Transcript:
That has such a common struggle for people that have been abused in the past because what’s happening is something God created as good has been corrupted in your life, and all you know or have experience is the corruption of it. So I have a great deal of sympathy for how hard that is to think of it as anything but corrupted. And here is where we need help. We need help outside ourselves that we would take what’s been corrupted in our lives and ask the Lord to show us how it was intended to be, that he would renew our minds and our hearts, and we would find what is good in it again.
I can’t imagine that happens quickly at all. That takes time. It often takes counseling and support and resources, and it also takes working together with your spouse, inviting your spouse into that struggle and helping them understand the ways in which it’s been corrupted for you. And even when you have a spouse that’s supportive, having the encouragement of a spouse who’s patient and gracious and compassionate, and helping you to renew what was once corrupted and make it a good thing again.
So my advice would be get help, get counseling. It would be be honest with your spouse and talk about the ways it has been corrupted so that they’re in it with you, they’re in the struggle with you, they understand your struggle. And then what feels really, really hard is even praying that the Lord would give them a new vision for the way God intended sex and intimacy to be in marriage, and begin moving in that direction.