During this week before Easter, I’m rerunning a couple posts from my archives.
A lot of us have seen the visual aid of a jar filled with rocks, pebbles, sand, and sometimes water to illustrate the importance of priorities. In this post, I apply that visual aid to sex.
When we make sex a priority in our marriages, we still manage to have space for the other aspects of our marriage. But when we put other things first, we often don’t have time for sex. When it comes to filling your marriage jar, sex should be a rock.
Do you remember the first time you saw an erect penis? I do. I thought, “That thing is huge! No way is it going to fit. No way at all.”
Amazingly, it did fit. A woman’s body adjusts to accommodate it. The back end of the vagina expands, making the vagina somewhat enlarged. The uterus shifts position a bit. The vaginal walls secrete lubrication. As the penis enters, a woman can shift, relax, and tilt to accommodate full penetration. A woman who isn’t used to it may find it uncomfortable at first. Sometimes it may be difficult to accomplish without the assistance of artificial lubrication. As we relax and accept the reality of the penis, our bodies simply adjust. The erect penis is large, and our bodies adjust in order to fit it in.
Why is it so hard to fit sex into our lives?
I recently received an email from a woman who asked me, “How on earth can you fit it into your schedule?” Our lives become overtaken by so much: parenting, medical appointments, church services, bills, household maintenance, pet care, child care, work commitments, home schooling, cooking dinner, laundry, soccer practice, choir practice, car repairs, grocery shopping, etc., etc., etc. How on earth can you fit sex into your life when you have so much going on?
A common demonstration illustrates the answer using rocks, pebbles, and sand. The presenter brings out a jar and some rocks, pebbles, and sand. If you fill the jar with sand first, there will be no room for the pebbles and definitely no room for the rocks. However, when you place the large rocks in first, things simply adjust. Place the rocks in the jar, and then add the pebbles; they will settle down into the spaces between the rocks. Finally, pour in the sand, which will fill in the spaces between the pebbles. You can fit it all in–but only if you begin with the big pieces.
The jar represents your life. The rocks are the big things–your relationship with God, your marriage, and your children. The marriage is the foundation of the family (not the children), so take care of your marriage first–and part of taking care of your marriage is understanding what the rocks are in the jar called marriage. The small things that so easily overtake our lives? They are just pebbles and sand. Sex is a big deal in marriage.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife. ~ Genesis 2:24
What makes a marriage a marriage (and not just a roommate relationship) is the joining of flesh. Sex is a big deal.
Sex is a rock.
Sex needs to fit into your marriage and into your life before the small things are fit in. It should be a priority in your marriage, not an afterthought that you get to only when you have some free time–because really, when is that ever going to happen?
How do you fit it in? You just do. Just like an erect penis seems far too big to fit into a vagina, sex can seem too big to fit into life. Yet it fits anyway. Your vagina will adjust to accommodate your husband’s penis, and your life will adjust to accommodate sex. It may be uncomfortable, and sometimes you may need a little assistance, but it can fit.
Don’t let the pebbles and sand run your life. Make sex a priority. Your life will adjust to accommodate.
When you’re looking at all the things that need to fit into your jar of life, just remember . . .
. . . sex is a rock.
Image credit | Chris Taylor
I've moved! While you can peruse the archives here, I am no longer posting at The Forgiven Wife.
Please join me at Honeycomb & Spice.
Ladies, if you're interested in joining me for a study of Juli Slattery's new book God, Sex, and Your Marriage, time is running out! Our study begins with introductions on February 26, 2023, but the study will be open to join until March 5.
