Beauty Part Two: Waiting for Marriage

Hey there, beautiful! If you haven’t read my beauty blog part one (That’s What Makes You Beau.Ti.Ful. The One Direction to Beauty) I suggest you click on over before reading on! Just for a quick recap:

Beauty is a reflection of the truth; therefore, truth exudes beauty. Thus, we all have an immense capacity for beauty, and it goes so much deeper than the surface of our appearance.

What if I told you that this helps explain why we should save sex for marriage? Think it’s a stretch? Let’s find out.

Let’s start with the fact that you are made to be a gift. (To learn more about that, read Alex’s You Are a Gift blog). Human beings are created for love, which can only exist in a communion of persons.    And we’re not talking about just romantic relationships here, but love in all of our relationships. You can’t love unless there is another person to love. Yes?

Yet when we do move this conversation into the context of marriage, it takes on a fuller meaning. Marriage is the sacrament in which we make a total gift of self to another. We entrust to another human being ALL the beauty that the Lord has placed within us.

And not only that, but we promise to receive the gift of self our spouse is offering to us! To receive them fully and completely. No exceptions. That’s a big commitment if you ask me!

This gift of self takes on bodily form in the marital act. Sex is the vow of self-gift in the flesh!

Okay, are you still with me? Now let’s flesh out how the beauty conversation fits into all this.

You are a unique vessel through which the Lord reveals his truth to the world, which is recognized as beauty. To love someone, then, means to receive this beauty. And because we live in a broken world, loving someone means receiving them even when they’re not so beautiful.

We also live in a free world, however, which means you are not obliged to love anyone. If a friend of yours breaks your trust for the umpteenth time, you are not morally required to continue being their friend. If your boss routinely gets on your nerves, you are not legally bound to keep working for him or her.

But this all changes within the sacrament of marriage.

Marriage, unlike any other relationship, is literally a legally and morally binding promise to love someone no matter what. No matter how quickly he goes bald. Or she turns into her mother. No matter how often you fail each other. Or the road gets rockier than you ever imagined. Wedding vows are a promise to receive the entirety of the other and give the entirety of yourself. No holding back. No. Matter. What.

The last thing this is meant to do is to create a fear of commitment. Because it is precisely this commitment, colossal as it may be, that makes it so beautiful! Pun entirely intended.

Okay, so back to sex. Your spouse has promised to receive all of you. They are the person who knows you the most intimately, inside as well as out. They are therefore the best equipped, the ONLY one equipped, to truly be able to receive you fully as a gift. ALL of you. Not just your body. But ALL of you. And not only are they equipped to do so, but they have legally and morally vowed to do so.

Anyone who is not your spouse can’t say the same. They may recognize your beauty, yes. They may know you better than anyone else, yes. Maybe you’re even engaged! But unless you’re married, absolutely no one is able to receive your beauty in fullness in the sexual act. This is because sex is the bodily expression of giving oneself fully and completely, which you cannot do outside the context of marriage! Sex and marriage are synonymous.

Sex outside of marriage, on the other hand, is not an act of love. Rather, it is a grasping at the beauty of another person without having vowed to receive their gift in fullness. It is an attempt to take what they cannot possibly give.

And vice versa – this is allowing another person to grasp at your own gift of self which you cannot fully give without wedding vows, too. It is entrusting yourself to someone who cannot receive your beauty completely.

We are made for so much more than this! We’re not meant to receive someone only partially in the sexual act, but entirely. Nor are we created to entrust our own immense beauty to someone who cannot fully receive it, but to someone who has vowed to safeguard our beauty even to their final breath.

So moving forward, let us first know the grandeur and depth of our own beauty and the beauty of others. Then, let us live and love in a way that aligns with the immensity of this gift. And through it all, let us remember to thank the Lord who created us to be and live so beautifully.