Orthodox Jew talks birth control – but what about purity?
Birth control is not a woman’s responsibility. Unfortunately, at this point in time, the pill version of birth control — and, according to many rabbis, one of the only halachically acceptable versions of contraceptive — is available for women only. But that doesn’t make fertility a woman’s-only issue. I would be the one who would get pregnant, but it would be our child. Ultimately I’m the one swallowing the pill, but he can and should be just as responsible for reminding me to take it.
Leading up to marriage, this thought didn’t occur to me. I simply added the pill to my daily regimen of meds, and took it on time as often as I could remember. The pill was mine; it didn’t even cross my mind that Jeremy would take it on as an equal responsibility….
Unfortunately, the fact that the contraceptive is usually taken by the woman — at least when it’s not a condom, which for Modern Orthodox women it usually can’t be — means that the entire responsibility of birth control often falls to the woman. That might make sense when the woman is not in a committed relationship, when she might actually end up being solely responsible for raising any resultant child, but in a marriage, birth control should be equally shared by both spouses, as much as that’s possible. The child belongs to both, why not the responsibility for birth control?
~ Simi Lichtman (pictured above, with husband Jeremy), seemingly concerned that Orthodox Jewish women use “lawful” birth control but not so worried about “unlawful” sex outside of marriage, The Jewish Daily Forward, September 7
The Orthodox Jewish beliefs on observing personal sexual purity as laid out by the halakha are listed here.
[Photo via forward.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
This is the basic problem of our age: the muddle of the modern mind.
Simi and Jeremy are a beautiful young couple. They are trying to be good; they want to be good. But they don’t know what is good from what is evil.
So she sees contraception as something good, because it provides some control and convenience to her. She does not realize that using contraception before marriage led her into irresponsible sexual relationships. She does not know how that history will impair her ability to bond with her husband and live faithfully for him. She does not know how her body and emotional connection toward him will change when she withdraws from the hormones, hoping to conceive a child. She does not know about the risk of aggressive breast cancer that comes with early use of contraception.
All she knows is that her rabbis said that oral contraception was legal according to Jewish purity law, and so it must be good.
Look, mental gymnastics!
I just had this thought that no contraception ensures purity. What is that Jewish purity law proposing? What I want to know is whether this law would consider a young lady deflowered by a partner wearing a condom still pure?, which BTW speaks to the “unlawful” sex outside of marriage issue that Simi is not so worried about (as long as he wears a condom I guess).
What floored me about this is that in referring to “Modern Orthodox women” who are not in committed relationships using contraceptives, she has decided that one part of the halakha is important (basically, the no condoms part), and another part (the stringent rules about sexual purity – which obviously should be adhered to if a woman is not married) is completely ignored.
I guess being “modern” doesn’t make you consistent.
I interpreted the article to say that she started the Pill in the time leading up to marriage, maybe the last month or two before the wedding, so that its effects would have kicked in by the wedding night. Nowhere in the article does it say that they were sexually active.
If people say they are making a concerted effort to adhere to religious sexual mores, I think we ought to give them the benefit of the doubt, and not automatically assume they are sleeping together.
Kel- your response makes my question irrelevant but I still wonder about the sex outside of marriage? Obviously if a guy wore a condom, the deflowering part would not worry Simi.
Of course they were sleeping together Melissa!!!
By the way, I never inferred that the writer and her fiance weren’t waiting until marriage – she never said that, nor do I think we should automatically assume that.
I was referring to her comments about single Orthodox women using oral contraceptives in order to adhere to a Jewish teaching, while clearly ignoring another Jewish teaching to avoid sexual immorality.
Pretty interesting stuff. CT, I agree ”mental gymnastics” is the rule of the day.
I did go to the final link on the article and read the Wikipedia page on what various religions teach as rules regarding sex and marriage. Very interesting that almost every major religion listed commands chastity/purity before marriage, prohibitions against premarital sex, prohibitions against adultery (a few allow polygamy), divorce, homosexuality, incest, and bestiality. Only when you got to the bottom of the page Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ (BHO’s church in Chicago for 18 years with his mentor Dr. Jeremiah Wright belonged to this sect), Wiccan, Satanist (they are against pedophilia though) do you see a “do whatever you want” mindset.
“Purity” is now a dirty word, scorned and maligned by the “open-minded”, sexually liberated, tolerant, educated, and enlightened. Has anyone else noticed the more liberated, enlightened and tolerant we have become the more crude, crass, and disrespectful we have become of ourselves and of others. I’ve been talking to teens and teachers whose schools have become ”sex zones” not “safe zones” where inappropriate touching and PDA are becoming more and more brazen and flagrant especially with the new celebration of ”pride and diversity”. Some teens are afraid to go into bathrooms, pool areas, locker rooms and certain hallways. Reverse bullying is what is happening.
” Very interesting that almost every major religion listed commands chastity/purity before marriage, prohibitions against premarital sex, prohibitions against adultery (a few allow polygamy),”
I’m not bashing on you Prolifer L but I really wish people would stop adding incest and bestiality when they’re talking about sexual morality, as if it’s equivalent to things like dating someone of the same gender, or having sex before marriage, or marrying more than one person. Incest is very, very rarely “consensual”, and even in “consensual” cases there’s usually a power differential or coercion going on. Bestiality is just plain old rape, with an animal as the victim instead of a human. I find it upsetting when they are lumped in with normal consensual sex, even if you find homosexuality and unmarried sex wrong.
And the reason I don’t like the concept of “purity” is that people seem to imply if you make a mistake you’re basically ruined. It also tends to be rough on people who didn’t choose to have sex but it was forced on them, it’s hard to feel like you haven’t been permanently ruined if everyone is constantly going on about how you’re only pure and good if you save sex until marriage. I don’t really know any other sins where people act as though you’re damaged goods.
Simi writes: “Leading up to marriage, this thought didn’t occur to me. I simply added the pill to my daily regimen of meds, and took it on time as often as I could remember. The pill was mine; it didn’t even cross my mind that Jeremy would take it on as an equal responsibility.”
I am sorry but what am I missing here Melissa and Kel. Does this statement above from Simi not indicate that they were having sex before marriage? That’s very clear at least to me. Ya know, its not necessary to always spell things out. Let me know if my reading of this statement is correct..
Jack the title of the article is “Orthodox Jew talks birth control… but what about PURITY, whether Jill or one of the mods wrote this article I do not know but the article is about PURITY.
I reported what was linked to in the article by Wikipedia I did not write the Biblical Mosaic Laws nor write what Wikipedia wrote about the other religions they described, I only reported on the article.
I was not directing my comments toward any one individual least of all to you but to the broad topic that is being addressed on this article about purity. I appreciate that your past experiences are very painful for you and I am very sorry about that but the abuse you suffered was NOT your fault. I reported the list as it is part of Mosaic Law and you would have to take up your frustration with these things being included with who gave Moses this law- God.
As far as purity goes, I don’t believe that anyone is “basically ruined” because they made mistakes, I sure have made enough mistakes in my life and I know of NO ONE who has not made them and who cannot be forgiven by Christ and be “made a new creation,, so old things are passed away and all things become new”. So I don’t believe anyone is “ruined” and without redemption. I have worked with many young people over the years teaching them the message of hope, value, rebirth and “second chances” and even more chances if needed. I believe in grace, the unmerited favor of God and mercy when God gives me what I don’t deserve even though I sin.
If she was having sex with him before hand Thomas R. she would already be on the pill. Why change birth control just cause she is getting married? You have to take the pill for a month or 2 to regulate your cycle.
Also purity is not a one shot deal. You can always choose to pursue a pure life, regardless of what you did in the past, and certainly regardless of things that were done to you, which actually have no bearing on purity.
“Also purity is not a one shot deal. You can always choose to pursue a pure life, regardless of what you did in the past, and certainly regardless of things that were done to you, which actually have no bearing on purity.”
I don’t get that at all. You’re only a virgin once, ever, and after that isn’t it that you can’t regain chastity or something? That’s what I was always taught, that it’s a sin that causes permanent damage because you can’t regain which was lost or taken from you. Like, if you’ve had sex in the past you’re never able to actually have God’s plan for relationships (two people who have only been with each other, together until death). So you’re never going to have a true marriage like was planned. I realize that people probably interpret it differently but that’s how I always understood it. And I don’t get that things that are done to you don’t have bearing on purity, it’s still sex right? I don’t see how it wouldn’t have any effect on purity.
” I reported the list as it is part of Mosaic Law and you would have to take up your frustration with these things being included with who gave Moses this law- God.”
Well then God just considers all those things the same, I guess. That kinda sucks.
I’m still parsing her words to mean something different ban how you interpreted it, Kel.
The thesis of the article is that birth control is a shared responsibility between men and women. When I read that line about unmarried women on birth control, I automatically figured she just assumed that they were already not following halachic rules, and Simi was contrasting how the responsibility of using birth control falls mainly on the woman’s shoulders when it is an unmarried woman (ie. a woman NOT following the mores of modern Othodoxy) with how (she feels) the responsibility of using the Pill should be shared in a proper Orthodox relationship.
“You’re only a virgin once, ever, and after that isn’t it that you can’t regain chastity or something?”
Chastity isn’t the same thing as virginity, or even abstinence, really. People use the words interchangeably so I’m not sure if you just reached for the one that was closest, but chastity is more about being, I don’t know, sexually virtuous no matter where you are in your life, as opposed to a list of rules to follow or not. Married couples are supposed to be “chaste” too – not abstinent obviously, because they’re in a different role in their lives, but sexually prudent, responsible, respectful, virtuous, faithful, etc.
Anyone can be chaste. Chastity is about what you do and why, not what you’ve done and how. People often use chastity as an erroneous shorthand to mean abstinent, because when we think of chastity at all, we only think of single people as “needing” to be chaste, and abstinence is usually considered a big part of being chaste for a single person; but chastity is bigger than abstinence. And anyway you don’t even have to be a virgin to be abstinent. Plenty of people who’ve had sex before, abstain afterwards. Dawn Eden has made a pretty decent living and seemingly a good life out of pursuing chastity after a self-professed promiscuous youth, for example.
I may be incorrect, but I also think that a good amount of chastity is about intent, to say nothing of consent. Like, a girl who is a virgin but who wears revealing clothing with the specific intention of catching the eyes of guys is not being chaste, no matter what she “has done” or has not done – but a girl is not automatically made unchaste if a guy looks at her and thinks of her in a sexual way. Intent factors in a lot, and intent can’t really be proven, but it’s not a “proving” sort of thing. So if a girl is just wearing some pants and a not-revealing shirt, even though she may look quite pretty, she is probably (in our culture) not dressing to be sexually provocative, and if a guy is sexually provoked because of her appearance it’s not really about her chastity necessarily. Her intent was not to provoke sexually, and her intent was genuine. Likewise if a guy rapes a girl – or a boy, or if a woman rapes a man, or whatever – the intent and consent were not there; it has no bearing whatsoever on the chastity of the person who was raped.
Oh, and Jack, you ABSOLUTELY can regain chastity. The problem is that sex alwys leaves a mark on your soul. That’s the way sex is designed, is to bind together the souls of the people involved. Which is great when the people involved are married, or otherwise fully committed to each other, as sex simply further cements the bond that they already have for one another. But, unfortunately, sex still leaves a mark on the soul when power games are played, or the relationship isn’t quite as committed as it should be, or, horribly, even when the sex is forced. That is why rape is such a horrible crime: because it is a violation of a person’s soul as well as his body.
But a mark on the soul isn’t the end of the world. Those stains can be healed, wounds will scar over. Just because horrible things have been done to you, or you have made sexual mistakes in the past, doesn’t mean that it is impossible for you to live chastely again. The choices you make today are far more indicative of he person you are then the choices you made in the past.
It sounds a little bit to me like you are allowing past mistakes to define you. Please don’t do that. You can always, ALWAYS, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, try your best to make amends, and vow to do better. Sometimes you’ll have to do that ten times a day (heck, sometimes ten times an hour). Don’t let your mistakes define you.
It also sounds a bit to me like you have wounds, sexual wounds, that are not healing and scarring over, but that are wide open, gaping, and bloody. (I might be overstepping my bounds here: tell me to back off if I am). This is not healthy–please seek the help you need to get those wounds to heal. You are too precious to carry around all that pain.
Someone needs to teach this woman Natural Family Planning stat!
The sin of promiscuity has some especially transparent consequences when it comes to God’s great plan for our lives – marriage, children, and all the joy of family life. Every sin ruins something – stealing ruins God’s design for the satisfaction and character of working hard and earning the possession or resources we need and enjoy. The list goes on and on. So all sin “spoils” – only through forgiveness can we be made whole again to live purely and according to God’s plan. Focusing so much on virginity sends the message that it’s too late to follow God’s will.
Thanks for explaining Alexandra. I think I get that concept but I was talking about biblical ideas of impurity and everything. I’m pretty sure I’ve read every verse about sex, incest, and homosexuality there is in the Bible and it seems like it much of it focuses on the act with no qualifiers about consent or coercion or anythign, unless it’s lust because that’s just as bad as actions. The one verse having anything to do with intent I remember is the one about killing rape victims if they didn’t yell loud enough to get helped, which made me sad but I think I’m misunderstanding that one in some way. I’m sorry I used chastity wrong, I was more thinking that idea of sexual purity.
Melissa you’re not overstepping your bounds, I realize I have problems, but I was trying to be general not specific to me. I just don’t get where you all are getting this stuff. If having sex wrong scars your soul obviously that can’t be made better and you do permanently lose stuff like getting to be with one person, two made one flesh and all that.
Ah, Jeremy! Sigh. The women are swooning over this one. What a catch! He programs his I-touch once, and has a birth control nag screen every day forever until he discontinues the program.
We men can be such princes. As long as it means we get to have unfettered sex. How selfless to remind your ‘partner’ to take her birth control each day, after himself being reminded by a watch.
Do you know what they call a Modern Orthodox Jewish guy whose watch battery dies? [yes, an old joke, I know.]
The point is, Jack, that scars heal! It takes work, and frequently quite a bit of pain, but quite often if you work through the pain, you get to a point of healing on the other side where you barely notice the scar is there at all, just a twinge now and again. You can get to a place where things are just about as good as new. Two people do become one flesh when they make love, every time. It’s just that if there is some scar tissue here they have to work a bit harder to compensate for it. It’s totally worth the effort, though. Don’t give up on yourself, or on love, because you’ve been hurt in the past.
By the way, every one of us who has been around the block a time or two has some scar tissue in one area or another of our soul. We are all walking wounded. Some of us are more resilient and better able to cope with being wounded than others. But we are all doing our best to shake off the times we’ve hurt others or been hurt ourselves, get up again, and do better tomorrow.
I know I’m just joining the conversation, but I hope it’s okay for me to also encourage hope for you, Jack, and anyone else who is feeling hopeless about regaining their purity or chastity. I totally believe in restoration of purity and things that were lost, and know of so many people who’ve been healed and renewed in this area.
Also, if you or anyone else is interested, a REALLY great resource is a book called Moral Revolution by Kris Valloton. It has a lot of great info and approaches the whole subject from the standpoint of our dignity and value. It totally inspires hope!
Jack, I really can’t tell if you’re serious or not. Do you think Christianity is a simple religion of Do Nots? Did you read every Bible verse about sex and ignore all the rest?
The Old Covenant had different standards for purity than the New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, impurity came from external things and God’s people needed to avoid what brought impurity. This included a huge list of things (foods, fabrics, etc). In the New Covenant, Jesus tells us that impurity comes from our hearts (intent), not external things. (Read Matthew 15:11-20) Both the Old and New Covenants tell us how to be in right relationship with God and each other (The Ten Commandments).
We are called to conversion, to move from sin to holiness. Perhaps you’ve heard these phrases: All things are made new through Christ. Anything is possible with God.
To the woman caught in sexual sin, Jesus said “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.” He didn’t say “You’re damaged goods now honey. There’s no hope for you.”
No one is beyond the healing power of God. There is always hope. There is always forgiveness. There is always a fresh start.
Thanks Sydney M for enlightening me. Silly me for not knowing this info about “regulating cycles” with the pill. I have to thank my wife today for not ever being on the pill.
Natural Family Planning – totally puts the couple “in this together”
I’m being serious Lrning.
Okay, Jack. Then I hope you read the rest of my post regarding Biblical ideas of purity. The idea that we can scar our souls in such a way that God can’t heal us is antithetical to Christianity. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t deal with the consequences of our sin, perhaps for the rest of our earthly lives. If we repent and turn our damaged lives over to God, He will bring good out of it.
But it doesn’t make any sense to me Lrning. How can you be healed but still have to deal with consequences and scars for the rest of your life? How is that healing? It’s like I’ve apologized and repented for years for like the stuff with my dad and other sins and it’s never healed at all. So I gave up for a while and I’m still not sure what I believe, but I don’t understand why there isn’t any forgiveness. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Sometimes people tell me the peace that God brings doesn’t necessarily mean that pain and suffering gets better, but aren’t you supposed to feel forgiven and know that God’s there for you? I don’t feel any better or feel any forgiveness and love. I don’t get where you all are getting any hope.
Jack, I’m so sorry you feel unforgiven. That you feel no hope. That you don’t feel God’s love. I don’t think I can adequately explain in a comment box. I truly wish you would go talk to a good Catholic priest. A face-to-face asking and answering of your questions would be best.
My hope comes from God. My feeling of being forgiven comes from the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I recognize how I have been healed through reading & studying Scripture, through prayer, through talking with faith-filled friends. I think you would benefit greatly from a good Bible study. It seems like many of your questions and difficulties come from misunderstandings about God and faith.
I can try to locate a priest for you to talk to if you tell me what city you are in. You could also listen to Relevant Radio online at http://relevantradio.com/ and they have an app for smartphones too. Everyday there is a program called Go Ask Your Father where you can call in and ask a priest any question you have. Or you can just start listening and you’ll learn a ton about God and how He works in our lives. You don’t have to believe any of it…but you’ll understand why we can hope and how we can heal.
Well I figured that a priest or pastor would be pretty condemning of me, I don’t think most people understand I already feel awful, so they keep telling me things are sins when I already know they are. The pastors at my parents church were very disappointed in me. It’s like my ex, she never forgave me for all the stuff with my dad and I tried but I couldn’t find any Bible verses that would excuse me for any of that. So I don’t know if I could talk to some priest, I am really a coward and I don’t want to listen about how awful I am anymore, I just want to be forgiven somewhat. I’ve tried to study and understand the bible on my own but I’m obviously doing something wrong and not understanding it correctly. I will listen to that radio program thank you and I’m sorry I don’t understand this stuff correctly.
Jack, I wasn’t suggesting you talk to a priest specifically about your past. You seem to have general questions that a good priest could answer: How are we healed if we still have scars and consequences of sin? How do we know we’re forgiven for past sins? What if we don’t feel forgiven?
The feeling of forgiveness, hope, and love that you seem to desire may not come until you have a relationship with Christ. This would be a good question for a priest too. How does a person develop a relationship with Jesus?
You could do a little mini Bible study at home. Go to usccb.org and click on Sunday on the calendar at the right side of the homepage under “Daily Readings”. You’ll be able to read the Scripture readings for that Sunday. Then go to wordonfire.org and click on the corresponding “This Week’s Sermon” on the right. Make sure the dates match up (Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time). You’ll hear Father Robert Barron give a homily based on the readings you just read at the usccb site. He is phenomenal. He explains the historical perspective of Scripture that helps us tremendously in understanding the meaning. You can do this without condemnation, without anyone even knowing. Over time, you will come to understand where the Christian hope comes from. And hopefully you will begin to experience it yourself.
“she never forgave me for all the stuff with my dad and I tried but I couldn’t find any Bible verses that would excuse me for any of that”
I don’t understand this part of what you wrote. Your ex blamed you for being abused as a child? Or did she find fault with some of your current behaviors that could be blamed on your past abuse? The Bible is clear that people can be forgiven for sinful actions freely chosen. Why would you need forgiveness for something perpetrated upon you that you didn’t choose? Healing, yes. Forgiveness? No.
Jack, religion is not for everyone. If blind belief is desired, that is one thing, but of course not everybody wants that. Religion is a created thing, a thing which is not in the realm of the provable.
“You could do a little mini Bible study at home. Go to usccb.org and click on Sunday on the calendar at the right side of the homepage under “Daily Readings”. You’ll be able to read the Scripture readings for that Sunday. Then go to wordonfire.org and click on the corresponding “This Week’s Sermon” on the right. Make sure the dates match up (Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time). You’ll hear Father Robert Barron give a homily based on the readings you just read at the usccb site. He is phenomenal. He explains the historical perspective of Scripture that helps us tremendously in understanding the meaning. You can do this without condemnation, without anyone even knowing. Over time, you will come to understand where the Christian hope comes from. And hopefully you will begin to experience it yourself.”
This is a good idea, usually I just read random things and have no idea of the context so I probably am not understanding correctly, it might be better to follow along with something and I wouldn’t have to worry about people thinking I’m stupid or getting mad at me because no one would know
“I don’t understand this part of what you wrote. Your ex blamed you for being abused as a child? Or did she find fault with some of your current behaviors that could be blamed on your past abuse? The Bible is clear that people can be forgiven for sinful actions freely chosen. Why would you need forgiveness for something perpetrated upon you that you didn’t choose? Healing, yes. Forgiveness? No. ”
Oh, both I guess. She always thought it was pretty disgusting I let things be done to me (not when I was a little kid, she’s upset that I let it continue until I was seventeen), and she said she couldn’t respect me because of that. I can’t really find anything that would prove her wrong, And she was upset about a lot of side effects from all that, like how I’m really bad at being affectionate. Which is my fault, I didn’t work on that hard enough.
Jack,
Again I realize I rarely comment on here and you don’t know who I am at all. On behalf of Christians and the Church, I want to apologize for how much in the past people who claimed to be followers of God have misrepresented Father God and His love for you and the forgiveness that’s available for you. I think your experience with people is a lot of what makes it hard to accept that God could be any different towards you.
If you’re half as hungry for Gods love as you sound, I’m sure you’ll find it. And I’m praying that for you, that you’ll get to know experientially that you’re a cherished son of a REALLY good father. :)
I’m a Karaite Jew and have studied Orthodox theology.
1. Purity means something different to a Jew than it does to a Christian. For a Jew, purity has to do with Physical cleanliness, and it only differs from, say, brushing your teeth in that it is mandated by doctrine. The avoidance of sexual immorality is a Legal matter more than anything else. Sex is physically unclean no matter what (not taboo, just requiring bathing after), so purity in the sense of abstinence is a matter for Jews of being law-abiding.
2. Orthodox conventions about sexuality and what contraception is acceptable do NOT apply to all Jews, nor even all groups that call themselves Orthodox. Some groups eschew it altogether, some even mandate treatment for infertile couples. My sect holds that contraception of any kind is permissible only with the express consent of both parties, otherwise it is grounds for divorce as set forth in our marriage contracts.
3. The sexual customs of some Jewish sects are very mysogynistic. They often place the burden of reproduction, sexuality, or modesty solely on the woman.
4. Jews often focus on the present reality rather than ideals. In this case, the reality of rampant single motherhood outweighs the ideal (and legal mandate for Jews) of abstinence before marriage.
5. Many Jews come from secular or low-practicing families, where Western sexual norms are encouraged. It’s entirely possible that this couple has grown into Orthodoxy, and this woman is expressing part of that growth.
Jack I am praying for you and your children. My heart breaks for what you have been through. I don’t know how but you have perservered for so long and been able to fighter through so much pain and abuse. God loves you although it must be hard to think of him being a loving father, he really is, Your father made horrible choices to abuse you but those really weren’t your choices, the very person that was supposed to protect you from harm were the ones abusing you. It was not your fault and it was all you knew for years, how is a child (even at 17) to know how to get out of this situation if no one helps you and teaches you.
I pray you will get help wherever you can and if the websites that Learning gave you seem appropriate please follow her suggestions.
I do remember Evangelist Joyce Meyer giving her testimony that her father from her earliest memory until she was 17 or 18 sexually abused her. Her mother would walk right past her bedroom, knowing what was happening and would not do anything at all to protect her, then he would taunt her that no one would ever believe her and no man would ever want her. Finally at about 18 by getting a job she was able to become independent and strong enough to leave home but it took her years. God gradually healed her from a horrible past and she tells her story because she wants everyone to know that if Christ could heal her he can do it for them too. She often says in her Missouri drawl ”Jesus can heal you everywhere you hurt”. And he can Jack. She had many struggles in her early marriage with self-esteem, anger, shame, distrust, and control issues because of the abuse she suffered.
Thanks Prolifer L and Carol S. I really wasn’t trying to get sympathy or be a whiner or anything, I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t just get over stuff and keep my mouth shut. But I appreciate the concern. It’s not anyone else’s fault but mine that I have these issues and I think my situations quite a bit different than the woman you mentioned Prolifer L, I’m glad she was able to find healing.
Hey Jack if it helps, even as a Christian, I often don’t feel forgiven. I know I am, but there’s not a feeling. There’s not a warm fuzzy peace that a lot of well-meaning Christians talk about. Sometimes life just hurts and our emotions shout-out the voice of God, the truth that I am forgiven. I know I am because I have faith and believe what the Bible says about that. But boy is it hard sometimes when I’m sitting here hating myself for my past, for my sin, for my weakness, etc. SO it’s not about feelings; it’s about truth.
And also healing takes a friggin long time sometimes, and I haven’t even been through half of what you’ve been through. Life is a process for everyone. Many religions place way too much emphasis on sex. I don’t believe, based on my study of the Bible, that it is the greatest sin or whatever even though many churches act like that.
Also, our hearts can be healed and renewed but we are still in bodies with psychological and physical problems.
Peace to you, my friend. :) I’m praying for you!
But isn’t there any sense of peace or relief from pain eventually? I know it’s not like all of a sudden you’re happy all the time but can’t there be some relief at all, if you’re truly forgiven? Some people say you know that God’s working in your life because you have comfort in pain and joy in your sorrow, so obviously if you don’t have any of that, if you’re more miserable than ever, then you’re doing something wrong? There’s gotta be something better, you can’t just be absolutely miserable for decades and then die, doesn’t God comfort at all? I know I’m being selfish but to be honest I really doubt I can take much more misery, I really need to feel some type of relief or peace or forgiveness or something.
Jack, have you forgiven yourself? Have you forgiven your parents? Have you forgiven your ex? Are you holding on to all the pain and misery, wondering why you’re in so much pain and misery? That’s the problem with unforgiveness. It destroys us. I will pray for you and please, please find someone to talk to that will give you wise counsel.
There were two times in my past (one time when I wasn’t even sure I believed in God) that I was in such psychological pain that it became physical pain as well. In desperation, I turned to God. I thought that I might get some vague sense of comfort through the pain. Both times I was shocked to my core when God took the pain. He took all of it. I felt peace and relief, immediately. So much so that I was literally shocked by it. And like I said, the first time it happened I wasn’t even sure I believed in God, I was just so desperate that I had no one else to turn to. There is peace and relief, Jack. I will pray for you to experience it.
I don’t know what people mean by “forgive yourself”. I don’t understand the concept. I think I’ve forgiven the rest of them, I’ve take the responsibility and I admit that I was to blame for much of it and I don’t really feel anger at them anymore, just sad. I will try to find someone to talk to I’m not sure how though. Maybe anonymously or something.
Jack, it’s not exactly anonymous, but you could contact someone by email. My suggestion is to go to http://relevantradio.com/ and under “Programs” look at the Inner Life. Send an email to the address listed there, pouring out all your questions, your pain, and as much detail about your past as you want to give. Put your phone number in the email too. Ask for an email or call back. I don’t know for sure what response you’ll get because I’ve never tried it, but Chuck Neff is amazingly compassionate and wonderful. I think you will get a response.
Jack, I don’t’ think you are a whiner, I think you are hurting and miserable. You are right that there are no sudden, easy, quick fixes and I am not going to give you a bunch of clichés which I hate especially when I am hurting. I will sincerely say that I want you to have the peace and the spiritual and emotional healing that you need and I will continue to pray for you. It may sound petty but I believe God is able to give them to you through His grace because he has given me His peace and healing in the midst of so many storms in my life.
Thanks Lrning. I just have to be anonymous because I can’t stand the look of disgust on people’s faces when I tell them about some things and I can’t take that again. I did listen to that station a little bit yesterday, but I only caught the Drew Mariani show, they were talking about Syria. Maybe I’ll try to email the Inner Life dude but I want to listen to his show first.