Why My Stories Include Spice — and Why It Matters

When I rededicated my life to Jesus, I assumed my writing life was over.

I had written my first novel years earlier while I was far from God, and because of that, I believed I had ruined the gift entirely. Writing had become deeply personal to me, and losing it felt heartbreaking—but I truly believed I had crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.

Then God said something to me that changed everything:

“If I can redeem a soul, don’t you think I can redeem a calling?”

That moment transformed the way I viewed storytelling forever.

Not long afterward, God began leading me toward the Song of Solomon.

At first, I barely understood why.

Like many Christians, I had grown up vaguely aware that the book existed, but I had never truly studied it. To me, it was simply “the poetic book” filled with strange imagery about gardens, gazelles, doves, and vineyards.

Then I actually read it carefully.

And I was shocked.

Song of Solomon is passionate. Romantic. Intimate. Sensual. Emotional. Celebratory. It openly delights in physical desire between husband and wife without shame or embarrassment.

In other words:

God Himself included an erotic love poem inside Scripture.

That realization changed my understanding of intimacy forever.

One of the greatest lies modern culture tells us is that God created sex to restrict us.

I believe the opposite is true.

God created intimacy because He understood the depth of connection it would produce between a husband and wife.

Physical love was designed to bond people emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically. It was never meant to be casual because people themselves were never meant to be disposable.

At its healthiest and most beautiful, intimacy becomes:

• covenant made tangible

• vulnerability without fear

• celebration without shame

• trust without performance

• safety without manipulation

• two people becoming “one flesh” in every sense of the phrase

And honestly?

I think that is beautiful.

Modern culture is saturated with sex.

It’s everywhere:

• television,

• music,

• advertisements,

• streaming shows,

• social media,

• books,

• films,

• and even casual conversation.

Yet despite all that exposure, people seem lonelier, more disconnected, and more emotionally wounded than ever before.

Why?

Because modern culture often separates intimacy from meaning.

Too much modern media portrays sex as:

• transactional

• emotionless

• degrading

• performative

• recreational

• disconnected from covenant and love

Women are reduced to objects.

Men are reduced to predators.

Vulnerability is mocked.

Monogamy is ridiculed.

And people who choose to wait for marriage are often treated as foolish, naïve, repressed, or weak.

Ironically, the same culture that condemns “shaming” in nearly every other area still openly mocks people for choosing restraint.

That has always saddened me deeply.

Because waiting should not be ridiculed.

It should be honored.

Unfortunately, the church often hasn’t helped matters.

Many churches either:

• avoid the topic entirely,

• speak about it only through fear and legalism,

• or condemn unhealthy media without offering healthy alternatives.

As a result, many young people grow up learning about sex from Hollywood, social media, pornography, or hookup culture instead of from God’s wisdom.

And that breaks my heart.

Because the world is more than willing to teach people about sex.

It just rarely teaches them reverence.

One thing I never want readers to walk away from my stories feeling is shame for being human.

Desire itself is not evil.

Passion is not evil.

Longing is not evil.

God created those things.

The issue has never been the existence of desire.

The issue is whether desire is treated carelessly—or reverently.

That distinction matters enormously to me.

My stories include spice for a reason.

Not because it sells.

Not because I want shock value.

And certainly not because I think explicitness automatically makes a story “mature.”

The intimacy in my novels exists because it serves the emotional, spiritual, and relational truths of the characters themselves.

In my stories, intimacy is rarely just physical.

It becomes:

• emotional culmination / vulnerability made visible / healing after trauma / trust after fear / surrender after self-protection / love becoming tangible

Sometimes intimacy becomes the first moment a character truly feels safe.

Sometimes it becomes the first moment they believe they are loved.

And sometimes it becomes the place where emotional healing finally begins.

That is why the scenes matter.

A great deal of modern spicy fiction exists purely to provoke, titillate, escalate, or sell.

That is not my goal.

In my novels, spice always serves:

• the story,

• the characters,

• the emotional arc,

• or the deeper themes being explored.

I do not write intimacy merely to fill pages with explicit content.

And I do not portray darkness as beautiful.

If unhealthy sexuality appears in my stories, it is because unhealthy people exist in real life—not because I celebrate brokenness.

There is always a moral and emotional distinction between:

• exploitation and covenant love,

• degradation and intimacy,

• lust and devotion.

At one point, I realized something difficult:

The world was already flooding people with graphic sexuality.

But very little of it honored God, commitment, emotional connection, or human dignity.

And meanwhile, many Christians had become so uncomfortable discussing intimacy that they abandoned the entire conversation altogether.

That left millions of people learning about sex entirely through culture instead of through God’s wisdom.

So in many ways, my stories became my answer to that silence.

Not worldly fire.

Righteous fire.

Stories that acknowledge sexuality openly while still honoring the sacredness of intimacy as God designed it.

At the end of the day, I don’t expect every reader to agree with me.

Some readers will always feel uncomfortable with spice in fiction.

Others may think my stories are too restrained compared to modern romance trends.

That’s okay.

But what I hope readers do feel is this:

• respected,

• understood,

• emotionally safe,

• less ashamed,

• more thoughtful,

• and perhaps even more hopeful.

Because intimacy was never meant to destroy people.

It was meant to unite them.

And if my stories can help even one reader see sex as something more sacred, meaningful, healing, and beautiful than the world portrays it to be—then I will feel I have done what God asked me to do.