Transcript: Foundational Base for Marriage part 3

Video Transcript: Secure Attachment – The Beautiful Dance (Part 03)

All right, so we're talking more about attachment today. And I will never forget the time that my friend in college invited me to go to ride horses and I had never ridden horses before, and went home to his his hometown went to a farm a little bit down the road. And he was telling me a little bit about the process of riding horses. And I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. And so he volunteered to take one horse that was a one eyed horse, which I was thankful for, since I had never ridden a horse before. And it would kind of turn its head like this so that we can see where it was going. And I took the horse that had two eyes, which made me feel a little bit more comfortable. And they had me run or trot with the horse down the street where I was, I was on the horse, it was trotting. And it was pretty uncomfortable because I was bouncing all over the place. And I wasn't so sure about riding horses after that, as I was, I was trotting. And he asked me what I thought and I said, you know, it's a little uncomfortable, but kind of fun. And before I could even finish my sentence he took off and a full out run with his horse. And it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. He was riding the horse and the horse, instead of him bouncing now, he was just in beautiful like rhythm with the horse, His hair was flying back the horses full out running, I thought it was one of the coolest things I had seen. It was just beautiful. And just as I was capturing that moment, my horse realized that I didn't really know what I was doing. So it decided to follow his horse and whatever his horse was doing. And I tried to pull back on the reins and say, Whoa, but he he was like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. I think I kicked his side, which I think give him opposite messages. And so my horse takes off. And I did not know what to do, I started to panic. And the horse took a corner. And I thought I was going to die. I thought I this it for me. So I decided to grab the neck of the horse. And I think my fingernails were in his skin at this point. And not only was the horse running full out after this other horse, but it decided to start dodging mud puddles, they didn't want to hit mud puddles. And to this day, I don't know how I stayed on that horse. And it was probably one of the more ugly things you'd ever seen. As I'm holding on to this horse. My head's hitting his head, and he's, like, get this guy off of me. Maybe he was trying to get me off of them because he knew I didn't know what I was doing. I could not wait to get off of that horse because I, I thought I was going to die. 

I tell you this story because I want to talk about this beautiful dance of how God wants to redeem our marriages. He wants our marriages to look like the beautiful dance of the Trinity where they know one another. They're self giving. It's kind of like Jason on his horse, he knew the horse, the horse knew him, they knew exactly what to expect. And they were able to run full out. And what I often see in marriages is one person decides to run full out and the other person is kind of like me hanging on for dear life full of fear, and the other ones not having that much fun either. And if we're not careful, if we don't know how to navigate these things, people can fall off the horse and be so hurt and damaged, that they don't want to re engage in that relationship anymore. And so we're going to talk about what it looks like to have this beautiful dance of working together. And so we think of the Trinity and the self giving lovers where they understand each other perfectly. And they engage in this dance and they they didn't just engage in the dance, but they decided that this dance was so beautiful and so amazing that they wanted to extend it to all of humanity. One of the beautiful things is that Jesus married himself to humanity for all of eternity. 

When he became a human, he is always going to stay a human. And so he invites us into this incredible dance. He is our bridegroom and we are His Bride and he's extending his hand for us to join his family. The beautiful thing about this is that we will only understand earthly marriage and we understand the marriage of Christ to the church. This covenant has said love is sacrificial involves two people dying to their own interests to serve the greater good for the marriage. When we submit to one another, out of reverence for Christ, we end up looking more like Christ. The beautiful thing about the cross that Jesus led invulnerability, which allows us to be vulnerable with one another, and allows us to bond in such a deep way. That's what our hearts longed for. But unfortunately, in this broken world, it's so counter intuitive to just one man Adam. Death came sin came, chaos came, confusion riding the horse and not knowing what to do. Came to all mankind and through another one man Christ, the second Adam life came to all mankind for those who receive him. See, the whole American story is about strength and power, covering your vulnerability, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's not just the American story, either. It's the Greco Roman story. And we see it being all about humanism and power and showing how strong we are. The problem with this, there's a lot of good in the American story. But there's also a lot of bad in the American story. And the good news is we have a much better, more compelling story than the American Greco Roman story. We have a story of God entering all of humanity to reconcile his rebellious children back to him, he sends His Son to be the true elder brother to us, and calls us back into a relationship with Him through forgiveness and reconciliation. This is a beautiful story. And it's a story that all of our hearts longed for. No Matter of fact, every epic movie that Hollywood puts out is a mirror of the story, because it's the only story our hearts really know. And it's the story our hearts are made for. 

So notice what's happening with the Trinity at Jesus baptism, the father was blessing his son by saying you are my son, whom I love with you I'm well pleased as the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. They are a family of self giving lovers and they want to extend their beautiful dance into this broken dances so that we can learn to encounter the life giving Jesus and experience the intimacy that our hearts are meant to experience. What's even more fascinating about this as the father is speaking identity over his son in line, right before he goes in the temptations, he knows he's going to be tested in certain ways. And you notice that you are my son is underlined. And there's a reason for that. It's because it's in line with the avoidant attachment, with the appetite, with the way of doing life that says instead of me looking to my sonship, to my family, I am going to try to satisfy my own needs by satisfying my hunger, every avoiders down deep longs to be part of a family. And what they really longed for is intimacy. Often they will experience anxiety or other symptoms coming out because they're avoiding their emotions. They have deep emotions underneath. I find it interesting that the father told us right before his baptism that every son or daughter wants to hear from the Father, by the way, we gain our identities from our fathers. Very strong research, but it's not very popular. So you'll notice on the slide, this is similar to the slides I showed you in the past teaching, but in this slide, we're talking about the redemptive aspects. So this avoidant attachment really images God by serving people who have an avoidant attachment tendency or disorder, are amazing at serving. And the reason they're amazing at serving is because they deny their emotions, they shut them down. And they can just really care for other people. They're often doers. And they sacrifice themselves for others often, but they need to really grow in expressing their emotions. 

Again, Jesus and Matthew 3:17 says, This is my son, and what they need to remember is that they're a son or daughter of the Heavenly Father, and because of Jesus, you can love the Lord your God with all your heart, you can be wholehearted. And one of the keys is putting off the old way, identifying the comfort and control tendencies, and recognizing those and then putting on the new self. So the gospel truth is that Jesus is good and will satisfy his great is in control at all times. His love is actually better than life itself. So the intimacy that you longed for, when you're looking for comfort and control down deep, what you deeply longed for is intimacy is closeness. And is that love that's better than life.

So, not only does he say you are my son, but he says, whom I love. And you see this is attached to the pleaser tendency that the people who want to be approved of wants to be loved. And so, pleasers image God by loving relationally they love to be close to people, they're always looking at other people's eyes, and they want to make sure they're okay. The interesting thing about this is you can love Lord your God with all your soul. And the word in Hebrew is the word neftash, which means your life or life blood, and they feel like it's their job to protect their life. And they feel like it's their job to protect themselves, and instead they can trust God as their protector. Just to remember as a reminder here that God is the God who satisfies this people with love. And you need to be reminded that Jesus loves you, fully approves of you, and because of Jesus, you can love the Lord your God with all your soul with your very life, you can trust him to be the one that provides for you, the one that protects you. The gospel truth here is Jesus is glorious. We don't have to fear others, he took our rejection and earned the father's full approval of us. So instead of pleasing, instead of living in fear and anxiety, we can put off our pleaser. Learn to speak the truth and be honest with our anger and our frustration, put up boundaries where they need to be, and stop worrying so much if everyone approves of us and start encountering the life giving presence of Jesus. So not only is there the pleaser attachment, we also see another thing that Jesus says there's three parts to this, you're my son, whom I love, and with you, I am well pleased. 

All of these are identity statements that the father spoke over Jesus right before his baptism. And I think this is significant because Jesus already finished the work he's already pleased with us, we don't have to seek power and possessions, to have people welcome us. Instead, Jesus gave up all power and possessions and served us to the point of giving his life he gave away the power he gave away the knowledge so that he that he had so that others could encounter his presence and come back into the presence of God. What's interesting about each of these attachments, is the avoidant attachment is trying to be God. The pleaser attachment is trying to elevate other people to God or play the role of God to protect themselves. And the vast later is trying to be God as well. And God is the God of all power. He's the God of all approval, and He's the God that truly satisfies. And so the Father speaks this identity statement over his son, he says, You are my son, whom I love with you, I am well pleased. This is the blessing that every son and daughter wants to hear from their dad. As a matter of fact, you might say, why does it say you are my son and not my daughter? And that's an interesting question. I've heard other people bring that up. What's very interesting about that is back then, men, boys were treated with more value than women. And so boys had more rights. And so the beautiful thing here is that women, you have all the rights of sonship. And in this day and age, it's not as much of a big deal as it was back then. But for us to have all the rights of sonship that Jesus has, whether you're male or female, breaks down the dividing walls, and is such a beautiful picture. God hates divorce, he hates the dividing walls that come and he wants us to encounter his presence. Yesterday, as I was praying with a client, I prayed for them that they would not have the spirit of fear, but a power of love, and a sound mind. And what's really interesting is the self discipline or a sound mind is literally means mastery over the passions or cravings of the flesh, mastery over appetite. So this is all through the story. I'm sure I'll see it more and more. But as I've been looking at this, not only does God not give us a spirit of fear, which is what is characterized by all of these a spirit of fear, but it gives us a spirit, because that's the Holy Spirit of power. That's who he's meant to be. We're not meant to be God. He's meant to be God. He's meant to be the God of all power, and our lives function best when we let him be God, instead of us trying to be God will let him be the hero of the story. So he's to give us the spirit of power of love. He's to be the God of all approval, and have a sound mind mastery over the appetites instead of us trying to control our appetites, seek the right comfort, we need to find our pleasure in him we need to light ourselves in the Lord and He will give us the desires of our heart. 

So we bought into the lie that we are God, little gods, these are counterfeit gods and Tim Keller has talked about the three or four counterfeit gods and the core ones are comfort, control, approval and power. It's the core things that we go after. And until we get back to our ultimate marriage to do this, our earthly marriages will continue to fail us we have to learn to die to our desires in order to really live and experience joy and marriages. When we receive the comfort of Jesus in our heavenly marriage. When he fills us through His Spirit, we're able to give comfort to one another in our earthly marriages and experience true intimacy. Psychology is great at uncovering brokenness, but often not very good at bringing the solution. And most of our issues come down to this identity issues. We gain our identities from our father and every one of us has some area of brokenness with our relationship with our fathers, even if we're somewhat secure. There's brokenness, with our family of origin, the Father's love through Jesus allows each of us to know that we are his sons and daughters with whom he loves, with whom he's well pleased. That is not just for Jesus that transfers to us because Jesus took our place he created the ultimate offering. He covered us. He hides us under the under his wings, and he took the blame, he took the punishment. What I'm trying to get at is psychology uncovers a lot of the brokenness, but only the gospel brings true growth brings true relief, brings true joy, only when Jesus is the hero of the story. Does it all come in line does our story really make sense? I often help people write out their false self statements, the spit statements that have to do with avoidance pleaser, or vacillator. And often people have two of the three, we all struggle with all three. But often people have two of the three. And we write out their false self statement. And then we we help them write out the truth of what God has to say over them. And it could be as simple as you are my son, whom I love, with whom I am well plays or you are my daughter could be that or, or it could be even more specific. And then begin renewing the mind so that as you renew your mind and take time to bask in the Father's love and in His presence, and not only moves to left brain, but also right brain realities. And as you do this in community and family, you begin to experience the Father's love and have more of a secure attachment. 

Psychologists talk about it being an earned secure attachment. I don't really like that lingo. I think it's better translated as receiving the love of God so that you can have a more secure attachment. But the more we receive his comfort and his love, the more we're able to give that to our spouses. And one of the things I love about the biblical story is that Jesus bleed in vulnerability. Vulnerability is the key in our marriages to grow us to be more bonded closer together, he bleed, he hung and naked on a cross, his flesh was hanging off him. He was utterly broken for you and I and he took all the blame of the Father, he took all of the wrath upon himself. And he stood there invulnerability, as if to say, I want to welcome you into a new way of life, I want you to vote in your weaknesses so that my power can rest on you, I want you to receive my father's love. And only through me doing this, can that curtain tear the temple and can you have access to my father, what a beautiful picture of of intimacy and marriage and someday there's going to be the marriage supper of the Lamb where we come together with this beautiful picture of a major feast. Having the bride of Christ, the church and the groom come together for the most amazing party you will ever experience. And we can have little glimpses of that in our earthly relationships. We're going to talk a lot now about how these attachment styles play into one another when they marry when you marry one another. And we want to help you have little glimpses of this ultimate marriage in your earthly marriages. 

As a matter of fact, it's really important to understand that our earthly marriage mirrors the heavenly marriage. The earthly marriage is the most important relationship on this planet. Because if marriages are strong, families are strong, families are strong, neighborhoods are strong, neighborhoods are strong, schools are strong, and societies are strong. Workplaces are strong. If marriages break down, families break down, neighborhoods break down, schools break down, society breaks down and this is the most important relationship. And that's why it's the one of the key relationships mirrored in the Scripture, we have to learn from the ultimate marriage in order to understand our marriage. So what happens when the pleaser marries the vacillator? We see a whole lot of stuff on here. And we notice that there's what I like to do is I like to start with what a vacillator feels and if you notice the vacillator is more of the pursuer relationally. There they tend to be more on the aggressive side of things or high untruth low on grace. Again, which isn't really truth and the pleaser tends to be low on truth and high on grace which isn't real grace. It's it but but there's a pursuer withdraw in every relationship. The vacillator pursues, and when they do that, what I like to do with them this is hopefully helpful for you as you're working with couples is ask the question what do you feel when you're pursuing, and you're not getting through and they say, well, we feel angry, feel disconnected, we feel dismissed invisible, we feel hurt. Like Okay, so what do you do when you feel that? I said, well, I, if I really feel that way, and I get triggered, I criticize, I attack, I might withdraw high over a moat. My emotions start coming out everywhere. And then I begin blaming. And I say, okay, well, with the pleaser in the room, I say, what happens when the vacillator begins doing that, please, as well I feel panicky, because I'm full of fear that the relationship is going to be broken, that they're gonna abandon me. Feel exasperated, feel rejected, oftentimes by their criticisms, I feel insecure and alone, I can even get flooded. And I say, okay, well, when that happens, and you start feeling that  what do you do? Say, well, I quickly start pleasing, I try to cover things up, I become dishonest. I defend, I get clingy. And so as we've worked through the cycle, one of the things that I think is so crucial to understand is that this implicit reality, the enemy uses the foothold he has through the vast later tendency to the pleaser tendency to speak the greatest lie to the other person in the relationship. And the greatest lie, the thing that the vacillator fears most is a fear of not being enough, not worth pursuing or being alone. And so when the pleaser, pleases, defends his dishonest covers up, gets clingy, it reinforces for the vacillator, I'm not enough, I'm not really worth pursuing. And I'm eventually going to be alone. So it triggers them. And when the vacillator criticizes, attacks, blames, it creates that fear of being abandoned, alone or exposed. And so this is implicit, this is kind of right brain reality is this, these attachments happen in the first year to five years of life. And this is just so automatic, you don't even know you're doing it. So you get into a fight. And you're like, how did that even happen? I don't even know. And the enemy is using your attachment tendencies to speak the greatest lie to others. 

By the way, if you want to understand a little bit more of your attachment tendency, there's an attachment, how we love tests online, if you Google it, say how we love, you can take that for free. And it will help you understand where you're at on this and where your couples are at on that which is also very helpful. So the key being we don't, we don't want people to be in this, this dance where the riding the horse, hang on for dear life, and hoping that the ride gets over really soon. And maybe even falling off the horse and getting really hurt. We don't want them there. We want them to be in this beautiful dance that God created. He created marriage. He invites us into this beautiful self giving perspective of marriage, kind of like Jason on his horse. He wants us in that. And he says the way to that is vulnerability. So for the vacillator, one of the things I try to do is to say what's beneath that anger, there's almost always actually there is always sadness underneath the anger. So the solution is vulnerably expressing the sadness instead of the anger. Because the anger is a way of releasing the emotional frustration, but not being vulnerable. And so it distances you from the pleaser. The pleaser in his or her fear tends to distance themselves and in their fear they please and it's their way of dealing with their anxiety, but it ends up causing them to be further away. So what they need to do is identify their fear and share it with one another. Now what's really important as you're working with couples is to create a safe environment to help them know how important it is for this to be safe. It's kind of like if you were hunting deer, and you went out and the deer finally came out and you started, you know, yelling and screaming and jumping up and down, the deer is not going to stick around and probably won't ever come back to that spot again. And that's the same reality with these couples, we've got to create a very safe environment for them to be able to come out and be able to share and know that it's going to be safe that they're not going to go into pleasing. I often encourage people if they're even close to being triggered to just call a timeout and say I'm not in a place to do this right now can we come back to this? And that's really important. I also encourage as facilitators helping marriages, we've got to do this together with them. 

So the vacillator pleaser is the first one. The second one that we're going to look at is pleaser avoider. We're not going to look at all the combinations but we're going to look at generally a lot of these combinations so that we have an idea of what's going on so the pleaser avoider, the pleaser actually tends to be the pursuer in this relationship and the avoider tends to be withdrawn. Now this relationship is a very unique relationship. It is the relationship above all that people think everything is perfect on the outside that kind of like Ken and Barbie, everything is going well. And then one day, somebody files for divorce and everyone is shocked. Because pleasers and avoiders can very easily hide and cover and sweep stuff under the carpet until one day it comes out. And it's really ugly. So I like to encourage these couples to really work through their stuff to not settle and continually, I like to have them have a one week meeting where they talk about the ways that they can grow. If we don't create that for them, everything will just be fine until it's not fine. And with pleasers and avoiders The other thing that I want to point out is there is a pursuer and withdraw. But it can flip flop a lot because of them both being the type that cover and hide. So let's look at the pleaser. They can feel rejected and panicky. Alone they can feel fearful again, the number one thing for pleasers that they feel is fear or anxiety. What they do is they end up pleasing defending, covering up, lying, appeasing, and very similar to what we saw the pleaser do in the last slide. But what happens is that causes the avoider to feel inadequate, irritated or annoyed by their neediness and disconnected and so what they end up doing is they withdraw, they busy themselves they defend, they can shut down and they turn inward. And again what happens is the enemy uses our greatest habit, our most dominant habit, it's implicit, it's automatic, we don't even know we're doing it to trigger the other spouse. So the avoider when he avoids it triggers the pleaser, to feel fear of being abandoned, alone or exposed every time he or she avoids. It triggers them to feel those feelings. So they're living in fear. They're like on that horse like I was just barely hanging on. And the pleaser when they please they have a fear of not measuring up of when they please it triggers the avoider to feel feel a fear of not measuring up failure and being exposed. And so you they trigger each other, they don't even know what's going on. And what they need more than anything is again, to be vulnerable to follow Jesus pattern, and to engage in being vulnerable with one another. So underneath the pleaser, it's always fear. So what they need to do is be able to expose their fears and name it be able to say here's what I'm fearing. And here's what's fascinating. Every time I get couples to do this, instead of them pleasing and distancing from one another. When they share their fears. The spouse goes, oh, I had no idea you felt that way and they come closer, they touch, they hold one another. The other thing I encourage spouses to do as as they're working through the comfort cycle, which we'll get to at the end, I encourage them to touch and to look at one another's eyes to be engaged and begin the process of bonding because we through marriage to the comforts that God has given us, we can comfort one another and actually begin to help them receive God's love through one another.

They can grow to be more and more secure. The beautiful, beautiful thing. So again, pleasers need to learn to be vulnerable with their fear, avoiders need to learn to be vulnerable with their fear and sadness. Often times, their fear is all the sadness coming out. So they're trying to keep all the sadness down, and they're fearful that it might come out. And so it's learning to expose that and in healthy ways for them and even helping them to identify what's going on. When couples engage in sharing their fears it draws them together every time. And it's beautiful. So one of the other things I wanted to mention here that I thought was important is that men and women are opposite in a lot of ways. I know you are familiar with that. But women tend to be more modest physically and immodest, emotionally. If you go to a party with women, emotions are flying everywhere. It's all over the place. There might be tears, it's not surprising if there are and women go to the bathroom together, you know, there's just emotions are everywhere. Guys, if you were to go to a Super Bowl party or a big game party, and you walked into a room with a bunch of guys crying, and it wasn't because somebody there their favorite team lost. They were just sharing emotions. The guy would probably turn around and walk out and be like, That is weird. I don't know what's going on here. Guys tend to be immodest, physically, and modest emotionally. And here's why women tend to be about 50% weaker generally in their upper bodies than men are. So they're more vulnerable, they can bruise easier. That's just how it is. But emotionally, I want to say that women are actually stronger, so they can be more vulnerable quicker than men can. Men are the exact opposite. They're stronger physically, they're able to be a little bit more immodest. And yet, they're more sensitive emotionally. I will never forget the conversation with my wife when we were talking about the locker room. And I said to her, you mean to tell me that women don't walk around without any clothes in the locker room? And she said, no. I mean, a few older women, maybe, but hardly any. She's like, You mean to tell me that guys walk around all the time, naked. And I was like, yeah, all the time. Like, that's just how it is. And just seeing that the total difference between men and women, I also like to describe that. For men, when they do get to the place of really opening up, it's extremely important. for there to be a safe environment, men really need that place to open up emotionally. But if they are ever exposed, it might be the last time that they open up. So if if a wife inadvertently says, hey, I got a prayer request my husband's struggling with and she shares all the things that he shared with her in confidence, that may be the last time he ever shares with her in confidence again, and it's almost like if a guy were to take naked pictures of his wife and share it with all of his friends, that's similar to what it's like when a woman shares the emotional core issues of a man with other people. It's a very sensitive place for men. And so I want to propose that men are actually more sensitive emotionally. That's why they're more guarded. And so that can play into this as well. It has to be a very safe environment. But men actually love this when they know that they're in a safe environment because they really longed for it. 

So the vacillator avoider is another combination, we're seeing a lot of similarities from ones we've seen before. Again, I want you to notice the feelings of the vacillator and then they criticize, attack, blame, accuse, withdraw. And that causes the avoider to feel inadequate, weary, discouraged, hurt, and even exasperated and just exhausted by all of the blame, and, and frustration. And so what they do is they withdraw, they avoid they busy themselves, they defend and they keep the cycle can keep going unless it's confronted. And again, when the vacillator does that it causes the avoider to have a fear of not measuring up to feel like a failure and to feel like they're going to be exposed. And this is the the ugly dance, the ugly dance where they're feeling like they're fall off the horse. They're being triggered left and right. And if this happens over years, and years and years, it can build up a major wall. That's why I have a line between the middle, it can build up a major wall and when the avoider does that it's a fear of not being enough not worth pursuing and being alone. So again, the solution is for the vacillator to share the sadness and learn to share the sadness in safe environments for us to create those environments for these couples, so that the vacillator can share the sadness looking in the avoiders eyes, avoiders will have a hard time looking at eyes and maybe even being physically present because that's very hard for avoiders that they've avoided that for many years. Vacillator will love it because they'll love that intense connection. And for for avoiders, what they need to do is they need to be vulnerable with their fear and their sadness and the fear they have about their sadness coming out.

Now, there's a whole other level of this and as I shared in the last teaching controller and victim, controller is kind of like vacillator on steroids and victim is kind of like pleaser on steroids. And avoider can go either route if if not confronted, if it gets worse and worse, it can eventually move into this and this is again where the disorganized pattern is. There's a lot going on and it can cause a lot of disorganization in marriages. I encourage anybody that's working with couples like this to seek out professional counseling for sure for this couple it you have to be highly highly directive, very explosive and these marriages don't normally last very long. The controller tends to be more of the pursuer, the victim tends to be more of a withdraw, but it becomes even more accentuated. So just think of all of the things on steroids. So they're feeling ignored. They're feeling rage the controller is feeling abandoned there feeling worthless, excessive blame and attacking. Making excuses physical or emotional abuse can result with from a controller. The victim can disassociate just can be deeply depressed. Anger turned inward. And there's just all kinds of brokenness can happen from that. So they can cover in extremes, they lie. Their anger can come out sideways, they can end up just denying reality. And so what are the solutions here, both of them definitely need counseling. I think everybody can use counseling, but I'm a little biased because I'm a counselor. But they need counseling. They need timeouts, especially the controllers, these learned timeouts, they need to address their addictions, because their addictions are ways of actually making this worse, the enemy knows what he's doing with that. 

And they need to learn to apologize. And with a victim, it's important for them to learn to be vulnerable, they need to put up boundaries. They need to work through a lot of the ways of sharing frustrations, and they need to work through their addictions, as well. It's very important. The last slide I have here other than the work cited is the comfort cycle. And this is a great tool. It's on the how we love website, it's a freebie. It's a way of walking couples through how to comfort one another how to be in the beautiful dance. And stay in that as one. As one spouse is receiving the comfort cycle the other spouse is sitting and maybe having them their head in their lap and looking at their eyes and walking through this. And then they switch roles. And this is important. It walks through step by step how to comfort one another, and how to receive God's comfort ultimately. So it's a great tool to help people encounter this beautiful, self giving lover dance that the Trinity has and that we so deeply longed for. It's what we're made for. Because we long for intimacy, we longed for vulnerability. We longed to be in a relationship that mirrors that of the Trinity. So let me let me pray for you as you engage with other couples and as you've worked through your own stuff, and continue to work through your own stuff. 

Jesus, I thank you so much for your word. Thank you for your word, highlighting that these temptations very much play into the temptations of all humanity. Would you help us to own and confess the areas that we have bought into and have a dominant habit in which you'd help us to repent, regularly? And come back to the truth that you are God and that we are not? And would you help us to learn how to boast in our weaknesses, how to repent, and repair in our relationships with our spouses, and teach other people how to do this for your kingdom to advance for more marriages to mirror the ultimate marriage to be self giving an intimacy to grow, even for societies and cultures to be stronger. And for our kids to have more secure attachment more integrated minds and hearts. Jesus we need you would your spirit continue to break down the dividing walls of our lives and bring oneness and unity? Thank You for the cross. Thank you for that you tore the curtain in half. That you want to bring oneness that you want to bring intimacy. May that come more and more through your spirit in our inner being we pray all this in Jesus name, amen.