For a woman married this Valentine's Day who is struggling to be 'happy, horny and healthy'.

So today, amidst all the out of control amount of posts around Valentine's Day, did this catch your attention??

I hope so.

Can you keep reading if you are a women married (or know a women married) who is struggling in her sex life, or just wants it to keep getting better and better.

I will begin with the context of the sacredness of marriage as the covenant in which we can truly explore the full and boundless opportunities to be sexually fulfilled. No other context outside of the marriage bed can ever promise this. Ever.

In fact, side note before we get started on what Song of Songs did to change my love-making, let me just remind you where the word Valentine came from.

St. Valentine...

It was a very permissive society in which Valentine, the man, lived. The date February 14th was a holiday of Juno, the Queen of Roman Gods and Goddesses, dating back to the 4th century B.C.  To the Romans, she became the Goddess of women and marriage.  In fact, Lupercalia, celebrated on February 15, was a type of “debutante’s ball” wherein young boys and girls, who grew up distanced from each other, first came together socially.

According history, on the eve of the festival of Lupercalia, the names of Roman girls were placed into a “hat,” – more likely jars at the time.  Each young man would draw a girl’s name from the jar to find his “date” for the festival.  In celebration, young women would take to the streets where they would be ceremoniously whipped with strips of goat or other skins in order to have their fertility blessed.  Young men would come out to claim their draws and often further “bless their fertility.”. From here some would marry, others would just move on.

The idea of encouraging young couples to marry within the Christian church values was what Valentine was about. And he secretly married people amidst a very free society who endorsed all kinds of polygamy, proclaiming that one man marrying one women was prohibited.

Valentine was eventually caught, imprisoned and tortured for performing marriage ceremonies against command of Emperor Claudius the second.

One of the men who was to judge him in line with the Roman law at the time was a man called Asterius, whose daughter was blind. He prayed with and healed the young girl with such astonishing effect that Asterius himself became Christian as a result.

In the year 269 AD, Valentine was sentenced to a three part execution of a beating, stoning, and finally decapitation all because of his stand for Christian marriage. The story goes that the last words he wrote were in a note to Asterius' daughter. He inspired today's romantic missives by signing it, "from your Valentine”

There comes a time where you have to lay your life upon the line for what you believe. And with the power of the Holy Spirit we can do that —even to the point of death."

"Valentine has come to be known as the patron saint of lovers.

Before you enter into a Christian marriage you want some sense of God in your life—some great need of God in your life.

If Valentine were here today, he would say to married couples that there comes a time where you're going to have to suffer. It's not going to be easy to maintain your commitment and your vows in marriage. Don't be surprised if the 'gushing' love that you have for someone changes to something less "gushing" but maybe much more mature. And the question is, is that young person ready for that?"

"So on the day of the marriage they have to take that into context," Father O'Gara says.

"Love—human love and sexuality is wonderful, and blessed by God—but also the shadow of the cross. That's what Valentine means to me!"

......

So, in honour of the St Valentine who spoke about the challenge to maintain commitment to one person in the context of marriage, let me share from my 20 years of experience.

Because I had given away my virginity before I was married, sexual intimacy was complex and needed to be healed in the safe context of an honouring, trusting marriage.

Fast forward, babies, hormonal shifts, body image issues, depression, losing a baby, life, leadership, stress, trauma, emotional strain... the list goes on .... getting into bed at night with the thought of even having to share of myself or receive for myself in this way was just too much.

When it gets to that point and sex has no imtimacy, or marriage has no sex... you are on dangerous ground. I needed help. I needed to be honest.

But today I am going to tell you where I went first...

To JESUS. To His Word. To His Presence. To the Lover of my Body, Soul and Spirit. He longed for me to find this freedom more than I did.

I came to Song of Songs. I read it again and again and God did three things from immersing myself in this book of the Bible:

1. He gave me permission.

Yes, The Bible gives us permission for this part of our lives to matter.

Really matter.

More than you know, matter

Read this and recognize what He is speaking about:

Song of Songs 5.

I HAVE come into my garden, my sister, my [promised] bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my balsam and spice [from your sweet words I have gathered the richest perfumes and spices]. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends [feast on, O revelers of the palace; you can never make my lover disloyal to me]! Drink, yes, drink abundantly of love, O precious one [for now I know you are mine, irrevocably mine! With his confident words still thrilling her heart, through the lattice she saw her shepherd turn away and disappear into the night].

2I went to sleep, but my heart stayed awake. [I dreamed that I heard] the voice of my beloved as he knocked [at the door of my mother's cottage]. Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my spotless one [he said], for I am wet with the [heavy] night dew; my hair is covered with it.

3[But weary from a day in the vineyards, I had already sought my rest] "But I'm in my nightgown—do you expect me to get dressed? I'm bathed and in bed—do you want me to get dirty?"

4My beloved wouldn’t take no for an answer and put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my heart was moved for him.

5I rose up to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with liquid [sweet-scented] myrrh, [which he had left] upon the handles of the bolt.

6I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and withdrawn himself, and was gone! (my beloved got tired of waiting) My soul went forth [to him] when he spoke, but it failed me [and now he was gone]! I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

Yes, this could be theological as all of heaven loves us this intimately. But read it again. As a model of man and women. Marriage. The complexity and beauty of being pursued sexually.

2. God gave me prayers

Song of Songs 4:9

Youu have ravished my heart and given me courage, my sister, my [promised] bride; you have ravished my heart and given me courage with one look from your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. (one look my way and I was hopelessly in love)

How beautiful is your love, my sister, my [promised] bride! ….. Your lips, O my [promised] bride, drop honey as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue.

v. 12 - A garden enclosed and barred is my sister, my [promised] bride--a spring shut up, a fountain sealed….. (you are a secret garden, a private and pure fountain)

v.15 - You are a fountain [springing up] in a garden, a well of living waters, and flowing streams from Lebanon. (body and soul you are a paradise)

v.16 - You have called me a garden, she said] Oh, I pray that the [cold] north wind and the [soft] south wind may blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out [in abundance for you in whom my soul delights]. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat its choicest fruits.

I began praying specifically for the Holy Spirit to do a miracle in my body, soul and spirit. I needed Him to breathe fresh wind on my sex life. I wanted to DESIRE my husband. Not dread love making. I wanted the spices to flow. I wanted to orgasm and feel everything that I knew the Word of God promised me. (I told you please do not read if this is too much).

I begin praying specifically for what I wanted my body to do and experience. I called this area of my body a garden, because God calls it that.

Every single day I took communion and prayed 'Lord because you died on the cross to redeem every part of the curse, then I declare over my life, my womanhood, and my marriage that I will be happy, horny and healthy'

I am not joking!!

3. Then God gave me people

I then went to the right people.

Doctors who could suggest various things that could be done in a small operation after having babies. I did not end up needing it. But girls do your research.

The naturopath who have me amazing herbs to kick start my libido again

The hormone doctors

Exercise

Counselling for my mind

Good books. Like boooks that people may think are wrong to read.

But books on great positions in love-making

Etc (contact me for book titles)

Seriously. It made the world of difference.

Twenty years on, it still works ... and it just keeps being an area of my life that I am continually growing in, exploring and wanting to discuss in the right places with the right people..

Because not enough people talk about this.

So there you go ..

The most exposed post I have ever done.

I am praying the great north wind, and south wind of Holy Spirit would take this where it is meant to go and get into the lives, hearts and beds of the right people. For the sake of our marriages.

Thank you St Valentine for standing for healthy, life-giving, God-honourng, sexually-satisfying marriages so that the craziness of the world's ways do not have to be the place for sexual satisfaction.

This is the true blessing and the sacredness of sex.

I bless you in this area of your life.