Sexual Healing – part 2
When we’ve been used or abused with sex, it damages our view of sex, ourselves, others and God. Part of the healing process will be seeing ourselves and sex from God’s perspective. God made sex. And He made it good, pure and pleasurable. But when sex has been a source of pain and wounding, it’s impossible for us to view it from God’s perspective; to see it as something good.
That’s essential if we want complete healing, and have the kind of emotional and physical intimacy God desires for us to have in marriage. Also, because of the bonds we’ve created with other partners, we need to trust God to sever those bonds so that we can have our bonding hormone restored, allowing us to bond fully in a present or future marriage. Healing restores all our relationships, because we’ll finally be able to reconcile ourselves to us. Being at peace with ourselves, frees us to be at peace with others.
Let the healing begin
For the past several years I’ve had the privilege of watching God heal hundreds of people from their sexual pasts. God led me to write a bible study for sexual healing, and through twelve chapters we lead people through a grieving process for their sexual pasts. I want to encourage you if God is bringing to mind things you’ve yet to heal from, that you’ll have the courage to join me and countless others in the following steps to healing:
1. Healing the wounds we’ve accumulated from our past.
2. Grieving the losses we’ve experienced.
3. Exposing the lies we’ve ingrained because of our past.
4. Breaking ungodly sexual bonds.
Healing the wounds we’ve accumulated from our past. Some wounds we’re aware of, but many we’re not, until we let God show us how our past is still hurting us today. When we let God show us how our past has hurt us, He’s able to heal our brokenness. But the first step and often the hardest is acknowledging what’s happened to us. And with abuse or trauma, often we can’t remember clearly what’s happened. But God knows our whole story, every detail. And when we give Him permission, He’ll show us our story. Here’s an exercise that can help you see your own story.
Grieving the losses we’ve experienced. Whether our sexuality was stolen from us or we gave it away, we experience a loss. But unfortunately many of us don’t allow ourselves to grieve those losses. John Townsend and Henry Cloud in their book, How People Grow, say that “Grief is the one pain that heals all others. It is the most important pain there is.”[1]
Because many of us feel responsible for the loss, we often don’t feel we deserve to grieve. But the truth is, we do deserve to grieve, even more, we need to grieve. In fact God grieves right along with us. He feels our pain, bears our burdens. He even collects our tears, King David tells us in Psalm 56:8, “Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll—are they not in your record?” And as we grieve, God is able to comfort and heal us. Here’s an exercise to help you walk through the grief process.
Exposing the lies we’ve ingrained because of our past. For many years I believed that God was the one who was heaping shame on me. I was certain He was disappointed with me, and no matter how many times I asked for forgiveness, I still had shame. But as I allowed God to heal me, I discovered that He did not see me the way I saw myself, the way the enemy tried to make me feel.
He did not see me as sinful, dirty and unrighteous. Instead because of what Jesus did on the cross, and my acceptance of His forgiveness, God saw who I was in Christ–holy, righteous, blameless, forgiven. Yet I’d been living out of the lie of the enemy. Once I saw the truth, the enemy could no longer deceive me with this lie. Here’s an exercise to help you see how God views sex.
Breaking ungodly sexual bonds. The bonding of sex is not only physical, but also spiritual, emotional and mental which includes the chemical and hormonal bonding that happens. Although we’d like to believe that breaking up and moving on severs that bond, in truth, only God can sever the ‘one flesh’ bond He’s created through sex.
The bible says that this bonding is a mystery. In other words, it’s unexplainable, supernatural, something only God can do. So it makes sense that only God can completely sever this bond. In this step we ask God to show us everyone we’ve created a sexual bond with, and write out a sexual history list. Then we pray through each name (or memory if we don’t have a name) asking God to sever the bond we’ve created—at every level, spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally. Here is the prayer to pray.
Really Good News…
Oxytocin is God’s super-human glue that is released in a man and woman during sexual arousal and release. When we’ve created bonds with others through sex, we can damage our bonding hormone, causing us to release less and less with each subsequent partner. But I have amazing news! Preliminary research is showing that as we heal, our brain heals, allowing us to release oxytocin again. Isn’t God so kind? Regardless of how our bonding hormone was damaged or depleted, when we let God heal us, He even restores our ability to bond. That’s what God told us in Joel 2:25, ‘I will repay for the years the locusts have eaten…” God promises to pay us back all that the enemy has robbed from us—even oxytocin. Here’s an excerise to walk through the process of breaking sexual bonds.
I want to leave you with one final word of encouragement. Its true…healing isn’t easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. In fact it can be quite painful, and take longer than expected. But this I can promise: it’s worth the journey. I would never want to go back to where I was, broken, clothed in shame, stuck spiritually, emotionally and physically.
For 25 years shame was my constant companion. But when God restored me 8 years ago, that’s when I really began to live…that’s when I became free. What a feeling! I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And it’s not just me. Everyone who’s had the courage to trust God with their pasts, regardless of how hard the journey, not one has ever said they wished they could go back to the way things were.
I’m praying that this is the day you’ll say yes to God, and begin your journey to a life of freedom. You’ll never regret it…I promise.
When you’re ready to talk, we’re here to help:
Free, private mentoring by email
Request prayer
[1] Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, How People Grow, 2001, Zondervan Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Pg. 206.
These books can help you on your journey:
The Invisible Bond
Kiss Me Again: Restoring Lost Intimacy in Marriage
Break Free From Your Sexual Past; A Study of Freedom, Forgiveness, Healing and Hope (Middle English Edition)
Wounded Heart Hope for Adult Victims of childhood sexual abuse
The Wounded Heart Workbook: A Companion Workbook for Personal or Group Use
Hi Cathi,
Thank you for sharing your situation here.
I think Barb did a splendid job of describing the hurts and the methods of healing! It is indeed beautiful to know that complete healing is possible as we rely on God to help us.
For me to respond to you is painful in that I am still amazed at how a small inappropriate touch can be so devastating to a teenager. May there be healing in both your family and in mine.
I pray that God will continue to help both you and your husband in the healing processes, and your marriage will be a happy one!
Blessings, Alfred.
Thank you Barbara for this article, it provided some much needed biblical and practical steps to take in healing from childhood sexual abuse, my resulting choices based on my perceived worth, and choice of a marriage partner who was also wounded. I still struggle with trust issues, and am trying to learn my worth, and appreciate myself as a beautiful child of God.
Just reading these steps, and working through them here, brings familiar body stress and tightness. So far to go still.
In my family, it is only in the last few years that any acknowledgement of the harm caused by childhood sexual abuse in any degree of touching or sexualizing children, has occurred and I’m 55 years old. Two men in our family have spent time in state prison for molesting children in their lives. There are others in my family that will never be held accountable because nothing can be ‘proven’ and its just a child’s word or a mother’s instinct. The ‘innocent teasing and tickling’ aren’t always so innocent and its usually not a consciously acknowledged issue.
Kate ~ To answer your first question, I usually encourage women to pray and ask God to break a bond with an ex-husband. Often when there’s children involved, divorced couples are still very much connected as they share child-rearing. But in order to move on to a new relationship, its necessary to sever that bond. In your case, as separated, I would encourage you to find healing from the negative sexual experience you had with him, and to ask God to sever those negative sexual associations. Without healing, you’ll never be able to see sex from God’s perspective. As far as severing a bond with him, that would depend on whether or not one or both of you is still committed to the marriage and wanting it to succeed. Separation is not divorce, and I’ve seen God restore even the most devastated marriages. I would encourage you to follow the healing steps outlined in Kiss Me Again and let God show you exactly how you’ve been wounded from your past, and from this marriage. And as you heal, you can trust God to direct your next step, and if and when you should sever that bond.
As to your second question ~ how do you know when something is wrong between a husband and wife? God definitely has something to say on this topic, but most important, its necessary that each spouse honors the other’s comfort level. True love does not force someone to do something that causes them pain, shame or discomfort. But, I’ve also discovered that for women who’ve been sexually abused or had sexual trauma in their pasts, their sexual comfort level can be skewed, in that anything associated with sex causes them discomfort and even disgust. So here’s what I recommend to knowing what is appropriate in God’s eyes: Ask yourself these 3 questions:
1. Is it prohibited in Scripture? If it isn’t, than its allowed. Sometimes a study of biblical terms will be necessary to answer this question. For example, the bible does not use the word pornography, yet, its clear that the use of pornography for anyone is prohibited in Scripture. God talks about sexual immorality and sexual impurity, including obscenity. These are all words that would describe pornography. I’ve talked to many Christian couples who felt that pornography within marriage is okay, but I would argue based on my study of the Scriptures, and the damage caused by pornography, that God’s language on this topic prohibits the making, viewing and distributing of pornography.
2. Is it beneficial? 2 Corinthians 6:12 says, “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but I will not be mastered by anything.” If your activity is not prohibited, ask God to show you if its causing you, your spouse or your marriage harm in any way. Often what is right for one person, could trigger painful things for someone else, and therefore, cause pain for you and your marriage.
3. Does it involve anyone else? This one is really important, because in Hebrews 13:4, God implores us to honor our marriage bed and keep it pure. He gave sex as an amazing, bonding gift within marriage, between a husband and a wife. Whenever we bring anyone else into our marriage bed, even through pornography or in our minds, we have crossed into the prohibited area according to God.
God loves us so much, and because He is our Creator He knows exactly what we need, what will hurt us, and what will be good for us and help us thrive. His guidelines are not to punish us or ruin our fun, but to provide the best for us, and to protect us from incredible heartbreak, pain and damage.
Hope these answers help.
Blessings, Barb
I am glad you found this article helpful. Barbara Wilson has some other articles as well that you can see at http://powertochange.com/blogposts/author/bwilson.
Kate, while I would need to know a little bit more about your relationship with your husband to be able to give you my understanding of how you might pray, I think it is appropriate to pray for healing of the sex acts that you feel guilt about. Remember that God’s promise is, “If we confess our sins, He [God] is able to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9) There isn’t anything that you have done that Jesus death did not pay for. Let me recommend that you talk to one of our online mentors who can support you as you work through those issues that are weighing heavily on your heart. You will find a Mentor Request Form at http://powertochange.com/discover/talk-to-a-mentor.
Mona, you too need to trust in the forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ. His grace is unlimited. Now of course, you can’t ask for forgiveness for sexual sin and then continue to engage in sexual intimacy outside of marriage. You and your boyfriend are given this time of courtship to get to know each other and discover if you are ready to commit yourself fully to each other in marriage. Once you have made that commitment before God you then can enjoy the wonder of giving yourselves to each other unconditionally knowing that you are committed to each other forever. Sex outside of that God-ordained covenant together will only result in hurt and guilt. I know the prevailing wisdom of our culture will tell you otherwise but God has clearly set out His plan for sex and marriage in the Bible and there is an important reason why He has set it out that way. are you familiar with God’s plan for sex and marriage?
Thank-you for Writing such a helpful article. Should you pray
to remove a sexual bond from a man who is your husband? I have separated from him now but in the past he has expected me to do things sexually that I felt were wrong in Gods eyes. How do you know when something like that is wrong between a husband and wife?
Thank you so much for this article. For years after stopping my sexual promiscuity I feel guilty. My current boyfriend has been really supportive but sometimes feelings of inadequacy take over and I do silly things even though I am scared of him getting fed up and leaving. I still see sex as derogatory even though he loves me and doesn’t just want me for sex. I love this man. He is God fearing and a decent person by nature. I want to be loved and love him but my past gets in the way sometimes. Letting go has been really hard.