brokenness

Sexual Addiction: Two Sides of the Coin

Sometimes there is no script for the things that happen to us in life. We don’t know what to do, so we try to figure it out on our own and just cope. Many times the way that we cope with life events leads us into addictions or into a relationship with an addict.

Addictions happen when we try to numb the pain in our life. We become addicted to the few moments of relief from the pain, and continue to seek out the thing or person that gave us that relief.

Addiction means – the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice. The Latin stem of the word actually means a giving over; to surrender. (dictionary.com)

It is surrendering to the darkness in our life.

Addiction of any kind operates in darkness and fills us with shame, but sexual addiction seems to be controlled by it. Shame is the voice that whispers mean things because it doesn’t want us to come out of the dark. It is a deadly fungus that grows stronger in silence and fear. It covers us like a raincoat so that we can’t feel God’s love raining down on us. It convinces us that hope, joy, forgiveness, and peace are great ideas – for everyone except us.

But here’s the truth about shame. It cannot survive in the light. It will threaten, howl, whine and beg us to stay cowered down in the darkness. But once we step into the light and share our story with others, its death grip begins to loosen.

Out in the light we can hear truth, we can feel God’s love, we can experience compassion from others who are also struggling. We can see that change is possible.

Fighting for hope often feels impossible when addiction is involved, no matter which side of the coin we are on. The truth is the more we fight for hope, the more warrior-like we become.

Hope Warriors push against the darkness, yelling “You will not win!” into the hopelessness that hangs over us like a fog. Hope Warriors let loose that war cry “What you meant for evil, God will use for good!”

Hope Warriors know that whatever is going on right now as you read this, the last chapter has not been written. There is still hope and it is worth fighting for.

Hope begins growing when we realize that the ways we’ve coped and acted all these years are not helping us. It continues to grow as we discover different tools and resources that help us. I want to share two resources with you today.

Forest Benedict writes to men and women stuck in sexual addiction in his book, Life After Lust.

He offers hope and practical direction as he shares his own story of addiction and recovery. He is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and certified Sexual Addiction Treatment Provider (SATP-C) living in Fresno, CA.

Forest shares the first chapter of his book here.

It is available in digital or paperback through Amazon. Click here to order.

Intimate Treason by Claudia Black, PHD and Cara Tripodi, LCSW is written to women and men who are partners of sex addicts.

“Those who act out sexually – whether through pornography, cybersex, prostitution, voyeurism, and/or multiple affairs – leave their partners reeling in rage, incredible shame, and isolation. In this taboo-shattering and practical guidebook, partners affected by sex addiction can learn to develop healthy boundaries and make positive changes in their lives. The skills-building exercises presented are designed to help partners better understand the disease of addiction and how it is affecting their relationship. Intimate Treason provides a path to healing that gives voice to partners’ truth as they travel on their own journey of recovery.” (summary on back cover)

Intimate Treason is also available through Amazon. Click here to order.

Sexual addiction is like a monster tornado swirling in the middle of a relationship. Although both partners are experiencing the harmful wind and hurling debris, they are each experiencing the tornado in completely different ways. If you or someone you love have been impacted by sexual addiction on either side of the coin, these resources could provide the first step on the road to recovery. Silencing shame and walking in the light takes courage and tenacity, and it brings out the Hope Warrior in us.

Hope is worth fighting for!

Both of these resources are available on Amazon. The links I’ve provided are Amazon Affiliate links, which doesn’t change the price of the resources, but it helps me as an Amazon Affiliate.

I’m drinking out of my favorite mug today and being reminded of brokenness.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t happy when my mug broke, but now I love it because it reminds me that our brokenness doesn’t disqualify us from fighting for hope. In fact, fighting for hope in the midst of our brokenness is what makes us Hope Warriors.

Sometimes our brokenness helps us connect with others who are struggling.

Sometimes our brokenness reminds us of our need for God. Sometimes He brings beauty out of our brokenness.

But always, always, we can be awesome, broken, and brave.

When There Is No Script: Recap

Coffee by Jennifer Pendleton at Bricks, French Camp, MS

I would love to sit down with you as you read this. I would love to visit over a leisurely cup of coffee and hear about the parts of your life that have no script. The parts that leave you feeling helpless and hopeless. The parts that make you say, “What am I supposed to do now?”

I would tell you about the situations in my life where I’ve slammed into brick walls, hurt, confused and wishing I had a script to follow, a map out of the darkness, a way to stop the pain.

As the steam rises from our coffee cups, we can remind each other that the brokenness of this world will knock on our front door, no matter how much protection we think we have wrapped around our life. There’s no bubble wrap for life.

And that is where the fight for hope begins. Because when there is no script, we get to write our own lines. We become Hope Warriors. And we just may find the badass hiding inside us as well.

When There Is No Script has been about finding our footing in the darkness, asking questions about the journey, and meeting brave Hope Warriors along the way. We’ve looked at questions like:

Why fight for hope?

What is hope?

What does fighting for hope look like?

What is a hope warrior?

What is brokenness?

Sprinkled among these posts, I’ve had the honor of sharing stories of Hope Warriors – people who have decided that the struggle will not define them, and the darkness will not win.

Heather Hollander wrote about the reality of having hope when the world is filled with suffering and tragedy in her post Do The Next Thing.

Tara Dickson shared about her fight for hope in the midst of losing her husband to brain cancer in Beauty in Sorrow.

Becky Spies shared how God beautifully redeemed the broken and hurting places in her life.

Linsey Ewing wrote a courageous post about becoming a Hope Warrior and her journey with Bipolar Disorder.

Tammy Gonzalez shared a piece of her story that reminds us of the power of words – the negative ones we speak to ourselves and the life-giving ones we receive from others.

Natalie Ogbourne wrote about her fight for hope in the midst of discouragement and despair in Standing Against the Waves.

These stories are so important. It took great courage for these ladies to write about their fight for hope and it gives courage to us, the readers of their stories. Because even if our struggles don’t look the same, our needs are the same. We need to know that we will see the beauty of redemption and that the fight will have been worth it.

The darkness doesn’t last, but the strength that comes from fighting does.

Keep fighting for hope, my friend.

You are worth it.

What Is Brokenness?

As I’ve put thoughts to paper and shoes on the idea of fighting for hope, I’ve described Hope Warriors in this way:

“Hope warriors are people who know their own brokenness, who aren’t afraid of the brokenness they see in others. They are people who say ‘I am with you. You are not alone.’”

What in the world is brokenness and what does it have to do with being a warrior? Warriors are brave and fierce and broken things should be fixed.

Right?

When things are broken, yes. Bring on the duct tape and the superglue. But when people are broken, it is a different matter altogether.

Brokenness is messy and scary…. and beautiful. It takes courage and ferocity and tenacity to deal with our own brokenness. Brokenness is something I couldn’t describe until I saw it lived out in the lives of Hope Warriors around me. And I wanted what they had.

To me, brokenness is seeing ourselves for who we truly are and accepting our story for what it is. It is looking at all the things, the ingredients, that make up our life – things that happened to us, things that we did to others, all the success, failures, and regrets. It is looking at ourselves honestly.

And that takes courage.

To know our own brokenness means that we stop running from ourselves and our story. It means that we look ourselves in the eye and see us for who and what we really are. None of us are as put together or confident as we would like people to think. On the flip side, we are also not as worthless as we’ve made ourselves believe.

Brokenness is bringing these two misconceptions into the light so that we can see ourselves for who we truly are, we can see our story for what it truly is, and begin to live. Once we stop running from our story, we can begin to write the next chapters of our story with purpose.

We don’t face our brokenness alone. Our brokenness is one reason God came to be with us in this world. Jesus was sent to “bind up the brokenhearted.” (Isaiah 61:1) He left the perfection of heaven to be near to us in our brokenness (Psalm 34:18), and to heal us (Psalm 147:3)

The Hebrew word for broken in these verses shabar, which means to break, crush, destroy.

So we could read it like this:
The Lord is near to those whose heart has been broken.
He was sent to heal those who hearts have been crushed.
He heals those whose hearts have been destroyed.

The word shabar also has the meaning “to bring to the birth.” I love this meaning because when our hearts are crushed, it gives room for the birth of something new. The birth of realizing our need for Christ, the birth of clear sight, the birth of a new direction for our life.

So, the crushing gives way to something beautiful.

The crushing itself is not pretty, or graceful or easy. But we don’t have to fear it. We can see it for what it is, and then let it give birth to something new in our lives. Because sometimes the hardest, most ugliest things end up being fertilizer for the most beautiful.

And as we grow more comfortable with our own brokenness, we can be gentle with the brokenness in others, and reach out to them saying “You are not alone in this.”

Brokenness is messy and scary, beautiful and brave…just like you.

Broken Places

When we are sitting in the darkness with our unanswered prayers, our unfulfilled dreams, and the ache of empty places in our heart it is easy to lose hope. It is easy to believe that things will never change. It is easy to believe that God doesn’t see, doesn’t hear, and doesn’t even care.

The truth is God does see. He does hear our prayers. He does care.

He gathers our tears in His bottle (Psalm 56:8), He is for us (Psalm 56:9), and He works in the broken places to answer the deepest cries of our heart.

I’m so excited to have Becky Spies as my guest today. Becky shares how God beautifully redeemed the broken and hurting places in her life in her post That Time I Got A Letter From God.

You can connect with Becky at her blog girl, redeemed at beckypricespies.com

We Were Made For Intimacy

We were created to know and be known by God. We were also created to know and be known by others.

Our hearts crave this.

And yet it is terrifying to open ourselves up to be known or to really know another person. We were created for intimacy, and yet intimacy is difficult. We are broken people in a very broken world.

Everyone struggles with feelings of alienation and isolation, whether or not we were raised with loads of siblings and very attentive parents…Sin has wrought devastation and isolation in all our lives. Our experience of sin, our own and other’s against us, has brought separation and alienation to all of us. This separation and alienation originates in our broken relationship with God and flows our from there into broken relationships with one another and even with the created world. No matter how popular we might be, none of us have ever experienced deep unity or authentic union with another. Since the day that our forefather and mother were exiled out of the garden of Eden, we’ve been lost, trying to get back in, trying to find oneness with each other and the Lord, trying to find communion, our way home. We’ve been trying to be found. – Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, Found In Him

My friend, Sara Littlejohn, wrote Maybe We Were Meant To Limp: How to Address Brokenness and I wanted to share it with you today. The way toward authentic relationships, where we are really known, is to lean in through the brokenness.

I’d love to know your thoughts about limping, brokenness, and being known.