Nudity and Nakedness

You gotta love provokative titles. But this really is going somewhere. I've been meditating on the first love story in the Bible--Genesis 2. And the last line seems to unveil a divine element in marriage. It says "they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." This was before sin. It's interesting how sin came into the world and redefined nakedness, affiliating it with shame. To be naked is to be exposed for who we really are. Nakedness is openness, and we have a hard time being open with people. We show our best side and often hide our blemishes and imperfections, not only with our body, but also with our character and personality. Most of the time we are even apprehensive to really look in the mirror, staring into the depths of our soul and owning up to who we really are underneath the surface. It is a strange and alluring odyssey to undress the truth about who you are.

I look forward to nakedness in marriage, both the physical and the personal, the sharing of secret places within ourselves. I know that will take time but marriage seems to provide a safe place where two people can pry one another open and unearth gems within each other's personality. I think that self-discovery is overrated, it doesn't seem to lead anywhere. I think we long for someone else to discover us, to undress us. To really know us, the real us, and to be honest with us about who we really are. . .without shaming us. And of course this can only take place if there is mutual trust. I don't trust everybody, that would be dangerously foolish. I don't share the real me with just anyone. Trust is earned with the testing of time and shared trials. There is a part of me that remains covered and locked away for the one that I will marry someday. Only she will be entrusted with the key to that garden within me. That is one of the many good reasons to get married. To be commited to knowing one another more and more profoundly, the good and the bad and the messy. To be absolutely naked with someone and to be unashamed.