Sexual Integrity and Healing

Healing of memories is a big deal and when I first started learning about it , I was a little bit skeptical , honestly , because I was like healing of memories , what does that mean ? Or inner healing prayer , what does that mean ? Well , it means this God , who is outside of time , is a healer .

He's a redeemer , a reclaimer of that which has lost , a restore of life where there's been death . And since he's outside of time , he is not constrained by the time that you and I are living in to bring healing to places in our lives that have been wounded .

So it often works like this Somewhere in our lives , multiple places in our lives , we've been wounded , and that's just a fact of life . It is a reality of living in a fallen world , so none of us are exempt from that .

Most often , the most formidable wounds we've experienced happened in our families growing up A mom or dad who left or who passed away , a broken marriage or a violent marriage , a dad or mom who had a temper and would lash out with accusation or condemnation at a son or daughter , calling son or daughter names . Or maybe it wasn't quite that overt .

Maybe it was the relationship between the mother and father , where the father would demean the mother and a little girl growing up at that home had a sense that it wasn't safe or wasn't good to be a woman , or where the mother would disrespect the father and a little boy growing up would have a sense that it's not good to be a man .

Maybe it was a parent who had an addiction of their own , a sexual addiction , an addiction to alcohol or drugs or work , and so a son or daughter grew up in that environment . So whatever the wound was and I'm mentioning family of origin it could also be with peers growing up .

A lot of people are bullied , called names by their kids , punched , hit , spat upon whatever growing up . Those are wounds that a kid experiences , and usually when a wound comes , as John Eldridge pointed out long ago , when a wound like that comes , the enemy is quick to come and offer an interpretation of that wound .

In other words , the enemy is quick to come and to accuse you when you are wounded , to offer you an accusation that fits the wound .

And so , where you felt hurt that your mother or father yelled at you after they had a rough day , the enemy comes with an accusation saying you're too much , you're annoying , you should know better , you're stupid , you're dumb , you're , you know , filling the blank . And so the wound comes .

The enemy comes with accusation to follow up and to reinforce the wound , which is followed by , and the purpose of his accusations are to bring about shame , that deep seated sense that you are bad or unworthy , you are uniquely defective , dirty or different from everybody else . Shame does not say you did something wrong , you made a mistake .

Shame says there's something inherently immutably wrong with you . It is just a part of who you are . And that cocktail of wound and accusation and shame leads a person towards all manner of unhealthy thinking , unhealthy beliefs about themselves and about relationships .

And oftentimes we find that men and women who deal with sexual integrity issues , repeated , compulsive sexual behaviors they want to stop and don't are actually trying to work out those old wounds , those old accusations and that persistent shame through their sexual acting out . Now , that was a lot . I threw it at you fast . So let me slow that down for a moment .

So let me just give an example that might help to express this . So for me growing up , my parents divorced when I was very young and I don't even remember . I have like maybe one or two kind of half memories of my parents living in the same house .

But my dad left when I was very , very little and I knew a little bit about the circumstances of his leaving . But I did grow up not with a conscious thought but with a relatively unconscious thought that if I was worth more he would have stuck around , he would have stayed . And there's something wrong with me .

It wasn't about my mom and my dad and their relationship . I knew that wasn't perfect , but somewhere inside my little kid brain I had the sense that if I was worth enough he would have stayed . And that's pretty typical for kids .

Kids pretty have a pretty narcissistic view of the world , like what happens around them , what they experience is because they did something . You know , either for good or for bad . That's just kind of a normal developmental reality for kids . Well , how does that set me up for healthy relationships with other people as I'm growing up ? It doesn't .

It sets me up to run away from unhealthy relationships . Now I'm not pointing a finger just at that one thing to say that that all resulted in my sexual sin .

But as a part of a larger kind of theme of some of these things in my life , at some point I discovered pornography , and the message that I kind of read in pornography was you are valuable , you are worthwhile . So I'm looking at these pictures of naked women who are , at least in that fictional sense , giving themselves to me , offering themselves to me .

The message that God has woven into nakedness and sex is you are worth all of me , I give you all of me , I want you because you are worth so much . And that spoke in a deep way to my heart .

Even as an adolescent , I wanted to be wanted like this , and so that old gap in my life and that old accusation , that deep sense of shame that I'm not worth that much , I'm not worth sticking around for Something that's deeply , immutably wrong with me , was , in a way , countered by the pornography that I was looking at , and so I began to go back to it for

more , and for more , and for more , and again . This was not a conscious decision on my part . These were not conscious thoughts . All I knew was that it felt good and looked good to me . But as I began to go through my own recovery journey , I was able to begin learning that I had these deep beliefs about myself and I needed healing of memories .

I needed the memories of my life healed , my past healed , so that I could stand up under that weight of the shame and stop bringing it to pornography in a futile attempt to reverse that old pain and shame . Okay , I'll give you another example , not for my life , but from a woman . I'll call her Meg .

So Meg grew up with a very distant father and an alcoholic mother who was verbally abusive . In her own pain about her inadequate divorce or , sorry , inadequate marriage , she took to drinking , did not know how to resolve that and started to lash out at her kids , including at Meg .

So Meg grew up with a distant father , who she loved and adored but who was not there very much , and an overbearing and verbally abusive mother . And so when Meg moved towards adolescence , she began finding herself attracted to other girls in her class . She found herself longing for their attention , longing for their affirmation , and she had a best friend .

And that friendship eventually turned sexual and Meg was kind of over the moon . She also had some sexual relationships with boys in her class , longing for that male affirmation .

And so , as Meg began doing her own recovery journey , she discovered that some of these wounds from her past , and the corresponding accusations and shame that came with it , resulted in her pursuing these sexual relationships , these romantic relationships with both girls and guys in her high school years and college years as a way to try to fill that deep sense that

she was not worth sticking around for or that she was worth verbally abusing . And again , none of this was conscious for Meg , but it was acting under the surface of her lives , of her life . So this is where the healing of memories comes in , and I said at the beginning that we'll talk about what healing of memories is .

So healing of memories is inviting Jesus , first of all , to expose , to bring up specific memories that need healing . Jesus , where is a specific memory that I have , a specific event in my life that needs your attention ? So I experienced a wound and an accusation that went with it and then began to carry some shame . So what's that ?

What's the specific memory where I could begin getting after these things ? So that's step number one is just inviting Jesus to bring his light .

Lord , give more light to my life to expose where there's a wound for my past that needs to be healed or where there's accusation I've been living under and shame I've been living under because of something from my past . Step number two is to invite Jesus into that memory . So , again , he is outside of time .

And so , jesus , where I encountered that pain , that wound back then , would you speak to that wound ? Or would you enter into that memory and show me where you were in it ? Or would you speak your words into that memory where I heard the words of my verbally abusive mother ? Would you speak your words into that moment ?

You might also invite Jesus's cross into that moment . So when Jesus died for not only our sins but the sins of the whole world , it meant he also died for the sins of your wounders .

And so if somebody wounded you with their sin , instead of you continuing to bear into your body , into your heart , into your memory , the weight of their sin , we invite Jesus's cross between us and the person who wounded us , so that he might bear all the wounds , all the words , all the accusations , all the pain that that person inflicted upon us .

And as he bears it on the cross , then we no longer have to . And here the help of somebody else would be really important .

Actually , throughout this process but in the healing of memories , having somebody else who's interceding with you and for you to have somebody else interceding for you , to bring the cross of Christ and the full power of his cross and resurrection between you and the person that wounded you would be really important .

Also , somebody who , with some discernment , who can listen and help discern whether or not the enemy has a foothold in this area of your life . So there's any way that the enemy's accusation came and you agreed with it and it's taken a foothold in your life . So when you help discern that and intercede for you , it would be tremendously helpful .

So , step number one Jesus , bring your light , show me where there's a wound that has a corresponding accusation and shame that comes with it . Secondly , inviting Jesus into that memory .

And then , third , once you've experienced , once you've waited and experienced , heard from the Lord there , seen the Lord there , and he's brought some healing the next part is to forgive your wounder , and that's a whole nother podcast , but really important step .

You want to forgive the person who wounded you , not because they deserve it , not because they've apologized for it , not because they know about it and understand it , but because they don't have what you need .

As much as we wish that everyone who wounded us could give back what they took , the reality is that they don't have it to give , and so , instead of continuing to stay chained to their wounding , we forgive them that we might be released from what they did , from the wound that they did , the words that they spoke , the curse that they spoke .

We might be released from them , and that part of us now is open to be reconnected with the one who loves us most .

And that leads us to the fourth and final step of the healing memories , which is to invite the Lord to bring his blessing . So he's born into himself the wound , the accusation , the shame , and now we invite him . Lord , would you bring your blessing ? I received curses back then , or I received wound and accusation back then .

Would you now bring your words of blessing ? Would you bring your blessing ? And again , having somebody who's praying with you here to listen , for the voice of the Lord is powerful , and oftentimes what we find that the Lord speaks in these moments is not just healing .

It is profoundly eye-opening and can actually shift our sense of ourselves and certainly shift our sense of our relationship with him . There's so many ways that this plays into our healing .

Trust me , it is so worth it , and I've zipped through this at way too fast a speed , but it just gives you a little bit of a framework and I would say , if you don't know anyone who is skilled at praying into the healing of memories , then reach out to one of our coaches at Regeneration .

We would love to pray with you , we'd love to walk with you through this process . It can be incredible , incredible help in your journey towards sexual integrity and sexual wholeness . Jesus , you know the things that have wounded us , you know how sin has harmed us and we pray , jesus , we thank you first of all for your cross we're .

You've borne not only our own sin , lord , but also the sins done against us . We pray that you would illumine what's harmed us , you would step in between us and our wonders , you would help us to forgive them and you would speak your new , life-giving blessing over our lives .

I pray that for each person listening , lord , I do so in the name of the Father , son , holy Spirit , amen .