Togetherness

Chapter 1

Designed for Togetherness

Ketchup and mustard. Salt and pepper. Mickey and Minnie. Peanut butter and jelly. Milk and cookies. Dogs and cats. Err … wait a minute. Maybe not dogs and cats. Cats shouldn’t be together with anything or anybody, but I digress. Most things were meant to be together. God made it that way. He made us that way. We were created by God to be together with other people to share life with. We were “woven together” in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:15). For those of you new to class, this was the result of your birth parents “getting together,” if you know what I mean (we’ll be talking about this in a later chapter called Sleeping Together). We were born into a family. All of us have parents, most of us have siblings, and hopefully you have friends who you consider family.

As we grew up, families tended to stretch beyond those with whom we lived in the same house. Aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents made up a circle of togetherness that surrounded us. Birthdays and holidays were big events, with family members and close friends celebrating together. It’s also true that each family situation is different. Maybe you grew up with a single parent or never knew extended family. My birth mom was an unwed teenager who gave me up for adoption as an infant. A wonderful couple adopted me and became my parents. My sister is also adopted. So our blood doesn’t match, but our bond of love does. I never met my birth parents, but I was able to experience true togetherness in my adopted family. Our childhood consisted of teachers, coaches, bosses, and pastors. We also had certain close friends whose parents treated us like their own kids. They fed us, allowed us to spend the night at their homes, and even yelled at us as they would their own kid when we deserved it. What’s great about togetherness is that people reach out, take others in, and include them in their lives. Togetherness.

This book is written to a specific part of the togetherness experience—the strongest, most intimate, and enduring relationship you have on earth. The person you are married to. Your husband. Your wife. Your covenant partner. The one whose hand you held and whose eyes you looked into when you made a verbal covenant of commitment in front of God and witnesses: “Until death do us part.”

Two People Coming Together in Relationship Is a Natural Part of Life

The desire to be with someone is bestowed upon our hearts by God. So we have to look back at the beginning, creation, to see how marriage started and how togetherness was experienced with the first humans, Adam and Eve.

We know that God created Adam out of the dust of the earth and Eve out of Adam’s rib. A man and a woman. Both made in God’s image. Both able to love God and to love each other. What’s interesting about Adam is that as he looked around creation before Eve came along, he liked what he saw and was totally satisfied. Every day of creation was a beautiful, mind-blowing masterpiece—a magnum opus of creative splendor backed by intricate science that can never be totally explained nor understood by the human mind. And Adam was there experiencing it firsthand. The Bible records that creation days one through five were days of extravagant creativity by God. God fashioned each element of creation to glorify himself, with man being the ultimate in creative magnificence as an independent, intelligent, free-willed being able to communicate with God and make decisions on his own. Despite all of this, God knew something was still missing in Adam’s life, even though Adam himself wasn’t aware of it. Now, don’t misunderstand; Adam was totally whole as a person. God filled every area of his life. Like Adam, we are totally complete when we surrender our lives to God. God is the source of everything we need. Yet God has instilled in each of us a desire for human connection and relationship in addition to our spiritual relationship with him. In this book, I am calling the desire for human connection togetherness. What was missing in Adam’s life was someone he could experience togetherness with. Even though Adam didn’t know it at the time, he needed someone to help him fulfill the responsibilities of tending the garden and watching over God’s creation. God was enough for Adam, but Adam wasn’t enough for God. God wanted Adam to have someone to have and to hold, to love and cherish, and to enjoy human life with—not to mention having a partner with whom to bear children to populate this beautiful planet, so they could worship and serve God while taking dominion over the earth. Thus God put Adam under spiritual anesthesia, removed a rib from his side, and formed a woman. She became Adam’s togetherness partner, and his life was changed forever.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Genesis 2:18–24 NIV).

When God brought Eve to Adam, Adam experienced emotion that he had never felt before. Adam was love-struck. The animals in the Garden of Eden were cute, soft, and fuzzy (okay, some were prickly, ugly, and scary), but nothing compared to what he saw when Eve came into view. Here was someone like him. Together they could communicate, together they could connect emotionally, and together they could live out their dreams. And let’s not forget Eve’s perspective. She had that same rapturous moment. As Adam came into view and she saw him for the first time, her heart filled with emotion, passion, and excitement. She watched him move toward her, felt him take her into his arms, and heard him express the most romantic thought ever in human history—that they were not alone but together. Being a male, I am sure that when Adam first saw Eve coming to toward him his eyes strayed vertically from her neck down to her feet (I mean, c’mon, think about it; she was naked) before finally focusing on Eve’s face—at which point he lovingly told her that she was now a part of him. He professed that they were connected as one. He whispered in her ear that they were part of each other now. “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).

God himself officiated the first wedding. Adam spoke the first wedding vows and declared over Eve that they were connected together in the most intimate possible way. She was a part of him—body, soul, and spirit. They were two people united, two people becoming one. Togetherness.