Sheila Wray Gregoire > Quotes

“Sex is not about genitalia. It’s about relationship. When God said ‘the two shall become one flesh,’ he didn’t mean it only physically.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: And You Thought Bad Girls Have All the Fun

“Billions of people have had sex. I don't know how many have actually made love.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: And You Thought Bad Girls Have All the Fun

“commitment matters. And commitment to the marriage doesn’t just mean saying, “I’m staying ’til death do us part—even if I have to make everyone miserable in the process.” It means saying, “I commit, every day, to make this marriage the best it can be.” Commitment is an active, daily decision, not a one-time vow.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid Than a Wife and Mother

“Most of us save our best behavior for those whom we barely know and show our worst side to those we know the best.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, Nine Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage: Because a Great Relationship Doesn't Happen by Accident

“Even if you don’t always feel love, you can act love.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid Than a Wife and Mother

“Your purity is not based on what you've done with your body. It's based on what Jesus did with His.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire

“Defeating lust is not about limiting a man’s encounters with women; it’s about empowering men to treat the women around them as whole people, daughters of Christ. The key to defeating lust is not to avoid looking at women; it’s to actually see them.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Whatever you tolerate will continue. If he’s doing something wrong—not just something that’s irritating—you need to stop tolerating it. This is not the same as trying to change him. It simply means that you change how you react to him.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, Nine Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage: Because a Great Relationship Doesn't Happen by Accident

“You defeat porn by rejecting the kingdom of darkness view of sex, that it is only about taking and using someone to meet your needs, and adopting a kingdom of heaven view of sex: that it’s about a mutual, passionate knowing and sacrificial serving.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Here are some of the truths about money that you can use to measure your own attitudes: 1. Everything we have comes from God (James 1:17). 2. Our most important possessions are heavenly ones, not earthly ones (Matt. 6:19–21). 3. We must be financially responsible. We should make sure we do not depend on others (outside the family) for our livelihood. “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). 4. We should be content no matter our circumstances. Paul says, “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (1 Tim. 6:8). 5. Our identity is based on what Christ did for us and not on anything else (Gal. 2:20). 6. We are to be generous and give to those in need (1 Tim. 6:18).”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid Than a Wife and Mother

“Marriages only work well when both sides desist from keeping scorecards of each other’s performance.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid Than a Wife and Mother

“six is old enough to know how to pick a lock, but not old enough to know that you don’t want to be picking that lock.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, 31 Days to Great Sex

“25–59). If our idea of Christian selflessness is that we always take care of everyone else’s needs before we take care of our own, we are expecting more of ourselves than Jesus did of himself. And he was God.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Intimacy is about sharing something with your spouse that you don’t share with anybody else. It’s letting him in. It’s laughing together. And it’s also feeling that deep hunger for each other!”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, Nine Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage: Because a Great Relationship Doesn't Happen by Accident

“But when we unquestioningly buy into traditional gender roles, we create a strange dynamic in marriage in which we view each other as categories rather than as people.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“That may be why we found that the risk of divorce skyrockets in marriages in which the husband is the one who ultimately makes the decisions,”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“The real God (the one we like to think also sounds like Morgan Freeman) knew he could not have real intimacy with us unless we chose it ourselves. But in many marriages, sex is not being freely chosen. It becomes transactional instead of intimate or a duty instead of a joy. It can even become a weapon when a spouse is pressured to do things against their will. But love is not love if it’s forced.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“If you are continuously choosing video games, Netflix, or anything else over your spouse and your marriage, your marriage will seriously suffer long-term. If you aren’t making your spouse a priority, you are not fulfilling your marital vows. You married a person; your Netflix account, your console, and even your children should not come before your marriage. In fact, what your kids need more than to be in seven extracurriculars is to have a family that is stable, loving, and fun.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“The spiritual beauty of sexuality is seen in service, lovingly meeting the physical desires and needs of our mate. The spiritual meaning of a Christian’s sexuality is found in giving. When we have power over another and use that power responsibly, appropriately, and benevolently, we grow in Christ, becoming more like God, and reflect the fact that we were made to love God by serving others. But when we have power over another—particularly power in an area where someone feels so vulnerable and needy and where they can go nowhere else to be served—and then use that power irresponsibly, inappropriately, and maliciously, we become more like Satan, who loves to manipulate us in our weakness rather than like God, who serves us in our weakness.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Life doesn’t have to be a freeform stream of consciousness, where any thought that comes into our heads is entertained.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, Nine Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage: Because a Great Relationship Doesn't Happen by Accident

“When we set up marriages where a husband has decision-making power, we create marriages in which his opinions, by definition, matter more than hers.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Many women live in sexless marriages because the husband prefers pornography. Or he’s used porn so much for so long that he suffers from erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, or delayed ejaculation, all of which increase with porn use. Without the stimulation of pornography and masturbation, many men are unable to maintain an erection or reach climax.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“The root problem for many women, then, is not that they don’t want sex enough; it is that they simply don’t have a reason to want it.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Here’s an interesting finding from our research: Women who do not believe traditional gender roles are moral imperatives feel more heard and seen in their marriages. In fact, women who act out the typical breadwinner-homemaker dynamic also feel more seen if they see it as a choice and not a God-given role.9”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Maxine Hancock says we should think of ourselves as the servant leaders of our homes. I think by the addition of the word leaders, she implies that while we serve we should also command respect.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid Than a Wife and Mother

“Evangelical culture primes women to repress their sexuality but then turns around and chastises them when they are married for doing that very thing.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“But when we have power over another—particularly power in an area where someone feels so vulnerable and needy and where they can go nowhere else to be served—and then use that power irresponsibly, inappropriately, and maliciously, we become more like Satan, who loves to manipulate us in our weakness rather than like God, who serves us in our weakness.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

“Looking at these word clouds leads one to wonder if the evangelical church’s approach to teenage girls has more in common with a sex cult than the Bible.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“What impact could it have on a daughter who is hearing at church that she is supposed to be selfless, who is being taught to consider everyone else as more important than herself, and who also sees her female role models being treated like second-class citizens in their marriages, families, or even churches? How will she learn that she is of infinite worth? How will she feel equipped to speak up if in the future her husband dismisses her opinions, needs, or desires as secondary to his own?”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“we submit our sexual desires to God’s will as a result of our love for God, not as our primary way to love God. The greatest commandment given to our girls is not that they keep their legs shut. The greatest commandment given to our girls is that they love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that they love their neighbor as themselves.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up