Marriage purity

In our devotions last week we ended up doing one called the Purity Code.

This section talked about making a life long commitment to purity. It was so fun to talk about how this is a continuous thing. I use fun in a way that is exciting, rather than like a theme park.

We discussed the constant renewing our mind, turning our eyes from worthless things and guarding our hearts. In a marriage, guarding your hearts and keeping your eyes from "worthless" things is so important.

We talked about how we have shows that we watched for a few episodes and we knew they were "worthless" for our eyes and so we have stopped watching them. But are we doing that regularly?

We talked about healthy boundaries in our friendships. We both grew up running around with people of the opposite sex. Andrew had a ton of friends who were girls, and I, well, shoot, my roommates in college were boys by the end of the run. This is something that we are very careful about as a married couple. I have so many great guy friends who I have known forever, but if I was to say to Andrew, "I am going out to dinner with (insert a name) tonight. See you later." That would be hurtful to him. There is no reason for me to be getting dinner alone with a "friend".

I feel like this is common sense, but it isn't. Especially for people like me who have lots of friends in another gender. They think "it's no big deal, it's just (fill in name)." The thing to me that makes the difference is that Andrew and I love each others friends and get to know them. I am not exactly sure what has kept the jealousy out of our marriage, but I am fairly certain that it is honesty. Andrew and I are not jealous of the friends of our past and so having friendships with them is not a hard thing to do. So all of us go out together. It's way more fun anyway.

The thing that stuck out to me about this particular devotion, was the questions we were to ask. One of the questions was, "Has there been a time when you were concerned about my fidelity?"

I felt like, for us, we haven't had enough time away from each other to even think that someone could be cheating...but not to take it lightly, there is the Internet and there is texting, and we don't check in on each other...but the answer is NO.

To us, we have to be able to communicate. We discussed how hard this devotion is, asking questions so forward, but the key is being able to actually have a conversation with out hyperventilation. I feel like I have more to say about things around this subject, but am not sure how to word the rest of it...

But you should know that the best way to start any conversations that may be hard, is to pray (together) for grace, patience and understanding...and then the important part is to actually want those things and then to respond in a loving way.

Has this struck a chord with anyone else? Thoughts?