Yesterday, upon finishing the blog entry, I took advantage of the quiet time I had and started watching a video series I was given by one of our pastors. The series addresses men who want to find sexual purity. It is much like a support group but it is designed to walk men through a process where they identify and own behaviors and then learn how to use accountability to find daily freedom from the habit of sexual sin. I have been interested in this topic for years. It is what brought me first to Celebrate Recovery. Now after 8 years of CR, I still see men who need the specificity of material designed just for them in this category. I listened to the first 70 minute DVD and took a test it said to take and spent the rest of the day with the consequences of this! The very first question of the exam was, “Were you ever sexually abused as a child? Yes or No”. It went downhill from there. Actually, it was hugely clarifying for me.
I needed to write the first paragraph so I could explain how God used yesterday to give me a much clearer meaning of intimacy. Perfect intimacy has no secrets. Instead, it has genuine trust and respect. As I was journaling all of this earlier this morning I realized too that all the fears I’ve had about intimacy begin to turn into anticipation rather than fear. Now, let me connect the first paragraph to this one (maybe you’ve already done so). Now that I’ve walked this far in the journey of Finding Freedom from my past, I realize how much I’ve walled off and how much God has needed to have me demolish these walls. I had some walls get demolished yesterday. One of the things clarified for me in the DVD was the difference between guilt and shame. In my therapy we dealt with both of these. I struggled with guilt but nothing like I struggled with shame. Shame owned me and I didn’t fully understand why. The speaker said that guilt is the sense of remorse. Shame, he said, comes from a much deeper part of us and we think we did what we did because of what and who we are. In other words, there is no way out. That is what I’d always thought about my past–it owned me. Even though I knew Rich’s sin was his, I also knew it possessed me too. It has been in the renewing of my mind that I’ve been able to dispose of this old belief. The speaker went on to say that God restores us through His word by the renewing of our mind–my belief system. This is exactly what He has been doing for me the past few years and took me another step forward yesterday by destroying a wall of “protection” that didn’t protect. It actually kept healthy living and believing out.
This intimate Father we have doesn’t want His kids confused about His work for us. I love Him for this! He really is wanting me fully healed and He is relentless in taking us (me) there if we (I) stay with Him and His process of healing.