"Let's talk about sex baby, let's talk about you and me, let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be, let's talk about sex!" - Salt n Pepa - Haley Walker

Okay sorry, I just really had to start this article that way and I really hope you can understand. But let's talk about sex! And how precious it is! And how it should be saved for the beautiful and tender relationship of marriage!

Our culture has done a VERY good (too good) of a job at normalizing, desensitizing, and practically encouraging sexual activity. It's applauded and considered the normal thing to do. It seems as though everyone is doing it (literally doing it) and if you're not doing it you're crazy.

People literally get nervous about being a virgin for too long AND people get nervous about how few people they've slept with! The media makes it sound as though you should be playing hot potato with your virginity. You have to get rid of it and/or keep passing yourself around.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. This BREAKS my heart.

Sex is MADE for marriage, and when done out of this context there are consequences.

Did you know we have officially reached the point to where when it comes to women under 30 giving birth, the majority do so out of wedlock?

Not to mention the 20 MILLION new cases of STDs in America annually. How did we get here as a society?

I am not slut shaming. I am not here to shove Jesus down your throat.

I am not here to tell you to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend. I am simply here to be informative and share this great burden that's on my heart. It's time for our generation to start truly valuing intimacy and sex for what it is and not throw it around like confetti.

Because confetti is cheap, reusable, disposable, and everyone knows what it feels like to experience it. But YOUR BODY and EMOTIONAL INTIMACY is NOT. You are not cheap or reusable. You are a one of a kind precious and valued human being that deserves to be treated like the masterpiece you really are. I promise.

So, why save sex for marriage?

Sex can mask relationship issues.

Waiting for marriage improves communication. You could be having real and dangerous relationship struggles but continue to stay with the wrong guy or girl because you are sexually active with them.

You have already participated in the deepest form of connection and don't see how you can manage to escape without losing a part of yourself. Waiting for marriage forces you to see the relationship between raw and real, the other person for who they really are, not the intimacy they can give you.

Sex shouldn't be the main thing you are after in a relationship anyway. It's an added bonus to marriage. Can they comfort you in a way that actually helps? Do you both have the same big-picture goals? Can you both handle disagreements well? Do they make you laugh? Do you have the same beliefs?

Sex is created for the context of marriage to create the ultimate intimacy you get to experience with the one person who knows you and sees you better than anyone. It's not a tool to help you find that person.

Sex emotionally connects you.

Researchers have shown time and time again that there's an overlap between sexual desire and emotional connection in the brain. Love and sex ARE different, but there is a major overlap. Your brain rewards you with emotion after participating in sexual pleasure.

All that neurological mess is well, messy.

But it doesn't have to be if just one person is involved. Imagine being as emotionally attached as possible to multiple people, and then trying to give your full emotional capacity to your husband or wife? Can you? I don't know honestly. I'm sure there's some way to separate matrimony from mattresses with time, but why complicate things?

Why give your spouse something to compare themselves to? Save that one, deep, emotional relation for your one person.

The possibility of pregnancy.

This speaks for itself. Is the person you're sleeping with someone you would want to have a child with? Is the person you're sleeping with someone you want your child to turn out like? Are you and the person you're sleeping with ready for parental responsibilities? Are you and the person you're sleeping with on the same page about having kids? Are you ready to make that kind of commitment to the person you're sleeping with?

All of these questions are SCARY. But not if you're married.

No surprise co-parent, just the person you've chosen to be with and are in love with. And on a saddening side note, if you struggled growing up in a single parent household, why would you put your child in the same position? If you're not married to the person you got pregnant with, they haven't promised you that they're staying yet.

Sex within marriage means they mean it.

If you and the person you marry have both decided to save each other for marriage, there is a one hundred percent guarantee they are not marrying you just for the sex. There is also a one hundred percent guarantee they weren't dating you just for the sex. And there is also a one hundred percent guarantee your marriage will not revolve around sex. It will revolve around the beautiful and life-giving relationship you two have cultivated together. Sex will just be one more thing you get to discover and enjoy together as a newlywed couple.

Physical attraction fades.

If you have made sex and physical attraction the main basis of your relationship, it will fade. One of my high school English teachers literally told me this. She had three children with her college sweetheart, and they were getting a divorce because "attraction faded the second his six-pack did."

If you only love what's on the outside, how will you love that person when all of the outward appearances dims? If you truly love the person for who they are, their character and personality, you will continue to love all those things even when their youthful glow has left them. In my opinion, growing old with someone sounds amazing, wrinkles and sags and all.

BONUS JESUS POINT: GOD MADE SEX. HE IS PRO-PLEASURE. HE WANTS YOU TO ENJOY IT TO THE FULLEST.

Worldly sex caps off at physical pleasure. One night stands premarital sex, sleeping around. All of these things are instant fixes. But God wants you to experience physical, emotional, and spiritual pleasure THAT LASTS by remaining in His will and enjoying sex as He made it to be experienced.

You and the person HE MADE for you. You and the one person who waited for you, pursued you, treasures and values you, and realizes what a treasure your body is. The ONLY person who is worthy of you is the person who did what it took to get there. Waited. Marriage is a beautiful picture of how much God loves us, and He fully knows us and fully loves us. He wants our marriages to be the same.

"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed". - Genesis 2:25

"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases." - Song of Songs 2:7

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." - Ephesians 5: 25-28