I wrote this post a while back when I reviewed the book the first time… I am sharing again with an opportunity to win a free download of the book… 

I am reading and reviewing Pulling Back the Shades by Dannah Gresh and Dr. Juli Slattery. This book is thier thoughts and argument against erotica… particularly the new rush of it due to the book Fifty Shades of Grey.

I shared a little about this subject in one of my own blog post, O Romeo Romeo, several years ago in my Thirty-three Day Challenge series. I also have taught youth and counseled many young ladies on this topic of reading erotica… so no I have not read Fifty Shades… nor do I ever plan to. I have a well educated stance on this type of “literature” through enough past experience without having to subject my heart and mind and soul to it again.

Anyway…

As I opened up the pages of this book and began to read, Dannah and Juli begin with an introduction and their discovery of the five longings of a woman’s heart compared to the five similarities found in all successful erotica.

 

The two of them made this list completely independent of one another and were coming from two different directions… yet if you noticed… you can see how the erotica industry has been able to seduce a many a female. That’s just how Satan works.

Last night during a devo with my youngest daughter the Scripture verses we were going over were Ephesians 5:6-10…

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 

In this devo concerning these verses the author pointed out how Satan’s best deceptional work is done when he tells us things we WANT to hear. Erotica works because it tells us things we want to hear. It meets the legitimate longings of our heart in an illegitimate way. We too easily forget that Satan can do nothing more than pervert what God created as good. He uses empty words to produce empty emotions that lead to empty lives.

For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living waters,
To hew for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns
That can hold no water

Jeremiah 2:13

Ladies, the longings of our hearts are legitimate. They are real. They were indeed endowed within us by our Creator God. However, if we attempt to meet these needs apart from Him… they will never be satisfied. Never.

In the closing of this introductory chapter of Pulling Back the Shades, the authors ask us to look at the longings list and see which ones we are struggling with as unmet. I caught myself smiling and had to send a message to my husband… because I realized that all the longings of my heart were met.

Now granted they are not all five met on a daily basis. We have moments when we are so aggravated with one another that we can’t even talk… but looking past those moments and seeing our marriage as a whole… I am a very satisfied woman.

I have talked to my husband about this… and I am not sure when it happened, but at some point something changed in our marriage. Trust me… it was not always this way. Apart from Christ it never would have been… that’s one of Satan’s lies, that your sex life is somehow separate from a holy life. The truth is… a holy life… leads to an amazing sex life!

Like I said, I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I began to trust my husband’s words. At some point I began to actually believe that when he saw me… he was attracted to me. You see I had always believed that he was attracted to what he saw in the movies, on tv, past relationships, etc… and I was just the outlet he used.

I also lived with my heart in reserve as I feared being played the fool… or being the locker room joke. So I never had actually “given myself” to him. I had never surrendered to him because I was afraid that I would, and it wouldn’t be enough, or he would leave and I would have poured out my soul and been left stranded.

I was afraid to really love… and to be loved.

At some point, my husband rescued me… and I in turn rescued him. At some point I was able to trust in him and for the first time ever in my life, unashamedly and unabashedly surrender to him sexually. We have been married for over 15 years and our marriage bed is undefiled and holy and fully alive.

If you are a husband and you are reading this… let me tell you how my husband was able to get all of me in a way that no one else ever has and never will…

My husband was willing to sacrifice for me. My husband was willing to lay aside any hobbies or personal interest that competed with me and he was willing to see when my reality became overwhelming and was willing to step in and give me a break from that reality. Whether it be by doing laundry or the dishes or sending me upstairs to a candle lit bathroom with a tub full of rose petals and soft music playing… and threatening the life of our children if they even considered interrupting before 2 full hours had passed.

My husband was willing to do what he needed to do to prove to me that he cherished me and me alone. There are no comments made by him about how “hot” some half-naked woman with a personal trainer and money for plastic surgery or computer imaging touch ups is. I no longer in any way feel like I am competing with any other woman in our bedroom, real or imaginary.

My husband became my protector. My husband was able to show me that he was on my side. He was there to protect me, if I would just let him. So I have… and I rest more now because of him.

My husband allowed me to rescue him. I know for a fact that there has never been another woman who has experienced my husband the way I have. I have seen the deepest darkest of him and I have seen him change. I have seen him love hard enough to be loved hard. I didn’t change him… Christ did… but I got to be on the front row while the transformation took place and is still taking place. As he has for me.

My husband makes me feel sexually alive. I am a spiritually alive woman who is also a sexually alive woman and there is no shame attached to my spirituality in connection with my sexuality. Christ is just as present in my bedroom as He is in my Bible study time.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:25

So all this reflection is gleaned just from the first pages of Pulling Back the Shades… yep, it’s gonna be a good read.

Here is another post I wrote from the book: Let’s Get Honest

And you have an opportunity to win a free download of it! I will be giving away two free downloads. Enter below to win.

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