Love and Making It is a series about wholeness and love, even more than it is about sex. Since sex is really about wholeness and love, anyway.

This post contains pictures of partial nudity.  This is a simple warning. Now you may proceed as long as you are over 18-years-old.

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After adultery.

After years of secrets.

After hard choices.

There is still hope and healing.

When you need a reminder that miracles are possible through love and perseverance, return here and see.

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The Story:

After ten years of marriage, a husband and wife each committed adultery.  It took them six more years to tell each other everything and come clean.  Instead of running… instead of fighting each other to the death… they decided to fight FOR each other.  Now, they are still married and choosing every day to focus on how to heal rather than the wounds of the past. This is not everyone’s story, but this is theirs. 

 

In this guest post conceived by my dear friend, Jennifer Upton (in partnership with her husband, Tony, and a talented photographer named Kathryn Nee), we see another side of intimacy. We see what it looks like to let yourself be loved despite history, despite failures, despite self-doubt.

This is what it looks like to fight FOR your covenant love. This is what it looks like to allow words of affirmation and adoration to seep into your skin… the skin you didn’t think could be forgiven or beautiful or chosen ever again.

 

Words, truths, finally becoming part of YOU – seeping down deep into your heart.  Forgiveness. Beauty. Love.

 

Below are pictures of Jennifer as her husband writes words on her skin.  This entire process was not easy for Jennifer, but it has been holy and sacred and used by God to knit her and Tony even closer together. Tony telling her the truth of how he sees her now; she vowing to believe his words and let them become a part of her own truth.

The pictures have no filters or touch ups. They are simply black and white. The naked truth.

In the light of day, one man and one woman chose to express trust and love to each other in a manner that they hope will help you do the same.

 

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And so, she lay bare and he began writing.

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One word after another.

 

 

After another.

 

 

Truth of her talent.

 

 

Truth of her gifts.

 

 

Of her goodness.

 

 

Of her.

 

 

Words to confirm renewed promises.

 

 

And God’s design.

 

 

Truth she vows to believe.

 

 

As they soak into her skin and heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jennifer Upton is a storyteller, an excavator of the sacred, exploring the world with an open and listening heart, diving deep into the jungled areas of life to uncover the stories hidden there. She writes as an act of faith, sharing the gritty truth and beauty of life on the pages of her blog, Spiritualglasses.me and her photo blog Asharedlens.smugmug.com