How Love Is Resurrected
By Dr. Keith M. Waggoner
Founder, Undisputed Mastery and Strategic Edge Coaching
The Miracle of Rekindled Fire
Every week, I sit with couples who believe they are finished. Their bodies are present, but their spirits are exhausted. Some have been without affection for years. Others have not felt desire in decades. They sit across from one another, numb and afraid to hope.
And yet, I have seen those same couples laugh again. I have seen them hold hands in silence, eyes wet with the realization that love never truly died. It only went dormant.
Love can be resurrected. Passion can return. Trust can be rebuilt. The human heart was made for renewal.
After thirty years of walking couples through healing, I have seen the same sequence of transformation unfold again and again. Here are the eleven stages of relational resurrection.
Stage 1: The Decision to Awaken
Every resurrection begins with truth. One person must decide that the relationship is worth saving — not out of duty, but out of conviction that love still matters.
Mark and Jenna, who had lived as polite roommates for years, reached this moment when Jenna said, “I miss you.” It was simple, but it broke the silence. He cried. For the first time in years, they saw each other.
Resurrection begins when someone chooses honesty over pride.
Stage 2: Reclaiming Purpose and Covenant
A marriage without a shared mission drifts into boredom. When couples remember that their union is not a convenience but a calling, they regain direction.
Marriage is not designed to be a peaceful partnership. It is a spiritual covenant — two people agreeing to grow, serve, and build together. It is the training ground for holiness.
When couples see their love as part of God’s plan, they begin to treat intimacy as sacred work.
Stage 3: Rebuilding Safety and Trust
Trust is not only emotional; it is physical.
In a sexless or resentful marriage, both partners often carry shame, rejection, and fear. Healing begins when both feel safe again — not just to speak, but to touch.
I coached a man who confessed, “I am afraid to kiss my wife because I do not want to be rejected again.” His honesty melted her defenses. She said, “I stopped touching you because I was angry, but now I just feel afraid too.” That confession became their turning point.
Safety returns when vulnerability replaces performance.
Stage 4: Restoring Polarity and Attraction
Attraction is not a mystery. It is created when the masculine and feminine energies move back into balance.
Masculine energy brings direction, presence, and purpose. Feminine energy brings warmth, openness, and beauty. When these forces interact, desire naturally awakens.
Couples lose attraction when they become identical in energy. They regain it when they reclaim their natural essence.
Flirting, playfulness, and humor are the first signs that the current has returned. A compliment. A teasing glance. A small touch. These gestures speak louder than hours of conversation.
Passion is not born in the bedroom; it is born in how you look at each other in the kitchen.
Stage 5: The Sacred Role of Consensual and Passionate Sex
Sex is not recreation — it is re-creation. It renews the covenant. It heals wounds that words cannot.
A healthy sexual connection between husband and wife is not carnal. It is sacred. It is the act through which two souls declare, “We still choose each other.”
When couples return to passionate, loving, and consensual sex, the entire marriage begins to heal. Touch communicates what language cannot. It restores chemistry, confidence, and peace.
God designed sex to bind the body and spirit together. It is the glue of covenant. The absence of sex erodes intimacy. Its presence restores identity.
When I teach couples, I often say, “The marriage bed is the holiest place in the home.” It is where two people become one in heart, soul, and body. It is where forgiveness finds form.
Passionate monogamy creates the kind of energy that overflows into every other part of life. Great sex between two faithful partners produces creativity, focus, and peace. It is not a distraction from spiritual life. It is evidence of it.
Stage 6: Learning to Flirt Again
Flirting is not immaturity; it is maintenance.
Many couples lose playfulness because they believe marriage eliminates the need for pursuit. In truth, marriage demands pursuit more than ever.
Learn to send a message that makes your spouse smile. Compliment them without agenda. Touch them as if it still means something.
Flirtation keeps the polarity alive. It tells your partner, “I still see you.”
When couples flirt again, they begin to remember who they were when they first fell in love. That memory becomes fuel for the future.
Stage 7: The Power of Presence
Passion cannot survive distraction. True intimacy requires presence.
Put the phone down. Look into your partner’s eyes when they speak. Listen without fixing. Touch without rushing.
Presence is what keeps sex from becoming mechanical and what keeps love from becoming shallow.
One husband told me, “When I stopped treating my wife as an obligation and started seeing her as a miracle, everything changed.”
Attention is the purest form of desire.
Stage 8: Rewriting the Story
Once healing begins, couples must rewrite the story that almost destroyed them.
Michael and Lauren, who had lived through betrayal, learned to say, “That version of us died, but we are building something new.”
The old story may explain your pain, but it cannot define your future.
The new story is written through consistent love, trust, and desire that is proven again and again.
Stage 9: Reintegrating the Body, Soul, and Spirit
A resurrected marriage is not just emotional harmony. It is physical and spiritual unity.
When couples pray together and make love often, they heal on all levels. Prayer brings heaven into the home. Sex brings heaven into the body.
The soul is nourished when the spiritual and physical dimensions of love are in rhythm. That is why scripture calls marriage a mystery. It is a reflection of divine union itself.
Stage 10: Rediscovering Creative Energy
A passionate and faithful sex life does more than restore romance. It awakens creativity.
Couples who make love regularly report more joy, clarity, and confidence. They solve problems faster. They parent better. They dream bigger.
Sexual energy, when expressed with love and reverence, becomes creative energy that overflows into purpose.
The marriage that was once drained of life becomes a source of vitality again.
Stage 11: Re-Covenanting with God and Each Other
The highest level of resurrection is spiritual renewal.
When couples kneel together in prayer, forgiveness and gratitude begin to flow. When they hold each other afterward in silence, the sacred and the sensual become one.
This is covenant restored. It is not perfect, but it is holy.
Marriage was never meant to be a quiet coexistence. It was meant to be a living flame.
“Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.”
— 1 Corinthians 7:3
A marriage that honors this balance of love, desire, and devotion becomes unbreakable.
The Law of Resurrection
Love returns when both partners decide to give again. It grows stronger when they touch again. It becomes sacred when they invite God back into the center.
A marriage filled with mutual desire and spiritual intimacy becomes more than survival. It becomes sanctuary.
The secret is not new. It is as old as creation. Two people, united in faith and desire, create life — first in each other, then in the world around them.
That is resurrection. That is covenant restored.
Invitation
If your marriage has lost its fire, it can be reignited. If your intimacy feels frozen, it can live again.
For more than thirty years, I have helped couples rebuild trust, rediscover attraction, and restore sacred passion. Whether you are struggling with distance, resentment, or a sexless marriage, you can begin again.
Schedule a private coaching session or attend the Undisputed Mastery Couples Intensive, where we teach the practical and spiritual disciplines of love and desire.
Visit keithmwaggoner.com to begin your renewal.