This week’s message addresses the pain of being hurt, even devastated, by a misuse of sex. This is a real issue for so many people. Here, Shea shares how God brought healing to her life after being wounded by sex.
Most little girls dream of their princess moment when a knight in shining armor will come and sweep them away to their happily ever after. I don’t ever remember those dreams.
When I was 12, my sister had a party at our house while my parents were at work. At this party, I was raped by a man much older than me, in my own bedroom. That was my first ever sexual experience. I didn’t tell anyone about the rape for many years until I met my husband.
After losing my virginity in this way, I decided that I would never be worth much to anyone, so I allowed men to do whatever they pleased to me. Sex and rape were the same thing in my eyes, so I relived that night when I was 12, many times over. While I did not prostitute my body for money, I did for love and acceptance.
I gave my life to Christ and began living for Him when I was 18 years old. I still felt used, and had no idea how much I would struggle with godly sexuality until I got married.
God, in his grace, brought Todd into my life in 1995. He was different from anyone I had ever met. He cared about me, what was on the inside, and not what he could get from me.
After a year of dating, he asked me to marry him. I knew I needed to tell him about the rape. Somehow in my mind, I thought he wouldn’t want me anymore. He patiently sat with me, held me, and prayed for me through the eight hours it took to get the word “rape” out of my mouth. He didn’t judge me, he wasn’t repulsed by me, he just loved me. It was the first time in my life I can remember feeling like a real girl.
For the first three years of our marriage, sex was a struggle for me. I wanted to please him, but I thought it would never be pleasing to me. There were times when I cried through it without him ever knowing. I couldn’t watch abuse scenes on TV or talk about the abuse in my life with anyone, not even Todd.
The time came when we wanted to have children, and we couldn’t get pregnant. After going to the doctor and him telling us that we would never carry a child due to some problems I had, I knew I wasn’t healed emotionally or physically from the abuse, and I couldn’t hide it from him any longer.
In true Todd fashion, he walked through this with me, pointing me to God the whole way. We began to pray together, (yes we prayed about sex) and he did things to help me trust him, even though he had done nothing to lose that trust in the first place.
God began to heal me in ways I can’t describe. Not only did we get pregnant, but for the first time in my life, I enjoyed being intimate with my husband. As I let Him, God healed my emotional scars that ran deep. I learned that the past only holds power as long as I run from it!
If you need to talk to someone about your own story of being wounded by sex, please contact a Lifeline caregiver.