Fast-forward about a decade.  I was a teenager, and my parents were going away for the weekend—just the two of them.  While my mom packed, she gave me instructions for the weekend, when to pick up my sister from her ballet lesson and so on.  As I listened to her litany of directives, I noticed she was packing a sexy black negligee.  At first I thought, Was she going to wear that with Dad?  But then I thought, Wow, that’s awesome that they still have these romantic getaways together even though they’re so old!  This was another formative event that shaped my view of sex in marriage.

Do you need to rethink your view of sex?  My hope is that you’ll catch a glimpse of God’s wonderful view of sex and that it will capture your heart and transform the way you live.

This is what happened to Maria.  I ran into her at the wedding of a mutual friend.  We hadn’t seen one another in seven years.  The slow-moving buffet line gave us ample time to catch up.

Maria had been a party girl in college and had slept around, always hoping that her current boyfriend would be the lasting love of her life.  Serial lovers left her feeling broken and confused.  But when she became a Christian at the end of her senior year of college, she began to reclaim a vision for purity and committed herself to chastity.  After graduation, she took a job where she eventually met her husband, Juan.  He was a committed Christian as well.

As we waited our turn to load up our plates, Maria said, “You know, the sex I have with my husband now is way better than all the sex I had in college.  That sex was destructive.  It left me feeling empty.  But sex within marriage builds me up.  When I look at my adorable kids, I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, ‘Don’t sleep around.  It only messes you up.  Have sex the way God intends—in marriage.’”

For the first time in my life I was glad for a slow-moving food line.  It gave me a chance to hear Maria’s heart and see the beauty of her life.

¹Philip Yancey, Designer Sex (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2005), p. 29.
²Lisa McMinn, Sexuality and Holy Longing (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2004), p. 55.

Taken from Sex and Dating:  Questions You Wish You Had Answers To by Mindy Meier.  © 2007 by Mindy Meier.  Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426.  ivpress.com

Mindy Meier serves as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff in the Chicago area with a special focus on working with Greek students in fraternities and sororities.  Her husband is a pastor and they have four children.