A few nights ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of teenagers about what is definitely the most difficult topic that they need to hear . . . sex. More specifically, sexual immorality according to God’s word. It was really important to me that I didn’t hearken back to the purity culture days of the 90s. I wasn’t privy to that particular wave of church culture, it was just a little before my time, not to mention that I didn’t attend church or even a youth group regularly as a teen. But I can imagine how damaging it was to tell a group of young people that they’d be spoiled goods if they didn’t manage to save themselves for marriage. The stories of pastors passing a rose around a room to be handled by everyone only to note how ugly it was after it’d been passed around, too ugly for anyone to want . . . it makes sense that messaging like that hurt hearts and helped to turn a generation away from God and church.
But I do know what it’s like to feel like that broken rose, handled by too many and afraid that no one good would want me. It’s not comfortable to share sentences like that last one. And in the light of the world, it’s not anything I should feel ashamed of. Sex is just sex, right? Natural and neutral, they say. But over the last few years, God’s put a conviction on my heart to be honest about some of my own indiscretions and the pain and shame they brought me, so that hopefully someone else can learn from them and not take the same roads I took when I was a teen and young adult.
I was desperate for positive attention, and – feeling like an ugly duckling my entire childhood – when the positive attention finally came from my male classmates in high school and then in college . . . let’s just say I ran with it. I basked in the light of feeling wanted, and I put all of my worth and value into that feeling. I gave away so much of myself and did things that left me feeling empty and hollow, used and abused, and what I’m left with are memories that don’t fade away, no matter how much I wish they would.
Flash-forward to today and the life I’ve built with my husband. We met almost 11 years ago, and this fall we’ll celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. We’ve been through so much together, good and bad. Miscarriage, caring for my sick mother, miscarriage again (all of that just in 1 year), career changes, buying a home in the midst of my season of major depression, anxiety battles for us both, a rainbow baby (the birth of our first son), the painful death of my mother, the joyful birth of our second son, loss of grandparents in death, loss of friends in life . . . so much has happened during our 11 years of life together.
I can’t help but wish that we’d started our journey sooner. That some of the years of foolish decisions and indiscretions were replaced with more years of him, my greatest friend and truest lover. I know that God works all things together for the good of those that love Him, and I do believe that God found a way to use my foolishness to bring me to a place where I could be introduced to the man He made for me.
And I know that this man was made for me. I’ve never known that there could be such a true expression of love from one person to another. Love that sacrifices his wants for my needs. Love that rises early to serve, goes to work to serve, and comes home to serve some more. Love that tells me each and every day that I’m beautiful and that he’s proud of me. Love that picks my head up when I’m overwhelmed and my eyes are puffy and soaked from crying and tells me “Everything will be okay, I’ve got this.” Love that stays up after dark building trampolines and swing sets for our boys. Love that is concerned about me all of the time and only speaks kindly of me to others. Love that climbs on the roof and into the attic – you know, man work – to ensure that our home is safe and taken care of. Love that still wants to grow, to show me love in the way I receive it. Love that seeks God’s will so that he can be a spiritual leader in our home . . . That’s a really special kind of love. And gosh, I just feel so undeserving of a love like that. And I am undeserving. There’s nothing I did in my life before him to have earned this kind of love and affection.
But then that’s the way Christ loves us too, isn’t it? Romans 5:8 says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He died for us, for you and for me, out of such great love for us, so that we would be made righteous before God. And there’s nothing we did to deserve that kind of love. It’s so overwhelming to think about when you do. And that’s how we’re called to love our spouses, too.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:22-33
The way my husband loves me makes me feel God in my marriage and see God’s love in my life. I see him giving himself up for me the way Christ gave himself up for His Church. I see him serving our family in humility, not lording over us in dominance and anger. I see him disciplining the ones he loves, but still gently wiping away tears. All of this I see as a gift of such undeserved grace, and it really is. I didn’t deserve a marriage like this. I didn’t deserve a husband who loves me so fiercely. But God, “being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5).
For all of the mistakes I’ve made and all of my past I wish I could make disappear, the love my husband shows me is proof of God’s love for me. And His is a love that forgives, saves, transforms, heals, delivers, restores, and redeems us from all of our sin and brokenness. I have so much sin and brokenness in my past, but by His wounds, I’m healed. The fact that He’s also redeemed me through my marriage just shows what kind of God He is. Grace upon grace.
That’s the kind of love story I pray those teens are blessed to experience one day.
Written by: Written by: Chelsae Baxley. Chelsae is the Assistant Director of Fathom Family Foundation. She lives in Jacksonville, FL with her husband Josh, and her two boys, Max and Isaac. She has a heart for encouraging others in marriage, mothering, and theology.
