened to this podcast, this episode, you wouldn’t have even even if your husband sent this to you wouldn’t have been willing to go there. If it wasn’t because you you love him. And you you want to love him, well, and you and you care about his heart. So I just want to, I just want to embrace you and appreciate that you are, you’re doing the right thing. You’re doing the right things. And I want to encourage you, and invite you to tweak the areas of your life, little by little by little

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to move in the direction. So you can love your husband, well. Don’t feel like this has to be a Herculean effort. It’s just tweak this, say no to that. Stop doing that do do a rest day here in there until it can be something that is frequent. Take a bath here in there, like just add little pieces over and over again, cut out little pieces over and over again. And pretty soon, your life is going to look a lot different. You know, once he opens your eyes Jesus does. You’re gonna see it’s easier. It’s almost I mean, it becomes easier, but it’s a heart change. So I invite you, whatever nugget you needed to hear from this podcast, I invite you to take it with you. And allow God to breathe on that and and consider it and bring it back to mind and spend time just processing it. A lot of times we need space and time and silence to just process what God is teaching us. And journaling. I love journaling. Awesome. Well, let me pray for you before we go. Father, thank You for this wife. Thank you that she listened to this episode. Thank you that she clicked on it. Thank you that she listened all the way through with an open heart. And Father, I ask in Jesus name that you would touch her. You love this woman. You designed her just as she is exactly as she is. And I pray Father that she would make the hard choices, the hard choices, whether it is disciplining her her mind, whether it is cutting out the enemy’s influences of different types of media, whether it’s cutting out the different commitments that are not highest priority, that are crowding out her ability to rest so that she can enjoy intimacy with passion and desire and enthusiasm and all the things that make her husband feel loved. Lord, help her to

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part her life in the way that you want her to. In Jesus name, amen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for I don’t know why I wanted to say this. But thank you for being my friend.

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Thank you for allowing me into your ears. Whether you listen every week or if this is your first time I want to invite you.

29:47
Yeah, to keep going to keep pressing on. And just smile even right now. I hope that you smile. Alright, God bless you and we’ll talk again soon. Bye. and go to Delete your marriage.com/sc for that free training. Alright God bless