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As I was a quadriplegic from polio, Dorothy helped me to get in bed. Dorothy removed all my clothes. I was naked as a newborn baby. She saw the bare, tender, unseen parts of me. The slick-numbed ugly surgical scars. Scars on my hands. Scars on my legs and feet. A long scar from below my neck to my tailbone. An opening through which Dr. Harrington had inserted and attached three steel rods to my spine.
Dorothy saw my backbone shaped like a river winding through the Mississippi Delta. Dorothy viewed the obvious asymmetry of my body, arms, legs, and hips deformed by polio. Dorothy saw my naked truth. My physical truth. The ugly, imperfect, unchangeable, and unalterable parts of me. The truth of me I hid from others in the clothes I wore. She saw the real me. The true body polio left me. Then, Dorothy kissed me. She intimately and sweetly embraced the broken parts of me. From that first lovemaking, I knew for the rest of my life I was always safe with her.
What do you think of when you hear the word, “intimate”?
What does being “intimate” mean? In my youth, I thought it was “sex.” But “intimacy” means much more than sex.
Intimacy is really about truth. My truth. Your truth. To have a relationship with someone with whom you can share the truth of who you really are. Not just the physical you. But the more profound unseen truth of you. Your inner truth or self without fear of rejection or judgment. Not only the perfect spirit God gave you but your imperfections, fears, losses, battles with addiction, regrets, weaknesses, failures, secrets, hopes, and dreams. I have that kind of intimacy with my wife, Dorothy, with whom I share the entirety of my hidden self, now and forever. How many people in your life do you trust with that truth? The layers of truth beneath your skin.
Michael Craig is a fellow collaborative divorce attorney, friend, and brother in Christ with whom I share the true me. The real Jack. Recently, Michael sent me the following quote by Taylor Jenkins Reid: “People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth when you can show yourself to them when you stand in front of them and their response is ‘you’re safe with me’ – that’s INTIMACY.”
God has spoken to us in Scripture about intimacy.
John 15:15
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Let us pray together.
Dear God, I thank You for creating me.
God, Thank You for giving me Your perfect spirit even though I, the true me, am far from perfect.
God, I have a desperate, essential need for the emotional intimacy of truth in relationships with others. Please help me find people in my life with whom I can safely share my truth. My innermost self, my truth which You see every day.
God, I have few friends with whom my truth can be shared. That is the truth and the true me I cannot hide from You, but I withhold from most everyone else.
God, please help me to find those whom I can trust, with whom I can intimately share the true me. The kind of “intimacy” author, Taylor Jenkins Reid, says we all need. Amen
If you like this prayer, please share.
If you want to purchase for yourself or a friend a copy of Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love or Prayerful Passages: Asking God’s Help in Reconciliation, Separation or Divorce, please click here to go to Amazon.
Jack H. Emmott is a Senior Counsel of Gray, Reed & McGraw, LLP, a 145-lawyer full-service firm in Houston, Dallas, and Waco, Texas, a Board-Certified Family Law and Master Credentialed Collaborative Law Professional Divorce Attorney, Mediator, Author, Entrepreneur, and Inspirational Speaker. For more information about Jack or his latest book, Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love, go to the Bending Angel website.
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