In this Passion & Purity christian bubble I live in, it’s generally frowned upon for a single girl to invite a boy to a church seminar on sex. But I did. Then again, there probably aren’t too many church seminars on sex (can I even write that word on a church website?!)

The thing is, last Sunday night’s seminar on Sexual Wholeness in a Broken World with guest speaker Sharon Hersch and our girl Christy’s very own Johnny LaLonde, was monumental on so many levels. Men and women. Married and single. Discussing sex. Together. At church.

And don’t tell the Puritans, but we also had fun. (And we’re having a dance at church in a few weeks, too).

In this Bible study I’m in, we’re talking about the Blessed Alliance–men and women doing theology together. Living life together. Ruling and subduing, you guessed it, together. So when our women’s ministry opened the monthly Simply Soul meetings to men, I was thrilled. Thrilled to see our church embrace a touchy subject with sensitivity, grace, and profound truth.

Which leads me to the point of writing.

Sex is about surrender. Exchanging my ideas and my history of hurt and loneliness for an even greater story. Hersch shared three ways we surrender, whether married or single:

• In sex, we surrender our nakedness to another
• In sex, we surrender our differences to another
• In sex, we surrender our shame to another

We surrender our nakedness to another

Our bodies are disconnected from our hearts. We see our bodies as an object to be made beautiful, to be made thinner, to be tanned, to be plucked. We treat our bodies as a tool, but not our heart. No, our heart can betray us, our heart hurts. So we learn to disconnect from our heart. And if you read about my heart, you’d know I have years of duct tape fighting against being unwound. But growth and surrender happens when we become emotionally naked before the Lord and our spouse.

We surrender our differences to another

Just because Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus doesn’t mean one is better than the other. It just means we’re different. Surrendering our differences is acknowledging this and humbly putting the other’s needs in front of our own. It doesn’t have to be my way all the time (but secretly–and publicly, I suppose–I wish it was).

We surrender our shame to another

Sex is a mirror into which we see what we were made for. We were made to carry each other’s shame so we know we were made for forgiveness. Christ carried my shame all the way to Calvary. He hung on a cross and wore every scar. He surrendered His very life for me.

I want a man who will love me like that, but it terrifies me. How could my love ever measure up? The answer is, of course, it can’t. (and I will never find a man who will love me every moment of every day just like Christ). So instead, I cling to Christ. I put on Christ. And I go back to the beginning–I surrender my girlish dreams and Prince Charming hopes for an even greater story. A story where I am relentlessly and passionately loved by a King.

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