With My Body, I Thee Worship - A Molly's-Eye View

OK, we’re all in for a treat today. Molly read my ‘With My Body, I Thee Worship’ post, and she had some definite thoughts of her own. I asked her to write them down to post here, and she did. So, without further ado, I bring you my wife, Molly Jones. . .

-------------------------

With my body, I thee worship.

I love this phrase because it captures, stunningly, the spiritual nature of my intimate relationship with my husband. When one speaks of worship, something holy is being talked about. Sex, holy? Oh, yes; so, so yes. It is from, through, for, with and about God (communion of persons; an image of Christ and His Church).

People know this intuitively. Sex is one of the deepest pleasures of human experience (some would say it's the deepest pleasure). Being conscious of that truth, I can give myself completely to my husband. We are refreshed, renewed, and, in a real way, more tightly cemented together. We marvel together at how it just keeps getting better and better.

Not without struggle and work, though – “Would you please stop reading those sex books; they make me feel slimy”; “You want to try what?” Oh, okay; I’ll give it a try. . . And a few weeks later – you know, I kinda like that!

You see, it’s because it’s not about me, it’s about my husband – how can I show my love for him? Just like worshipping God is not about me, it’s about God. Of course, there are distractions, irritations and setbacks, but they’re ever so brief because the good is so very good. Neither of us can stand to hang around in the muck for very long.

To me, “with my body, I thee worship” means all the time, not just in bed. Kinda like worshipping God is not just in church, but it’s how one lives. So, with my body (and really, my whole self), I work very hard at domestic stuff – cooking, cleaning, laundry – and with my mind and my voice, I work at expressing honor, dignity and reverence in how I think and speak about my husband. (It just makes me cringe when I hear women disparage their own husbands.) You see, my thoughts give rise to my actions. . .

But we aren’t this ‘ideal’ couple; we don’t live ‘in the clouds’, and we’re not meaning to be ‘holier-than-thou’. We’ve just been given a great grace. . .

Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” (hey, with five sons, we talk about football a lot at our house). A while ago, I just got tired of cooking (I’m sure Des has mentioned all the cooking I’m doing to support his weight loss), and I was getting resentful and martyr-y; it actually went on for a day or two. Quite ugly, really; I don’t like myself when I’m selfish. I don’t even remember how we got out of it. Maybe he was responding in kind and it shocked me, maybe I just got some extra sleep, or maybe we had some wonderful intimacy. . . but we got over it.

The thing is, it’s also a great grace just to see things for what they are. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And the truth is, I love my husband, and he loves me. And my love for him is a conscious choice every day.

Someone asked if I feel the same way about Desmond as he feels about me; probably not the same – we’re different people. I love him as an expression of who I am, and he loves me as an expression of who he is.

But, “with my body, I thee worship” – yes; oh, yes!

(8 comments)