Sexual Immorality

When God calls you, respond. (If you don't believe in God, spiritual matters at play here on earth, or don't want to hear about sexual assault - please don't read)

What do we consider sexually immoral? Different people, with different experiences and from different cultures would give you many answers. For God, and therefore for me, it's any sexual act outside of God's original design and container for it. God originated sex.

He created it as a divine act and a powerful tool for the expression of deep intimacy and love.

But what have we turned it into?

When I reflect, it has become something vile and vulgar here on earth. If we believe that sex is an expression of love, and that love is selfless -- the main objective should not be to fulfill our own fantasies and gain pleasure using somebody or something else as our tool for release.

We've mishandled this big time.

My first sexual encounter met me in the form of a family figure. Unrelated by blood, but in familial proximity. Old with grey hair, wrinkly and sly. Other than constantly asking uncomfortable questions like if I'd "had a boyfriend yet" or kissed a boy before, he seemed harmless. Harmless enough to watch me and my brothers without the presence of another adult. For a while, it seemed safe.

But at around 8, or 9 or 10 (forgive me for not remembering) -- he took a new interest in me. One that unbeknownst to me and any of my other family members had been brewing for a while. What I know now to be an unnatural desire, overcame his thoughts, hands, and actions beyond usual self-control. He had an urge to feel me in a way that should have never crossed his mind. But when he got the opportunity, sin played out. My body became a playground for his hands for what felt like hours, at the time (forgive me for not remembering).

I reflect on sexual desires and encounters that ensued shortly afterward. Lips of cousins, groped by other men (family and school boys alike), beginning to physically 'feel' a subtle sexual appetite arise within me that I didn't even have language for yet, becoming both prey and in pursuit. I was still so innocent that I thought real sex involved rubbing stomach-to-stomach, kissing, and a baby being produced from that interaction alone. So this was unnatural. Not planted by God.

What was planted? How did sex start becoming so distorted for me?

Middle school was around the corner, and the match was already lit. Bring in the pornography and cue the addiction.

You're telling me the feelings I have "down there" can be RELEASED if I watch this and touch here? Okay. Having sex with moving bodies on a screen, my hand, or an item? All permissible.

But how far would I go for a release? Would I feed this appetite every time it rose up? How many times could I go -- should there be a limit? Are two bodies enough anymore?

I'm alone so I'm not hurting anyone. I'm just releasing the desire so it'll go away.

But why did everything I did sexually feel perverted, forbidden, and shameful? Even when I thought I was doing it in my own version of "the right way?"

I thought releasing it would relieve the pressure, and the desire, and make me feel better. So why did I feel so unfulfilled?

Cue college and the loss of my virginity. But even with one partner, God still couldn't bless what I decided to do outside of his original intent.

The other day I chose to forgive what happened that day at my "playground", and ultimately him.

If you believe in the spiritual, the battle between light and darkness, then you agree that something bigger was at play in my story. Something operating behind the scenes when the wrinkly hand visited the playground that day. Something unnatural.

I am not suggesting he was possessed. I'm explaining that he gave into unnatural desires from a source that was clearly not of God. I wondered what led him down such a path.

I looked back at all the unnatural and not of God ways I'd involved myself in sexually. I wondered if he too got tired of two bodies on his screen, used objects hands or people to satisfy his need for release, or if he left his sexual encounter with me that day shameful yet still unfulfilled. Ready to have another go.

I'm starting to look at it all the same, just how God sees our sins. Sexual immorality: porn, sexual acts outside of marriage, and molestation are all alike.

Planted by the same spirit, just different ways of manifesting itself -- and in dire hope for you to take it as far from God's original intent as possible.

Anytime we try to manage sin we are only hurting and tricking ourselves by falling into deception. Sin isn't something to be managed, it's meant to be avoided. The enemy loves finding a foothold in our lives to distort something God intended for our benefit.

Sexual trauma, then my own agreement with the desire led me to unnatural ways (anything outside of God's design) of fulfillment.

Coming out of it all, I forgive him because God allowed me to see it differently. I can finally breathe. I can finally pursue my call to help other children in these situations.

Not because I am seeking revenge, and not because I'm trying to heal myself by saving others. But because I went through, I fell short in my sexual walk, and forgave for something that should have never been planted in me to begin with. I feel fully cycled now.

God can finally use me because I surrendered the seed, and he uprooted everything that took place after. I am made new (Isaiah 43:19).

And he will use it all for his good (Romans 8:28), and the saving of many lives.