It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage (though, to be honest, I talk about it most days!) :). You can even link up your own marriage posts in the linky below.
Today’s post is by an anonymous blogger, who has not gone public about her past. But she has written me a wonderful post that explains how one’s view of sex can get so warped–and how God wants to redeem it.
I am passionate about what Sheila does in writing, blogging, and speaking the truth about God’s plan for sex, because I know from experience that a skewed view of sex creates challenges in life and especially in marriage.
Friends these days know me as a Jesus-loving wife and homeschooling mom, involved in ministries both in and out of church – but I am also a former strip club dancer who used sex for anything other than the purposes God intended.
I always knew Jesus.
Growing up in a conservative Christian family, I can never remember a time when I didn’t believe in Jesus. I planned to wait to have sex until I was married, but after getting into a serious relationship, it seemed “good enough” that we were planning to get married someday. (Sadly, I think that’s the story for far too many Christian girls.) Looking back, I realize even then I was learning to use sex. In order to keep this boy head over heels about me, I felt like I needed to keep things ever more exciting so he didn’t stray. Even so, after a few years, he found someone more exciting, and we broke up.
As a pretty girl with a flirty personality, I learned I could easily attract attention from men of all ages. I convinced myself that as long as I didn’t actually have sex with all the guys I made out with, then I was still a “good girl.” Little by little, I got better at distancing myself emotionally from anything that should’ve been intimate, and I liked the power that gave me. I became more promiscuous and being a “good girl” wasn’t important anymore. Friends told me I thought like a [stereotypical] guy, because I was the one that dumped my lover before things got too serious, or hooked up with someone I met at a bar just because I could.
I started “using” sex for power
By the time I was 21, I was working at a strip club, making a living as a real-life pornographic image. This was an “upscale” club so there was no touching allowed between the patrons and the performers, but we stripped down to nothing and paid our bills by creating lust. I can’t blame my choices on drugs or alcohol; I was never into drugs and nearly everything I did in the club and out of the club was while purely sober. I’ve heard porn stars say they feel empowered by what they do; as strange and messed up as that sounds, I understand those feelings if they are based on believing Satan’s lies about sex. There were moments on stage, with men lined up to pay me to take off my clothes, that I felt a crazy sort of power over them. Now, however, my heart breaks to think of how much sin I encouraged in the minds of so many men.
All that time, I never doubted God’s existence, or His power, or His authority. I believed in Jesus, but didn’t give Him control of my life. Even while working as a strip club dancer, I still prayed – but these prayers were mostly me explaining to God why I was doing what I was doing, somehow hoping I’d get His approval for living how I wanted to live. Even while so deeply involved in sin, I could see that God was protecting me, and it is only by His grace that I did not end up falling one step further into prostitution. No one in my life was willing to call me out on this sinful lifestyle. After all, I was a “smart and responsible” young woman who owned my own home, didn’t do drugs, and had never gotten pregnant. My parents divorced when I was a teen, and my dad was living with a stripper he’d met at another club, so there was nothing he could say about it without being completely hypocritical. Only one friend told me she didn’t agree with my choice – but she did so by calling me names and vowing never to speak to me again: this approach was hurtful, but not effective in changing my way of thinking.
Eventually, I moved in with and later married a man I’d met in the club, and I quit stripping. Our relationship was based on a messed up ideal of sex, not intimacy. He had spent a great deal of time in strip clubs over the years, had been at least as promiscuous as I had been, and was addicted to porn. With this basis to our relationship, we decided it was time to “settle down” and start living a Christian life the best we knew how.
We couldn’t forge a good marriage because our ideas about intimacy were so messed up.
Because our sex life was based on pornographic ideals, it was never healthy. Neither of us had any clue what truly intimate sex was suppose to be. Once we had a child, it was not uncommon for us to go six months or more without sex. A few struggling years later, he was still looking at porn, and I began an emotional affair that became the last straw in breaking a marriage that was precarious at best.
It wasn’t until the midst of my divorce that I finally reached rock bottom, abandoned by some of my closest friends and family, and facing the possibility of losing custody of the child I loved more than life itself. Never before had I felt truly out of control. God used this time to break me so He could rebuild me. After a lifetime of believing in Him, it was then I surrendered to Him.
Now I’m moving ahead–but with a lot of baggage.
I want my children to understand how important purity is because it affects more than the just the now. It is far bigger than whether or not they get pregnant or catch an STD; it affects their hearts, minds, and souls. To this day, I still struggle with overcoming all that I messed up in regards to sex. I am married to a wonderful man who loves the Lord, but I struggle with being the kind of wife I want to be. I struggle with learning what real intimacy is, and I struggle with allowing myself to be vulnerable with my husband because for me, sex had become a power game.
Thankfully, God’s grace covers my past – all of it. But if I’d made different choices, I wouldn’t have this baggage that adds to the many challenges that already exist in marriage. That’s why I so fervently want our kids to understand the truth of God’s plan for sex.
Thanks so much for sharing that! And I just want to add something: what she said about how in her first marriage, they would go for 6 months without sex–that’s really common. I hear that all the time from people. When your view of sex is skewed, it becomes so much about the physical, and about power, and not about love, that you can actually lose your drive for another person. That’s why porn and erotica don’t actually BUILD your sex life; they level it. I’m glad she shared, and I’d just challenge all of us to understand that our view of sex has such an impact on our sex lives. And if your view is skewed, take it to Jesus, because He so wants to breathe His truth into your life.
Sheila is the author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, which talks about how to see sex as emotional and spiritual, and not only physical. And it shows you how that combination creates the best physical fireworks!
Now, what would you like to share with us today? Link up a marriage post in the linky below (please enter the URL of your post, not your blog). And be sure to share Wifey Wednesday on your blog, too, so that others will come here and see all these great marriage posts!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
What an incredibly powerful story. Thanks so much for sharing it with Shelia and Shelia, thanks so much for sharing it with us.
Megan
This post disturbs me. It places more shame on the woman who most likely has been raped. This is what women do… How they respond psychologically when they been victims of sexual abuse. Please take me off your email list.
I’m sorry, Mimi, but your comment came out of left field to me! Nowhere in this post did it talk about sexual abuse. In fact, the author said that when she worked at a strip club she specifically was NOT sexually abused.
Could she have been as a teen? Perhaps, but she didn’t share that, and I have no way to know. What she does say is that regardless of her past, she chose wrongly, and those wrong choices led to her being really messed up. I think we’d all agree that was true, wouldn’t we?
I have absolutely no idea whether or not this author has been abused, and I really don’t want to speak for her. But the awful thing is that when you are sexually abused, you are more prone to turn to these things. I think that her post is a great warning to those who may do so that it only leads to more heartache. That’s something we really need to heed.
But her post also says that there is healing. She’s found a great marriage now. She has children. She is building a strong life, and she is slowly but surely discovering what intimacy is. That’s an amazing story of God’s goodness! I hope you have experienced that, too.
Hi again, I just heard back from the author (she saw this comment thread) and she says, for the record, that she was not abused. These are all choices she made on her own.
At the same time, we know that most people who do work in strip joints, etc., were molested as girls. Pain begets pain. Yet the message of the article which is universally true is that it doesn’t matter HOW or WHY you ended up using your body like that; when you do, you just make everything so much worse. I think we can all take that away from it, no matter our pasts.
I was molested at 4 yrs old & had a father who was addicted to porn (this made him emotionally non existent).
This quote sums it up nicely: “The misuse of sex is like taking a bat, beating someone with it, and then saying, “See, this is a baseball bat.” You would know what a bat is, but you wouldn’t have any idea what it was really intended for.”
Thank you for this post!
Kat, what a great quote! That sums it up perfectly. Thank you. So glad that you emerged on the other side of those horrific childhood issues!
Thanks, Kat! How cool to be quoted on Sheila’s site! 🙂 I’m also glad you came through. Sexual abuse of any kind is absolutely heartbreaking.
I love that quote! Nails it perfectly.
Amen. And when a child grows up in such an environment. Society places more blame and shame. That is why most end up in strip clubs and addicted to drugs. And I never said it wAs ok but let’s not blame the victim… Which always happens.
And the other side? If it exists! Who knows. I Am 48 and still struggle and btw I have prayed fir healing. Yet god has said nothing. So I just pray for a answer.
I refuse to be shamed for something I never did. It was done to me. I didn’t cause the sin. Nor do I have to repent for what someone else did to me.
I have been to therapy fir help. Still sex is something I dread most if the time but do anyhow as needed.
It’s been this way ever since I can remember. And the people who did this to me hide behind god. It makes me sick.
It is a miracle I am a Christian at all.
Absolutely you do not have to repent of something that was done to you. I am sorry that you are still the walking wounded, and I know that God does not want you that way. I’m glad you’ve gone for therapy; that’s great. I did write a post on abuse survivors and sex a while back, but I know that you are dealing with a lot.
All I can say is keep talking to a counselor and keep praying. But sometimes there’s a point where we have to stop concentrating so much on the problem–in this case shame and an aversion to sex–and start just concentrating on Jesus. Someone once told me that “whatever you focus on expands”, and I have found that true in my own life as I struggled with some deep childhood hurts. The more I talked about those hurts with counselors, the more they stuck. When I spent a few years doing nothing but really studying the Word, I found that God did an amazing work inside me without me even realizing it. God did the quiet, invisible kind of healing because I was focusing on Him.
Don’t get me wrong–counseling is wonderful, and praying through specific problems is SO important. But if you’ve been doing that, and there’s been no breakthrough, then perhaps what God is asking you to do is to walk forward and just look at Him for a while? I don’t know. Abuse is so awful and it really leaves such deep scars. I just know that God does not want us to live with those scars, and that Jesus’ scars truly do cover all. I pray that one day you will experience that deep release!
I really rather leave the concept of his out of sex. I already have shame while being sexual while married! I have no idea why. But I feel dirty even having sex after being married fir almost 19 years.
The thought of god in the mix kind of disturbs me. I just can’t seem to talk about intimacy in sex with god. Just feels very wrong.
I do pray that this feeling of shame would go away… Have for 19 years yet I hear nothing from god.
I still feel dirty. I been in therapy for years. I feel they can only do so much. I may be damaged firever.
I dread sex. I can’t talk openly about what I like which is not wrong. I just kind of wait for it to be over with.
I do like the closeness. Touching and hugging and etc. I do love my husband very much.
Oh Mimi! I want to reach through the screen and hug you…cry for you…and pray with you. I totally understand where you are at. I was molested (well really raped) at the age of 7 and it would continue until I was 15. I lived with my abusers, a step brother and step father. And while I know I didn’t do anything wrong, I WAS the victim, I did need to repent for choices I made afterwards…I gave myself away too many times even after becoming a Christian at 16.. By the time I met my husband there wasn’t much of me left. And oh the shame I felt for so long. He had saved himself for me – I could not say the same – this added more shame. But oh how he loved me so unconditionally. We’ve been now for 30 years. Our sex life, well it’s been hard. I understand it when you wrote, “I feel dirty even having sex after being married for almost 19 years.” It did feel dirty and at times because other Christians would say a wife should “NEVER” deny her husband I would feel used and raped all over again and the shame was overbearing at times..
Mimi I share this just so you know I understand. I am now 50 and full healing as come in the last 12 years. I have been to counselors and read books and prayed for healing but for so long it seemed like I would forever be stuck. But I can tell you it will never just be over with. You have to work through it. You need to face what the abuse left you with…wrong thinking…lies about man, God, sex etc… I know everyone is different and what “worked” for me may not work for you. But you need to find a Biblical counselor, not a counselor who is a Christian or one who practices Christian counseling. There is a difference. A biblical counselor with take you to the cross, they will take you to the gospel, to Jesus and help you see the abuse though the eyes of God’s word. It only in our Jehovah Rapha (our Healer God) that true healing comes. If you can’t find one or feeling you’d rather not go or even if you do go I strongly recommend 2 books. Lord, Heal My Hurts by Kay Arthur. She walks you through a deep understanding of who our Healer God is. And On The Threshold of Hope by Diane Langberg she walks you through the healing process of sexual abuse to Christ, the Redeemer, who DOES heal our deep wounds. Both these books were life changing in my journey through healing.
Mimi I am praying for you. My heart is so burden for women who have walked this road and have not found healing yet. The church is so often silent and other believers don’t often understand the trauma of sexual sin/abuse in any form. It affects your mind, your body and your spirit. But our God, our Jehovah Rapha can and does healer us fully.
Thank you for that, Sharon!
I truly believe that blogs like this are one of the biggest ways in which God is working, and opening the eyes (mine especially!) to what so many people have, and are, going through. Growing up in a Christian environment most of my life, I’ve been in a bubble for far too long. 🙁
Yeah thanks Greg. A lot of people don’t even like to acknowledge that INCEST exists and is actually really more common that society likes to recognise. Well it does happen, and the effects are ravaging in many, many ways. And many of the fathers of children go to church and present as ‘good, respectable’ people. It is hurtful when people expect behavioural changes of others without taking the time to understand the heart and experiences of people, when they have been so deeply hurt. (I am guilty of this too myself.) Anyway God bles you all. Mimi I am so sorry to hear of your heartache. I have been to counselling for many years too, and there is a way to go, although by knowing Jesus and inviting him in to hurts etc, I have come a long way. God bless and help you truly.
Thanks for sharing this story Sheila. It’s powerful,clearly shows how wrong the world is when it says “it’s only physical’. It’s not…it cuts deep! Am glad this wonderful lady is walking the road to healing..so great of her to share her story.
Sheila, thanks so much for posting this, and a huge thanks to the lady who shared her powerful testimony! What a great reminder of 1 Corinthians 6:11 (NASB): “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
Until we take off our plastic masks as Christians, we’re only stifling God’s grace from others.
I do agree that living such a way is unhealthy and against god however your still sound like your blaming the victim. Your use if the YOU word bothers me alot.
I don’t believe most women who were abused do this as a way to be cruel to someone else as the op did. The motives are not the same.
As Kat pointed out so correctly here. You do what you know. You grow up with a skewed way of seeing sex and your relationship to others in that.
I won’t blame an abuse survivor and I don’t feel god would hold judgement either. And neither should we. Until you lived that life and walked in their shoes.
You have no right to condemn them.
Mimi,
I am a sexual abuse survivor. By the grace of God, I didn’t become a statistic. By all rights, I *should* have been on drugs, selling myself shamelessly as a prostitute, working in a strip joint. Nowhere in this woman’s sharing her story do I see anyone blaming for abuse. I see a woman who has understood that she has God’s grace and mercy despite her shameful past. I will personally tell you that I am 36. I went through years of giving myself away to man after man, trying to wrap myself up in finding love from any man who would have me, instead of finding love in the ONE who really did love me. After healing from God himself, I have a wonderfully intimate sex life with my husband. Are you still angry at your abuser? Because I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to live a life of anger and hurt any longer, and your past DOES NOT have to affect your life with your husband now. Sex is a GIFT from a Father in Heaven who loves you passionately and without abandon. The lie is that your life will never change, and you will never get over what someone did to you. That you can’t be made pure and holy again in God’s sight. You never stopped being pure and holy to Jesus. He only sees you through His blood, which makes you PERFECT in his sight. You are beautiful to Him. I had to give God that permission and allow Him to do some deep kind of heart surgery on me. A counselor couldn’t do it. A Christian counselor who PRAYED for me and kept me grounded in the truth of God’s word and a CHOICE made by me to allow and believe that God could heal my very broken and damaged heart is what changed my life forever. Praying for you, that every chain will be broken, and that the enemy lie’s cannot stand in your spirit any longer. You will know the truth, Mimi, and the truth will set you free! God is a God of love and of relationship. Sadly, there is so much “religion” in church these days. God loves you just as you are. You are not damaged or broken. You are whole, and you are beautiful to Him. That’s how much He loves you, Mimi.
Sharon… I am already a Christian.. Why do you feel I am not? Thank you for your kind reply. Made me smile and have me some hope! I am afraid to use a Christian counselor…I don’t want to be judged or made to feel shame again. I know not all if them are like that. But many are!
The last thing I need is judgement. Had so much if that my entire life.
I want healing and peace. I don’t want to be negative or focus on sins I never committed. Trust me… I have a tendency already to always take the blame. I am often the scapegoat and always seem to be apologizing when I shouldn’t.
And that needs to end. Thank you Sharon. I am glad god healed you. I won’t wish this in anyone. It’s awful.
Mimi, I’m just rereading your comment and Sharon’s comment, and nowhere does Sharon say that you’re not a Christian. Truly, Mimi, we all really do want to help you! But I feel like this morning you have “read” things into comments that just weren’t there. You felt that the poster who wrote the article was blaming abuse survivors–when she isn’t an abuse survivor and never mentioned abuse. You felt like I was blaming people who have fallen into sin–when all I ever said is that if you do go down that road it will make it worse. And honestly, Sharon never said anything negative about your faith.
Mimi, I really want to be gentle about this, and please hear me: I believe that you have been very, very hurt by Christians in the past. They have done horrible things to you–abuse, shame, making you feel awful.
But because of that, I wonder if you tend to see people judging you or condemning you when it just isn’t there? You’ve said that you’re afraid to go to a counselor because they make you feel shame, and I do understand that reluctance. Yet you also felt that several of us this morning were trying to make you feel shame, when nothing is farther from the case.
We truly want to see you healed. We do. We don’t blame you! Yet you read so much into what people say that isn’t there.
It’s as if the things that you have suffered have become “shame coloured glasses” that you wear, so that when people say things, even innocently, you see them through your broken prism.
And the problem is that no one else can change that for you. You need to be the one to decide to take off those glasses. And perhaps a starting point would be to go to a counselor, and keep repeating to yourself, over and over, “my counselor is not trying to shame me. My counselor wants me healed.” Because that really is true. People who go into biblical counseling do so because they want to see God work in someone’s life–not because they want to judge someone.
Part of coming through healing is to begin to trust others, and that means trying ever so hard not to read condemnation into what people are saying. Your trust has been horribly broken, but it can be restored. Yet I believe that it is restored through TRUTH, because Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and the Life. He IS the Truth.
What you are feeling, and what you are reading into what people are saying, are lies. I am not saying that you are bad to feel that, or that feelings are not legitimate; you’ve been hurt, and so you’ve been programmed to read into those things. But they are not real. And the only way to combat lies is with The Truth: to fill your mind with truth, and to practice reciting truth, over and over again, until it becomes second nature. YOU have to engage in the fight. YOU have to take up the weapons that God has given you to fight against the things that have been done to you, and YOU have to start fighting the lies with the Truth.
No one else can do that for you. A counselor can help you and guide you, and that’s where they are so helpful. But ultimately it must be you who fights back, and makes a decision of the will to believe truth.
So may I make a suggestion? Why not start today with two simple truths, and just meditate on these and recite them over and over and pray them. Whenever your mind is free over the next week, recite these to yourself. Put them up on post-it notes. And these are the two things that have come to my mind:
By His stripes we are healed. (meditate on the fact that Jesus took the shame. That Jesus took the pain. That Jesus covered everything so that we are new creations.
I was created to feel pleasure and joy. (Both of these things are true, in the sexual realm but also in other realms of our lives).
Just think about those things. Think of all that is tied up in them. And then start reciting the truth. Fill your mind with truth, rather than with shame, and perhaps those shame-coloured glasses will not be as dark!
Mimi, This comes from my heart, a heart of love and grace. I sat here and read you reply’s and I understand. For the longest time I saw the world, people, God through the eyes of abuse, of shame and of a victim. It’s easy to do, but it gives a skewed view of everything. No where in my post did I say you weren’t a believer, in fact it didn’t even cross my mind.
In your replies I can tell that you have a wrong view of God, who He is and what He has promised to do. I can say that because I have been there. God wants so much to heal you. He does not leave His children broken. But healing can be messy, it can be hard and there are things we must do. Look in the NT and read the stories of healing in most cases the one who needed healing had to do something. They had to “get up” or they had to go wash in a pool etc.. Could God just heal you without you doing anything? Of course, He’s God, but He doesn’t always do it that way. Walking through the journey of healing is hard work, you must press on even when it hurts, press in to God even when you don’t understand.
Sometimes it’s easy to stay where we are, we say we want healing, we say we are miserable and yet we don’t move toward that which is unknown. We stay in the prison of hurt because at least there it’s familiar. At least there we know what we are dealing with. But that is not freedom. Someone suggested Beth’s study Breaking Free…it’s another good study. One that helps you see the prison of hurt and shame you feel and have put yourself in and then she walks you to freedom in Christ.
Mimi you say you want to be healed but I must ask you, out of much love, do you want it enough to work through it? Do you want it enough to do whatever it takes in order to be healed? I would encourage you to find a counselor, I have never had one judge me, not ever…even the ones that I really got nothing from because it was more worldly method instead of biblical. Check out this website for Biblical counseling, I don’t know where you live but they have offices in several locations http://www.ccef.org/counseling-services or just do a google search on Biblical counseling and see what might be in your area.
Don’t believe for a moment that God does not want you healed, that He doesn’t want you to walk in freedom. Oh dear sister that is a lie straight from the pit of hell. The enemy wants you to stay where you are, he wants nothing more that to keep you locked up in a prison of shame…
Amen! Well said.
I echo that Amen, so wonderfully stated!
I just don’t understand why god has not healed me. Others apparently get healed but I am not. I am now 48 years old. My Abuse started when I was a toddler. I been praying and waiting a very very long time. His apparently does not heal everyone cause why I am not healed? I been seeking god since I was 13. Wondering why I never hear his voice and have healing like everyone else. I just don’t get it. And I am saved btw. So please don’t add insult to injury And state otherwise. I just must accept that I will never fully heal.
Hi Mimi,
This note was emailed to me for you by another commenter, but for some reason her system isn’t letting her leave a comment! So I’m just going to copy and paste:
Oh Mimi, the pain you are feeling seems so overwhelming. I have no experience with what you have been through, but my heart breaks for you. I’m so sorry for what you have gone through.
Have you ever done a Beth Moore Bible study? She has a study called Breaking Free that has brought so much healing to others in your situation. Here is a description about the study from Amazon:
“In Breaking Free, Beth Moore embarks on a study of selected passages from the Book of Isaiah, drawing several parallels between the captive Israelites and today’s Christians, in order to show how to make freedom in Christ a daily reality. Moore teaches readers to remove obstacles that hinder freedom by identifying spiritual strongholds in their lives and overcoming them through the truth of God’s Word—truth that will set us free.”
While the study is not only geared towards those with a history of sexual abuse, the author herself was abused in that way since before she can remember. This study came out of Beth’s quest for healing and freedom from the brokenness that came from her abuse.
If you email me your address, I would love to send it to you as a gift from one sister in Christ to another.
(Mimi, if you want to take her up on her offer, just say yes in response to this and I’ll send her your email address. I can see both of your email addresses, but I don’t want to make either of them public for obvious reasons).
Sheila, thank you so much for this post. Since finding your blog, and through yours, also to Hot, Holy, Humorous, I am just at the beginning stages of seeing sex as God sees it.
Mimi, my heart breaks for you, for myself, and for all the other women who are survivors of sexual abuse. I’m a three time survivor. I was sexually molested by two different men from between the ages of 9 to 12 and was raped again at 19. Because I had zero self esteem or self respect I slept with more men than I have fingers and toes combined.
May I suggest a change in the focus of your prayers? Instead of asking God to take the shame and pain away, ask that He show you, through His eyes, what sex is supposed to be like. Try making your prayers positives instead of negatives. My last negative prayer was while my husband was trying to pleasure me. I was screaming out in my mind that I wanted him to hurry up, get on and off and get it over with. I didn’t want to feel any pleasure; in fact, I didn’t want to feel anything. I wanted God to take away the sensations, I wanted Him to take away the feelings. I wanted him to take ME away. After spending some time reading through Sheila’s blog, I’ve started changing the focus of my prayers and it’s helping. I know I have a long way to go and I still need to pray several times away, but it is working for me and I hope it works for you, too. I’d like to share with you my prayer that maybe you can use as a sample for your own.
“Father, show me how sex is supposed to be through Your eyes. Show me that it’s meant to bond me to my husband physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Show me this is the sacred experience you designed it to be. In Jesus’ name.”
Try to stay away from the, “I don’t want,” and the “Please take away,” and instead. Every time my mind goes to the, “I hate sex” mentality I have to stop and begin praying like that again. It’s a slow process, but it’s beginning to work.
I hope this helps, and if it doesn’t I hope you find something that does.
Great word, Tracy!
To the woman who posted this, God bless you for sharing your heart and the truth of what God can do. Thank you for your encouragement to millions of women who will hear your story and be set free from their own pasts!
I can so relate to this post. My past is similar..not that I became a stripper, but I came very close to prostitution, and scarily didn’t see anything wrong with it! And no I was never abused..I grew up in a Christian home and had a close relationship with God from which I strayed. I chose everything I did knowingly, and never under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Now, married and with a family, and restored to my faith, I don’t know how to get rid of the images in my mind, how to connect with my husband. Sex is enjoyable, but purely physical. I’m ashamed to say it, but my husband could be replaced and I’d still physically enjoy, since there is no emotional connection or any other. We struggle in our marriage..and having sex doesn’t help, because it is just sex, not love..and from all I’ve read and heard, there’s a difference. Glad to read there is hope..just wish there was more help.
Sarah, I’m so glad that God rescued you out of that life, and I’m so glad that you’re building a marriage with your husband!
I know that it’s really difficult when sex has come to mean only physical, and not the spiritual and emotional. I’m in the middle of writing an ebook on how to overcome that, but in the meantime, my book 31 Days to Great Sex (it’s only $5) can walk you and your husband slowly through a voyage of discovery of how to rebuild that spiritual intimacy. And The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex also has an expanded section on exercises you can do to help recapture that intimacy. You are totally not alone, and many, many people deal with this!
I can related both to the original poster and to you, Sarah. I wasn’t a stripper or a prostitute, but I was a promiscuous young woman who happily had sex with men who took me out on expensive dates. I saw sex as a way to get what I wanted. Now, I want to grab the girl I was and tell her that she’s never going to find love that way, that she’s ruining herself for her future husband, that the attention isn’t worth it.
I’m now happily married, but sex became such a means to an end that it feels irrelevant now. We have sex very rarely, a few times a year. It doesn’t interest me, despite my deep feelings for the kind, tender, good man I married. I know I’m cheating him (and our marriage), but it’s hard to step out of old habits.
Oh, Theresa, I know it’s difficult! But please believe that God does want more for you (and for your husband), and that He does offer hope. It could be that you’ve just never experienced real intimacy during making love–it’s only been sex. And there really is so much more that’s possible. Just don’t give up. Fight hard for your marriage, because GOD wants you to have more!
I can SO relate! I was very pretty and used men and sex to feel powerful! I was still a Christian too! I also would go months at a time without having sex with my husband until about 7 months ago! The fact that I’m a horrible dancer is the only reason I was never a stripper. They don’t pay much for doing the Carlton, lol! I just want to let you know that I can relate. Oh, and I’m a homeschooling mom now too! I hope you live in TN. ;). You sound like the perfect best friend.
Sheila thank you for your ministry. I feel I must apologize I have been here many times and don’t comment then today I comment and it wasn’t to you! 🙂 Your blog is refreshing in a world that view’s sex and being a wife wrong and a church that so often remains silent. Thank you for the truth you speak.
Blessings dear one….
Thank you, Sharon! 🙂 And you should comment more often. Your comments are great! 🙂
Not sure if this is a good thing or not, but my husband and I have a very active sex life..as evidenced by the fact that we just had our 5th baby, the 4th in 5 years! It’s fun and physically pleasurable…but we could have sex and be in the middle of a fight and continue fighting afterword. Means nothing.. and it shows in our marriage in that we struggle with affection and respect.. I will look into those books Sheila. Perhaps this is a good time to hit the reset button, while I’m physically unable to be sexually active. And perhaps we’ll be able to learn to connect properly, the way its supposed to be like.
Sheila,
I have something about this article that I’d like to talk to you about (get council for) but I don’t want it public. How do I do this?
Such a wonderful post. My heartfelt thanks to the woman here who shared her story. Because of my premarital sexual past, I could especially relate to her desire to teach her that sex against God’s design “is far bigger than whether or not they get pregnant or catch an STD; it affects their hearts, minds, and souls.” Unfortunately, I’ve heard too many Christian teens say that THE reason to avoid sex outside of marriage is pregnancy outside marriage. We need to communicate how deeply these decisions can affect their lives and souls, and how God wants the best for them…including healing and renewal for those who made poor decisions in the past. God’s blessings to this anonymous writer in her marriage and motherhood!
Wow! is all I can say. I just learned of your blog today by way of seejamieblog on pinterest. Am I so glad that I clicked. I didn’t know that such great Godly writers, stories and bloggers/blogs were online in this crazy social networking world. Praise God for healing, grace, and ministries like your blog. THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS STORY. A mom of two girls, I have been blessed by this blog today!
I’m so confused sexually in my marriage. He was raped over and over for several years, starting when he was four years old. So he doesn’t want sex very much at all. We have been having sex once every two weeks, and that’s a lot more than it has been in the past. And he struggles with his sexual identity, and looked at porn for years and lied to me about it, and I don’t know if he still does now. If I bring it up it makes him feel ashamed for his past and makes him remember what happened to him as a child. So I don’t know what I should do. And then, I have had struggles with faithfulness when I was unstable with my mental illness, but now I hate all men and don’t want anything to do with them because of how they are, except I do want my husband, but he doesn’t seem to want me. And even with my husband, I have to force myself to not think about his struggles with porn in order to have desire. So I just bury my head in the sand. I have no idea what’s real and what’s a facade with my husband. And I feel shame over my struggles. So it’s this huge mess, and I feel better when I think of myself as being alone, since we’re living apart due to certain issues. I can never live with him again, and right now I’m glad; and he says he wants me to, but he rarely wants me around so I think he really doesn’t want me to. I really do love him, and I’ll stay with him as long as he wants me to. I know he loves me. But I don’t see how we can ever build a life together like this.
Thank you for this incredibly honest and amazing post!
Well, I feel like I could have written a lot of this post, having been what the world calls a “healthy” young woman with a varied sexual past. The sad thing was, with all the sex I had–I seldom had a ‘good time’ during it. I was so desperate for love, or what I thought it was, I just let sex happen. Oh, I knew all the right moves and words during the act (and that’s just what it was for me–an ‘act’. I was ‘on stage’ when I was in bed.), but genuine feelings? Real passion?
Nope.
Now, after 30 years, I am married to a wonderful man who loves me a lot, and I really love him. However, although I love to make love to him, I still have trouble being intimate. Ladies, make certain your daughters understand the hazards of casual sex.
Bible Babe