The Bible Verse No Guy Enjoys Reading

J. LEE GRADY

 

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Deuteronomy 23:1 is painful—but it shows us that God wants to heal the wounds of the masculine soul.

I’d never heard a sermon on Deuteronomy 23:1 until last month, when my Puerto Rican friend Luis Roig had the courage to read the text out loud to a group of men in Florida. When he did, one guy gasped and fell on the floor. Several others laughed nervously, and we all drew our knees together and groaned.

The Holman translation says it this way: “No man whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may enter the Lord’s assembly.”

Ouch!

Please pardon the graphic language, but older translations just aren’t clear. The King James Version says, “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.” That’s putting it mildly!

Who Defines Your Worth?

Gwen Smith

Today's Truth
"You are precious and honored in my sight…" (Isaiah 43:4a, NIV).

Friend to Friend
Years ago, I bought my daughter a really cute jacket at the mall. It was a hoodie made of a cuddly fabric with cream, lavender, and mint green horizontal stripes. The jacket zipped up in the front and was well crafted, stylish, and simply adorable.

When I bought it, I felt like the price on the tag was a fair one, so I gladly pulled out my wallet and paid the retail amount. I was a kid in a candy store on the way home - fully anticipating a shriek of happiness from my little bag-of-beans when I gave it to her.

Delightfully, I wasn't disappointed. Kennedy loved her new coat, and I was pleased with my purchase. Happy dances all around… until a week later, when I saw the same jacket in the same store at a greatly reduced price. Are you tensing up with me? Suddenly, I felt schnookered! Ripped off. Taken advantage of. As soon as I saw the red line on the price tag of the unsold coats, everything changed in my mind – Kennedy's jacket wasn't worth what I paid for it.

TRAPPED IN THE TIDE POOLS OF LIFE

by dianegates

The morning was bright, the tide low, and a gentle breeze stirred along the shoreline. Gulls strutted the water’s edge and my heart soared as patterns of foam danced up the sand while pelicans glided just above the sunlit waves.

I splashed through the pools of salt-water left along the beach from the receding tide. Some were slim and shallow. Others wide and deep. Various shapes and sizes. Each one cut off from the ocean, left to evaporate as the sun rose and the tide shrunk back to the sea.

A glance ahead revealed two shapes lying just inside the ridges of the next tidal pool—starfish—trapped from their retreat along the ocean’s floor. Their source of existence ebbed with each taunting ripple of the next swell. They would bake in the heat of the rising sun and drying sand.

Everyday Sexual Assault

Laura Bates

Founder of the Everyday Sexism Project

Posted: 03/09/2012 00:00

Once, I was walking down the street when a group of men came up behind me. I didn't turn around. There was plenty of room on the pavement for them to pass by. But they didn't. They stopped behind me and one, suddenly, roughly and completely out of the blue, grabbed my jeans-clad bottom from behind and squeezed, pushing his fingers forwards and upwards towards my crotch.

I'd like to say that I screamed; that I put him in his place there and then and articulately delivered a cutting speech that shamed him into apologising. I'd like to say that I said anything at all. But I didn't. I gasped, I froze, and I felt the blood rush to my face in mortification. Then I stood there, silently, as they walked away laughing.

The Everyday Sexism Project was designed to document instances of normalised, everyday sexism experienced by women worldwide to prove the enormous scale of the problem. But since it launched five months ago, we have received hundreds of reports of women being groped, grabbed, manhandled, slapped, tweaked, pinched, stroked and smacked in public, usually by complete strangers. The area of focus is almost always the breasts, the bottom or the thighs - sensitive, sexual, intimate regions of the body. And the tone of the reports usually mirrors my own experience almost exactly in that the victim describes an overwhelming sense of powerlessness, fear, shame and embarrassment:

Your Life Is Shaped by Your Thoughts

by Rick Warren “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” (Romans 12:2 NLT) You cannot become all God created you to be until you understand the five factors that influence your identity. The first two are chemistry (how you are made) and connections (your relationships). You are a product of the way God created you and of the relationships in your life.

The Manger

In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics based on biblical principles) in the public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. 


About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government-run program were in the orphanage. They relate the following story in their own words:

It was nearing the holiday season, 1994, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger.

Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. 

Commit to Clicking Away from Internet Porn

Whitney Hopler

Editor's Note: The following is a report on the practical applications of Tim Chester's recent book, Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free, (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

Pornography is all over the Internet. Even when people aren’t looking for porn, they can still encounter it unexpectedly because it’s so prevalent online. Many people in our culture give into porn’s temptations and experience pain as a result, and Christians aren’t immune to the problem. In fact, statistics show that about one in three Christians – men and women alike – reports being addicted to pornography.

If you’re one of them, you may feel as if you simply can’t give up your porn habit. But you can, with God’s help, because God’s grace is always greater than your sin. Here’s how you can click away from Internet porn, for good:

Embracing Femininity: Helping Gender Confused Girls

Chuck Colson

A little girl named Jessica could not remember a time when she did not have crushes on female teachers. She hid her feelings behind a tough, sarcastic persona. When she hit adolescence, Jessica insisted on being called “Jess,” cut her hair short, and hid her developing body under layers of boys’ clothing.

As Dr. Joseph Nicolosi writes in his book, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, Jessica was contemptuous of her mother, a delicate, feminine woman subject to depression. Jessica viewed her mother as weak, and had no intention of growing up to be like her.

But Jessica sincerely wanted to understand why she was so conflicted about accepting her gender, and began therapy with Nicolosi. Jessica eventually told him that for years, she had been molested by an uncle.

Big Love Isn't Better: Polygamy and Same-Sex Marriage

Chuck Colson

In March, the popular HBO series “Big Love” ended its five-year run. The show about a polygamist household in Utah is as close as the vast majority of Americans will ever get to polygamy.


Or maybe not.


Shockingly, polygamy is on the rise in the West, especially in Muslim enclaves. And there are 30-50 thousand polygamists in the U.S., the vast majority living in Mormon splinter groups.


And despite the rosy picture of polygamy painted by “Big Love,” Rose McDermott, who teaches at Brown University, will tell you that in the real world, polygamy is abusive and exploitative: Women in polygamous communities suffer “higher rates of HIV infection,” increased incidences of domestic violence, and even a higher likelihood of dying in childbirth.

ESCAPE FROM CAMP 14

Shin is the first person born and raised in a North Korean monstrous slave-labor prison to escape and tell his harrowing tale.


by Jeff Jacoby

Shin Dong-Hyuk grew up in North Korea's Camp 14, one of the monstrous slave-labor prison complexes in which the world's most tyrannical regime has crushed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, working them to death in conditions of excruciating brutality and degradation. Though the North Korean concentration camps have lasted far longer than their Soviet or Nazi counterparts did, Shin is the first person born and raised in one of them to have successfully escaped abroad. His story is told in journalist Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14, a heart-crushing reminder that man's inhumanity to man has no limit.

11 ways to prevent Facebook stalking

It's not just kids who have to protect themselves from abuse on Facebook and MySpace. These rules are just as crucial for adults. the last thing you want in your life is a stalker. Liesl Muller, a social media consultant, offers the following advice about safe social media use:

It is very important to keep your passwords safe and not to share them with anyone.

Don’t befriend just anyone. A rule of thumb is to only befriend people you know in real life. Use Facebook as an extension of your existing circle of friends.

What you share electronically stays in cyberspace forever, therefore don’t share or post anything you will not feel comfortable with. Ask yourself: will you be comfortable if your headmaster or a potential employer reads it? And potential employers do look at your Facebook page.

Understanding Postpartum Illness

WHAT IS POSTPARTUM ILLNESS? For those who have never been affected by Postpartum Illness, it is difficult to fully comprehend how the excitement and anticipation of a new birth can turn into depression. Why, when a new baby has miraculously been welcomed into a family, does an all-enveloping reaction sometimes set in and cause such devastation to the mother? Over 80% of new mothers experience a brief period of 'baby blues' immediately following the baby's arrival, a clinical depression that lasts several weeks or longer can signal a very real illness. In such cases, a birth can trigger a terrifying spectrum of symptoms which, if left untreated, can lead to tragic and even fatal consequences. Postpartum Illness can disable not only the woman, but her entire family as well. Families may fall apart, with stable homes being ripped apart in divorce; unfortunately, children often bear the brunt of this outcome. It is undisputed that if untreated, Postpartum Illness can lead to abuse, hospitalization, suicide and infanticide.

Healing From Your Sexual Past

Written by Barbara Wilson

I’ve heard every possible story. In addition to hearing the stories of the women who come into our bible study for sexual healing, people email me from all over the world. Just when I think I couldn’t possibly hear anything worse, someone shares the unimaginable with me. The evil that people do to one another must break and grieve God’s heart, the One who made us in His image, and created us precious in His sight. I know, because it desperately breaks my heart to hear the pain, humiliation and evil people have caused these precious women who share their hearts with me.

I’ve discovered after working with hundreds of women that regardless of the cause of their sexual wounding—whether from abuse, trauma as in rape, sex-trafficking or from their own choices, theyall experience shame. They all believe that somehow they were to blame. They feel that they caused it, they allowed it, they wanted it, they deserved it, they were stupid for falling for it—on and on the lies go.

It’s often the shame that keeps us from taking the first step towards healing. First, because we don’t want to share our story with anyone—for we’re sure others will confirm how we feel about ourselves. And second because the shame tells us that we’re not worthy of healing—not after all we’ve done, or allowed others to do to us. We believe that that is all we’re good for and that we’ll never deserve any better.

Doesn’t that sound hopeless? So sad? This is one of the biggest lies I hear, and it’s a lie from the pit of hell.

Regardless of what has happened to us, whether our sexuality was robbed from us, whether we were abused, used, or we willingly gave our virginity away, we are worth everything to God. We were worth our Savior’s sacrifice of His life, and regardless of how we’re treated, or what others say, God is the One who determines our worth.

It’s His opinion alone that matters. And He finds us loveable, worthy, precious and best of all, Hewants us. He wants to know us, love us, be with us, and share His life with us. Sometimes that’s hard to believe if everyone in our life has wanted us for their own selfish motives. But you can trust God. He will never hurt you, abuse you or betray you.

Alexa

One young woman, Alexa, had been gang raped by some boys she thought were friends. The one friend had invited her over to his place between classes, and there waiting were for her were the other guys. She was alone, vulnerable, without a chance of escape. I was horrified by her story. But it was the next words out of her mouth that I’ll never forget.

“It was all my fault,” she asserted, as if I must surely agree.

Taken aback, I replied, “How could gang-rape possibly be your fault?”

“Because,” she assumed, “I shouldn’t have been so stupid to trust him.”

Can you hear it? The shame, guilt, responsibility? She was angrier at herself than those who’d violated her. And because she believed she was to blame, she never told anyone for the next three years.

Healing from Trauma

For those of us who haven’t experienced sexual abuse, we find it hard to imagine that anyone who’s experienced sexual abuse as a child could believe that the abuse was their fault. But I hear it over and over. In fact the first step of healing for the sexual abuse victim is to recognize and acknowledge that the abuse was against their will, and not their fault regardless of how their bodies responded. They did not want it, no matter what their perpetrator said. They did not deserve it, they were not to blame. Often the beginning and hardest step of healing is transferring the blame they’ve carried, from themselves to the where it belongs—on him or her who exposed them to sex, and used them for their pleasure.

With current rates of sexual abuse by age 18 at one in three to four girls and one in six boys, I know that many of you have experienced this trauma. And my guess is that most of you have resisted God’s call to pursue healing—maybe because of the very lies I’ve mentioned here.  It’s time to say yes to God. It’s time to let Him heal your wounds and set you free from the lies surrounding your abuse.

You’ve suffered long enough. The shame and pain is keeping you stuck–spiritually, emotionally and physically from becoming all that God created you to be. There’s a world waiting to meet you…the real you. Not the one shrouded with lies and shame. But the you that only God knows. The you He died for so you could be free to love, live and serve with total abandon. I believe that although your heart’s desire is to help set others free, maybe God’s heart is to first set you free.  Isn’t it time?

 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 exerise 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.

http://powertochange.com/blogposts/2011/08/09/healing-from-your-sexual-past/

How Do I Know if I Need Healing?

Written by Barbara Wilson

Sometimes we can feel a certain way for so long that it starts to feel normal, comfortable even. It becomes so familiar that we stuff down that nagging thought that we should do something about our struggles. The process of healing can seem scarier than what we’re experiencing now.

I met a woman at a retreat who began to share with me that her abuse at 10 years old was surfacing again now that she was 40. Despite her efforts to will it away year after year by stuffing away the memories and emotions, instead it had grown to a frenzy of fear, shame and pain. Even worse, it was impacting the intimacy she longed to enjoy with her husband. She agreed that she needed to ‘deal’ with it, but in order to do that, she would need to bring the past into the open and that was just too scary.

I assured her of two things…the same two things I suggest to you. First: there is hope for healing. She can be free of the impact of the abuse. Not the memories, but the haunting control the memories were having on her life. Second, it was not going away on its own. Until she took the steps necessary to allow for healing, every morning for the rest of her life she’d wake up longing for peace from its torment.

So how do you know if your sexual past is still hurting you today? This list describes some of the ways that your abuse could still be impacting your day to day life:

• You’re having trouble functioning at home or work
• You’re suffering from severe fear, anxiety or depression
• You’re unable to form close, satisfying relationships
• You’re experiencing terrifying memories, nightmares, or flashbacks
• You’re avoiding more and more things that remind you of the abuse or trauma
• You’re feeling emotionally numb and disconnected from others
• You’re using alcohol or drugs to feel better, or to be able to be intimate with your spouse
• You’re not enjoying intimacy with your spouse, you feel like there should be more .

gotquestions http://powertochange.com/family-life-canada/need-healing/

Why Do I Struggle with Sexual Intimacy?

Written by Barbara Wilson

There’s another way your abuse could be impacting you and that’s in your enjoyment and desire for sex with your spouse. 

In addition to the ways sexual abuse damages our bodies, spirits and emotions, sexual abuse also damages our view of sex. When we’ve been used for others’ sexual pleasure the experience becomes associated with a negative view of sex.

One of the most confusing things for the sexual abuse victim is how their bodies responded during the abuse. How can something that feels scary, wrong and shameful also feel so good? Often a strategic pedophile grooms his victim by awakening their sexual desire making them a more willing, pliable participant. 

Now something that God designed for a holy, precious union between a husband and a wife has been seared on the young person’s brain as something shameful, dirty, and painful.

Then they get married to the person of their dreams. They’re madly in love. They want to have sex with this person; except, when their sexual desire is aroused, the unexpected happens. The old familiar feelings of shame, disgust and the sense that this is wrong squelches their desire and causes them to shrink back from the loving touch of their spouse. Or if their abuse was violent causing fear and feelings of helplessness, those same emotions will arise during sexual intimacy, even though this is a safe person. 

You see, sexual abuse not only robs a child of their childhood, but also steals from their future. The result is an emotional and physical withdrawal on the part of the sexual abuse victim fracturing the marriage union at its foundation.

If this is you, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for all that’s been robbed from you–your yesterday and your today. There is hope for you. It no longer has to rob you of your future. You can choose today to break its hold on you, to heal from the pain and shame to love and live in freedom and wholeness.

I can hear some of you saying to yourself, “But I’ve done all the counseling…I’ve tried everything I can think of, and nothing has worked.” You may not like my answer, but I’m going to encourage you to not give up. Don’t give up. 

Healing is a journey, a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. Along with the support of a professional counselor I encourage you to try the steps of healing offered – “How to Heal from Your Sexual Past”. I’ve seen God transform and heal the lives of hundreds of women as they’ve brought their hurts and pain to Him.

There is hope for healing. God can heal anyone.  He can heal anything. He’s done it for me, and countless others. And He wants to do it for you.

gotquestions  http://powertochange.com/family/struggle-with-sexual-intimacy/