Do you know what it feels like to shed your old man? Do you know what freedom feels like? It was prophesied to me maybe 4 years ago, that I would look in the mirror and not recognize myself. Guess what! It was true. When I began to embark on this journey, the old me began to fall away little by little. Strangely it started with my hair; I went natural. I've never been one really big on make-up. Fashion was never my thing...my addiction is undergarments, I know, TMI. So the only thing the Lord could really work on was me. The real me. The me I pretended to be. The illusion I showed the world. And layer by thin, transparent, glutinous, painful layer He peeled me like an onion until my core was laid bare. Sometimes I even felt like I was being fried.
It was the best thing for me. I stopped clubbing, I stopped drinking, the last vestige of my old self was to stop having sex. Now anyone who knows anything about the church and the Word, knows that premarital sex is a sin. We were never told why, but we'd all heard it as youth. So as an adult, after having searched the Word and finding out the why's of it all, I definitely knew what I was doing was wrong. Could I have stopped on my own? Probably not. It took one catastrophic incident and I was convinced it was time to let it go. The situation had nothing to do with sex, but everything that came with it. I knew in order to let go of the drama attached to sex, I had to let go of my attachment to sex.
You know, the drama.....how men equate sex with love. If you're not sleeping with them, you don't love them. Or my all time favorite, because you had sex with them, they somehow have ownership of your body. Or!.....No, I'm kidding, but I could go on for days. Those issues right there and a few more, lead me to my decision. Had to let it go.
After the first week, I realized that the fog was lifting from my mind. Like, I could tell the enemy was losing his hold on me. It was like not eating read meat for a while. You have more energy, you can think better . That is kinda how it felt. After the excitement wore off and my internal celebration had ceased, I was left with the question, what next? What do I do with myself now? I had my own reasons for even still indulging in sex, now that the Lord had given me the strength to let it go...what now?
Oh the things you can do! It sounds really corny, but you can do you. Not in the sexual sense, but you can do you, like learn to enjoy being around yourself. Not filling empty space with someone that isn't forever only temporary. Learn your strengths and weaknesses. Allow the Lord to reveal hidden gifts and talents and cultivate them.
It's funny when I tell people that I'm celibate, they literally gasp and then people comment, "girl, I don't know how you do it." What's interesting to me, is that most of them are married. Well of course you don't know how I do it because you're married. You have a spouse to get it from. I, on the other hand, do not. Thusly, I am celibate. People ask questions like, you aren't gonna sample the goods before you get married? WTW! No! Well, how will you know if he's any good? LMBO! I'm sorry, that one get's me all the time and this is coming from women. I have to explain to them, my Father who art in heaven, who knew me before He formed me in my mother's womb; He knew my entire life before I even existed. He knows every hair on my head, He knows the number of tears I've cried. I think He can handle choosing the perfect man for me.
With the blinders of carnality off, I was able to go deeper into what marriage should be. Sex, is still very important to me, but for wholly and completely different reasons. He was able to break down the dynamics of sex and intimacy and why the enemy sought to corrupt it. Ever wonder why sex is one of the first things to go when a marriage isn't going well. Husbands and wives alike are withholding themselves from their spouse and the enemy rejoices and then he attacks....
Ok, that is a different story for a different time.
In refraining from that very thing that redirected who I was at such a young age, He was able to show me the damage that it truly did and the damage that I continued to heap on my own head afterward. In refraining, I am focused on the things I should have been focused on years ago. In refraining from sex, He was able to reveal to me those things He's spoken over me in my mother's womb. He was able to uncover the gifts and talents that had lain dormant in my spirit, when I was focused more on Him. Have mercy! He was able to show me the real me. He was able to show me how He sees me. He showed me that despite my past and my mistakes and my set-backs, He still sees His beautiful creation without a spot or wrinkle. He still sees me as a bright and shining star. No man can ever give you that peace. No man can ever love you the way our Father loves us and when you shed the skin of your old self, forsaking fornication or sin of any kind and take our Father's hand allowing Him access to the deepest, darkest places that He knows exist and let Him clean them out and restore His light where only darkness stood....your next will come.
Are you willing to shed your old man? Are you truly ready for your next?
Good stuff!!!
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