When I was in college I had a job with a hardware wholesaler. My job was to pull pipe fittings all day long. So by the end of the summer, I knew every size of every fitting. When I began, though, I was clueless about pipes or hardware.

One of my first days on the job, I was looking at an order and it said I needed to pull a female pipe fitting at a certain size. And I thought: Female pipe fitting? What does THAT mean?

So I went over to one of my crusty old coworkers at the warehouse, and I asked him what in the world a"female pipe fitting" was. He reached down into this bin and pulled out a little piece and said, "This is a female fitting. Do you know why it's called a female fitting?"

I shook my head no. So he pulled out a male fitting and inserted it into the female fitting. It became clear. I thought, Oh my gosh. And then I thought, Hardware people are perverts!

I got an education right there on the spot.

Genesis 1:27 says God created man in His own image. "Male and female, he created them," and though he created us to be very different from each other, he also created us to match.

The female needs a male. The male needs a female. You don't have the full unit until you have both of them. Female or male fittings are incomplete without each other.

(Yes, I do know that some people are called to be single, like the Apostle Paul. But these are a special group of people whom God can use in a distinct way-but most of us are not called like that.)

Anyway, sex graphically demonstrates how dependent males and females are upon each other. For sex really to ignite, we must match up in three distinct ways: body, soul, and spirit.

Sex has a physical, emotional, and spiritual component-and the healthiest, most enjoyable, and most satisfying sex between spouses takes place when all these components are engaged.

Unfortunately, this can be a challenge. Men tend to focus too much on the physical while forgetting its emotional and spiritual aspects. This frustrates their wives because a woman wants to feel as though there is more to her than her body.

But because women can be so focused on the emotional side of sex, they can discount the importance of it physically-and sex does have clear physical benefits. For instance, when a woman has sex all kinds of chemicals and hormones are released into her body that have a positive impact on her emotional and physical health.

And yet there's more to sex than just the act. For a woman to enjoy the physical part of sex, she must feel secure in her marriage-and that's an emotional thing. She needs to know her husband cares about her. She needs open, verbal affirmation, along with affection that isn't related to sex. She needs to be touched outside of foreplay, guys.

Yes, men and women are designed to fit together, physically. But a healthy marriage is one in which there's more to sex than just an intimate, physical act. Sex reflects God's spiritual plan for men and women, and it requires an emotional connection between a husband and wife.

Sex is about body, soul, and spirit. The sooner couples can find a way to interact on these three levels, the better their sex lives will be.

Blessings,