So I have had a “calling” on my heart for a little over a
year now. I’ve thrown myself into this shame, healing, and hope topic and as it
develops this one issue in the midst of those subjects keeps coming up. Sex.
Did you cringe? I have avoided this post as if it was Ebola. Avoided it out of fear, but also because it’s
deeply personal. But after some prayers and encouragement (and more prayers,
and a couple of kicks in the butt) I am going to talk about sex today. Specifically
I am going to discuss the shame that comes for sexual sin. So if this topic makes you uncomfortable, or
if you are related to me and don’t want to hear me discuss this topic, then go
ahead and exit out.
Imagine with me a story that may sound familiar to you.
Jesus is sitting at a dinner party that the Pharisee Simon is hosting. A woman
was in the room, standing in the background. We don’t know much about her
story, but I think we can probably guess. She has lived her recent years in a
shame spiral, one man after another, promising her love and comfort only to
leave her feeling lonely and destroyed. She brushes off the hurt and shoves the
heartache under a rug, only to continue the cycle, until this last time. This
time, she’s had enough. She heard Jesus was going to be at this house for
dinner and knows that these are often open to the public, so she quietly sneaks
in the back. Just being in the same room with Jesus suffocates her. She’s heard
his stories of healing, and she wants that same healing. “He raised a man from
the dead, I’m sure he can erase my memories of my past.” She begins to weep at
he thought of healing. She comes closer, hesitantly. Everyone here seems so
clean, she’s clean outwardly, she made sure of that, but she can tell that
everyone is looking at her like she doesn’t belong. She feels as if they can
see every sin in her. Closer and closer she comes, her legs feel like Jello and
her brain is static noise. She bows down at Jesus’ feet and her strength
releases from her in a form of heavy weeping. She’s crying on his feet, how
embarrassing. Everyone is looking, but she doesn’t care anymore. How long was
she crying at his feet? An hour, two minutes? It didn’t matter; it felt right
so she stayed. She poured out the most expensive bottle of perfume, a gift from
the last man she had been with, on his feet and mixed the oil and tears with
her hair. This man deserved more than this, but it is all she had. She laid out
every thing she had left for the hope of healing. She heard snickering and then
was abruptly interrupted by the man named Simon. She hears him talking
disgusted to Jesus about her actions. Jesus asked Simon a weird question about
money and debts being forgiven and Simon states that the man with the bigger
debt would have more gratitude for the Lord and that oddly made sense to her.
He then grabs her chin lightly in his hand and pulls her attention to his eyes.
He speaks to her with kindness, like she had never experienced before and tells
her the words she has longed to hear for what feels like eternity, “Beautiful,
sweet daughter, your sins, your shame, your past it has been forgiven. You are
forgiven. Your faith has saved you, go in peace.” She gets up and hugs him
deeply, walks away, forever changed. (Luke 7:36-50)
After she leaves that night we don’t know what happens to
her. Actually, we rarely know what happens to anyone after these huge
encounters with Jesus. We can make some guesses though, can’t we,
based on our own stories? I can guarantee you that this woman still struggled
with her sexuality and sin. Maybe not the physical act of sex but from the
shame attached to it. How can I be so sure that she still struggled? Because, I
too have been at the feet of Jesus in my sexual shame pouring every ounce of me
on his feet, not feeling worthy. I’ve been there, as I’m sure many of us all
have been with one sin or another.
I can stand up and talk about and look at my past with
objectivity now, but the battle of the shame creeps up on me daily. I’ve
squandered the one temple God has entrusted me with and have wrecked havoc on
my ideas of relational intimacy. Here is some good news to combat those
thoughts, finding forgiveness for our sexual sin is less about reclaiming the
state of our body, but about restoring the state of our hearts. We can’t un-see
or undo the sins we have committed but we can find forgiveness from our sins
and move forward.
Forgiveness and healing are the only ways we will ever feel
whole.
The first step in finding healing is confession and
repentance. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” This may
be difficult to do, because we will be taking inventory and stock of our “junk”
we’ve shoved under the rug. Brene Brown says that shame can only live in the dark,
and in order to defeat the spiral shame sends us down we have to bring our
shame to the surface of the light. We have to confess and repent.
The next step, I found to be the most difficult,
accepting and believing in the renewal and healing the Lord is providing. In 2
Corinthians 5:17 Paul writes, “if we are in Christ, we become a new creation,
the old is gone and the new is here!” If we can’t believe in our on healing and
triumph, it won’t happen, we have to believe that God has forgiven us and is creating
in us a new heart. We can’t keep looking back on our past and feel defeated, we
have to forgive ourselves for our actions and forgive the actions of others
(which doesn’t mean rekindling an unhealthy relationship).
One area of self-forgiveness I see in my life and the lives
of other women I work with is that we don’t feel worthy of more than, “cheap sex.”
And here’s a news flash if sex happened outside the marriage it’s cheap. That
doesn’t discount the feelings you had in the relationship, you might have
really been in love, or maybe not, but the act of sex outside of marriage is
cheap sex. It’s going to be difficult not to look back and point fingers and
attribute unworthiness to our lives, but we have to look forward and hold on. We
are worthy of full, intimate relationships with God and our spouse. Getting rid
of the third party, shame, means we are going to have to lean into the idea
that healing might be scary, but it will be worth it. “Forget the former
things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs
up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in
the wasteland.” Isaiah 43: 18
The woman from the beginning is not the only woman with a
sinful past that Christ uses to glorify his Kingdom.
- Mary Magdalene-A former prostitute and she was one of the first ones to see Jesus after his death!
- The woman to be stoned- She was caught in the midst of adultery, Jesus used her to share his message of forgiveness.
- Woman at the well- Had five husbands and was living with a man she wasn't married to and Jesus saw past her shame to bring the Good News to Samaria
- And me... A former romance-oholic, sharing about my sin and shame in the hopes the message of God's grace and healing reaches someone.
Christ didn’t die for us because we were the worst of the
worst or because our sin was dirtier than others, he died for us because he
deemed us worthy. He took our shame upon himself. He turned our ashes into
beauty.
