Stop Having Sex? I Did It -- For A Year

Audrey Bellis

Owner, The Bella Bambino

I gave up sex and dating. I gave it up just like I would give up chocolate for Lent. It was a very deliberate and conscious choice.

At the time, I had just turned 24, and was fresh off the heels of a broken engagement and sending out the "I'm sorry, I'm no longer getting married so here is your gift back" announcements. I was grieving, and I was lost.

I didn't realize I was on a downward spiral, I thought I was just rebounding. Everyone wanted to take me out for a drink, introduce me to their single friends, set me up and party my woes away. While these might have been well-meaning acts of support, they were not productive ways of coping for me. My behaviors led me to a dysfunctional rebound relationship, empty sex, drunken sex, quite a bit of guilty self-loathing and a vicious up and down cycle of convincing myself I was fine and the next day, not being able to get out of bed.

Rule of restoration

Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” Matthew 26:34 (NKJV)

Jesus saw it coming. He saw how Peter, His most devoted and dedicated disciple, would openly deny Him three times when the heat was turned up. For Peter, this was unthinkable. 

“There’s nobody more devoted to You than me! I’d die before doing something like that! No way will that ever happen!”

It did. And Peter was devastated. Sometimes we do things that even surprise ourselves, and this was one of those moments for Peter. He was ashamed and shaken to his core. Even after Christ revealed Himself as being resurrected from the dead, Peter’s guilt must have gnawed away at his heart. Their relationship had been wounded and required restoration.