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How many times has love been the rationale to sleep with someone, cohabitate or end a marriage? How often has a woman or man been used or coerced with the words, “I love you,” or, “if you love me?” The word “love” is used so frequently and so freely. 

As parents we use the word “love” to communicate the depth of feeling and commitment to our children. We also use the word “love” to offer kids a roadmap for decision-making. Thoughtful parents and caregivers frequently use the word “love” with children while having “the Talk,” or in any of the myriad of conversations regarding relationships and dating.

So many of the choices that kids make surrounding sex and relationships are motivated by the very real longings they experience. Sex and relationships can be false fuels that may seem to satisfy deeper longings. If our kids learn to notice the most real longings and bring them to Jesus to be satisfied by the One who Truly Satisfies, they will be free to make different choices regarding sex and relationships. These are the choices that will lead to a life that flourishes. Let’s briefly unpack this idea of false fuels and real longings, as well as consider some practical approaches to sharing God’s Love with the kids in our lives.

So what is up with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette? I have to confess that I really don’t get the appeal. However, I frequently overhear excited interchanges regarding these shows. I find that I have to back away slowly in order to avoid alienating my friends and family members with an impassioned speech. And then, after some quiet reflection, realize I need to take a breath and ask, “Why have these shows drawn top ratings for the past 16 years? What can I learn as I observe friends and family who seem inextricably drawn to the stories revealed during this hour?”

Parents and caregivers often want to know how to begin the sex talk. We would suggest, “Don’t begin with the Talk.” This might sound like a bait and switch, or as if we are avoiding your question, but honestly, the best way to deliver “the Talk” using THE conversation’s approach is to not start with the sex talk. Instead, start with where your child came from. 

About five years ago, I found myself in the audience at a marriage retreat put on by our church. To be completely honest, I have never enjoyed marriage retreats- they seem to ignite in me an overwhelming sense of failure and hopelessness. However, that’s beside the point I want to make here! We entered the meeting room and the presenters sat side by side up on the platform, the wife smiling and looking adoringly at her husband. The topic was the beauty of marital sex. When the woman stood to address the crowd, she began to admonish wives to satisfy their husband’s lusts as a safeguard against their use of pornography and extramarital affairs. My eyebrows raised, my internal alarms began sounding and anger welled up inside of me. Later, after the session, a 20 Something couple approached me. The young man insightfully remarked, “I think I’ve just been called an animal by the retreat speaker! I’m offended!” In a moment, I was given words to verbalize my revulsion to this very common message to wives in Christian contexts.

In our previous blogs and in our workshop, THE conversation raises some serious questions regarding popular Christian teaching surrounding marriage, sex, sexual purity and single celibacy.  Our unspoken and underlying assumptions:

·     Marriage and sex in the context of marriage are prerequisites for a satisfying and fulfilling life.

·     Single celibacy is a sentence for a life of deprivation and loneliness.

 These assumptions not only contradict Biblical teaching but are the source of pain, resentment and many destructive choices.  

If we can live a fulfilling life being single, why do people long for communion and togetherness with each other?

In our workshop, we talk about the source of our creation as the eternal exchange of love that flows between the persons of the Trinity.  We were made from the love of God.  We were made for the love of God.  And we were made to be an overflow of  God’s love through our lives into the lives of others.  In other words, our lives are all about communion and togetherness from the very beginning.  Marriage is one way to live out our calling to communion and togetherness.  It is not the only way.  We can also live out a calling of single celibacy, giving and receiving love as we unselfishly give of ourselves to others and our community in non-sexual ways.  The fifth and sixth sessions of our workshop help us to teach our kids ways to expand our understanding of love into the big picture of giving life and love to others in our world.  This big picture life brings freedom to understand that we can fulfill our calling in beautiful ways outside of marriage, much like Jesus did.

1. How do I address sex with my kids from a covenant point of view if they have already had sex?

I think as our kids get into the later teen years, and demonstrate resistance to any directions from us regarding life choices, we definitely need to share insights learned as they have impacted our own lives. This might sound something like,

"I went to a workshop and learned something surprising, not at all what I expected. The speakers talked about sex as a sign of a covenant. God used covenants to establish relationships between Himself and His people. For example, the rainbow was a sign of the covenant between God and the people of the earth when God made a solemn vow that He would never again flood the earth. God describes marriage all throughout the Bible as a covenant relationship. The sign of a marital covenant is sexual union. I found it so interesting that the implication of this was that every time a married couple has sex, they are renewing their covenantal marriage vows."

As a socially awkward and introverted teenager, I was ecstatic when I found “belonging” in a thriving high school youth group in the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew in confidence and leadership in this Biblically centered environment and received so many good gifts from God. But as with everything in life, these good gifts came in a mixed bag. Once I established a circle of supportive and fun female relationships, I discovered that it was kind of “a thing” to start a Hope Chest: a chest full of household items that would be joyfully unpacked WHEN one got married and established her own household. It was our idea of a good time to visit department stores, making decisions about our future dish patterns and household color schemes and planning purchases for our chests!

Yearly we anticipated the upcoming sex and dating teaching series in youth group. We eagerly sat on the edge of our seats as we listened to the speaker tell us that sex is awesome beyond imagination in marriage. Our interpretation of the message was this: “Get married so you can experience life’s highest good with God’s stamp of approval!” And many of us did get married young and quickly as this seemed the best strategy for “following the rules” and at the same time satisfying what seemed to us to be our deepest longings and desires.

Interestingly enough, I don’t remember ever hearing a talk on the beauty of the single and celibate life.

Does an alarm go off in your head when your child is trying to pull one over on you? One of my closest childhood friends and I were just kids when she told me that she could tell if I wasn’t being truthful because my nostrils would flare. I was so bummed that my nose(of all things)gave me away! My own kids have tells that I won’t make public, but I know them when I see them. I can actually picture it: the particular expression on each one’s face when something’s up, the way posture changes. Seriously, take a minute and visualize the signs that give it away in your kids, a child you know, or a friend. Now visualize someone close to you, so thrilled and excited or in awe that it is written all over his or her face. My husband’s face breaks into total joy with his eyes crinkling, his shoulders rising up and his mouth opening for a spontaneous laugh when he finds something really funny. I can absolutely picture him even as I type this. The body communicates in its own language!

Weddings can be simple, extravagant, excruciatingly long, delightful or the best party of the year! My favorite wedding surprise was one that commenced with a procession of bridesmaids and groomsmen each playing an unusual instrument while strolling down the grassy center aisle under tall shade trees. In my day, (here comes the old lady story) we all had pretty much the same wedding: songs, slide shows, cake, sherbet and gingerale punch, nuts and mints. But I love that many weddings today are intentionally planned in a way that expresses something of “who” the bride and groom are as persons. I’m sure it’s not hard to guess some of the particular personality traits of the couple hosting the aforementioned wedding.

In an effort to showcase the individuality and unique nature of the persons entering into marital union, couples last year spent an average of $33,391 according to The Knot 2017 Real Wedding Study. Lauren Kay, who wrote an article entitled, “The Top Wedding Trends for 2018” names these among the top ten:

-asking for cash

-balloon arches

-capes

-single stem bouquets

-open fire cooking and

-Lipstick Touchup Bars!

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1970’s, I became keenly aware of the emerging protest, “Marriage is just a piece of paper!” That protest was not just a fleeting trend. In a 2010 Time magazine article, “Who Needs Marriage: A Changing Institution” (Nov 18, 2010), Belinda Luscombe states, “When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it’s worth trying to figure out why.” According to a Pew Research Center poll in 2010, “What we found is that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be. Neither men or women need to be married to have sex or companionship or professional success or respect or even children.” Results of the 2012 US Census, reveal that 2/3 of couples married in 2012 shared a home together for more than two years before getting married. And no wonder, if our previous understanding of marriage was reduced to no more than a way to get what we viewed as necessary.

What were you thinking? I have posed this question many times: when my 5 year old daughter decided to run up on the stage and stood next to the pastor giving his message because she couldn’t find her way back to our seat in the congregation, when my son decided as a young adult that it’s a great idea to practice front flips off of a beachside bluff, or when my husband decided to teach the cat to drink water from a glass on the kitchen counter. We all have those moments when we step back and wonder incredulously what was going on the in the mind of another when….!

We’ve been on a journey with Theology of the Body and THE conversation Workshop. In the beginning, God created us in His image and invited us to a life of flourishing in communion with Himself. In God’s original design, we were created as embodied persons. Contrary to commonly accepted opinion, our bodies are good and are the only way that we can be known and engage with others. Our bodies and our persons cannot be separated without hurting ourselves or others. Neither are our bodies an accessory that adds to or takes away from our ultimate value as persons. So having grasped all of this, we may stop and wonder, “Then why O God, did you make us humans with male and female parts? What were you thinking?”

We're all aware on some level that we've learned to judge our bodies through osmosis of the culture we live.  This has been the source of choices that result in impediments to a life of flourishing.  How can we stand in the way of this onslaught and replace the damaging thoughts that shape our self assessments?

In previous blogs we’ve established that we are embodied human persons, that the body expresses the person, and that the body and the person can’t be separated. It’s now important to revisit the challenge of separating the value of the person from the appearance of the body.  In what way is the value of my person related to the way I see my body?

Well, the perceived answer quickly becomes a personal one, so I’ll just speak from my own experience. I might be able to give a good Sunday school answer, “If I had a God-made price tag attached to my person it would read, ‘PRICELESS.’” Admittedly, it’s easier me to say this about others, but with an internal struggle, that would be invisible to you, I could admit that I am priceless because God sees us as priceless. But if I had to concede that this God-made price tag would necessarily be attached to my body that expresses my person, I would more likely cringe. I evaluate my body with a different kind of criteria and sometimes this means more to me than the value God claims that He has bestowed on me as a person. My husband and I have even occasionally started to exchange comments (when we are sure the kids aren’t around) about our aging bodies. Throw aging into the mix and the criteria with which I tend to evaluate my body’s appearance drastically reduces the number of days I can honestly assign positive value to my own body and therefore my embodied self. 

Sometime after Donald Trump became president, I happened to hear an incredibly insightful comment from a news anchor. This comment seemed to be an afterthought at the end of a story that made mention of Melania Trump. I honestly do not remember the event or topic of the story, but much of the focus of the story was about Melania’s clothes and accessories. Video was shown highlighting Melania’s appearance, and the anchor’s final comment just before cutting away to the next story was, “Since we don’t know anything about who Melania Trump is, we are left to comment on what she looks like.”

When my girls were babies, some of my most treasured moments were when they would explore my face, arms, and hands with their tiny little hands and their expressive eyes and smiles. Each daughter at her earliest age was getting to know her self and me, through our bodies. 

We dream that our children will flourish.  And we’ve discovered that we flourish in life when we live consistently with the truth regarding human value – our own and that of others. Loving and valuing others sounds great doesn’t it?  I can’t imagine encouraging anything less than this as a mentor to children or even adults. When it comes right down to it though, there is a vast array of opinions about what love looks like.  And yet, we need to figure this out if we’re to experience a life of flourishing.

I want my kids to flourish. And yet in the daily waking up, packing lunches and backpacks, school, homework, carpool, extra activities, church and community living and doing it all over the next day, I’ve noticed my kids can feel drained, not flourishing. The feelings that seem to drain them the most come when they perceive that something threatens their personal value and they get caught up with comparing themselves to others, usually in the form of what others have, such as technology, pets, toys, or experiences. Even more ensnaring, is when my girls compare themselves to their own (usually unattainable) expectations of who they should be – it starts so early!

Flourishing.  If you were to draw or paint a picture that expresses the word, “flourishing,” what would you include?  I don’t paint or draw but my mind is drawn to Garrapata where I’ve hiked in Big Sur after an El Nino season; a place filled with lush wildflowers of every color, streams of water splashing over rocks, towering redwood trees shading the path with greenery and me, attempting to drink it all in, enabled in the moment to be fully present.

We all have hopes and dreams for our children! In fact, many of us start dreaming about their futures while our children are still growing and developing in the womb. God surprised me with our first child. I had never given much thought to children or parenting until that moment. After my first positive pregnancy test, and after I stopped shaking, I started imagining what my child would be like. I also began to brainstorm plans and strategies to help shape my child’s life. How would we raise a child who would flourish?