Sex, The Invisible Bond

Yeah, I said it, sex. But more specifically intimacy and the invisible bond we create with those we are intimate with. This post may not relate to you specifically unless you had sex before marriage or were sexually molested or assaulted. If you don't fall into these categories congratulations you are about 5% of American population (according to truthdig.com). So I feel I'm talking to the majority, and trust me it matters. If you are part of that 5%, well done! But I do want to throw glitter on those of you who waited, seriously impressive.

I'm not going to go into all the details why we shouldn't have sex before marriage, that is for another post I'll have for youth (your daughter perhaps), but if you had premarital sex (with a partner other than your spouse) I'm sure you may already know. You know what its like to walk down the aisle wishing you had saved yourself for that man standing in front of you. You know the shame, regret, and insecurity you have felt. Plus the loss of Oxytocin. Yes, yes it is actually scientific! We have a hormone (go ahead and google it) called Oxytocin that plays a huge role in intimacy. It increases when aroused, and evokes feeling of contentment, reductions of anxiety, feelings of calmness and security when in the company of a mate. God created this amazing hormone to have the highest level of intimacy possible with our spouse, not anyone before. But in our world of chaos & anxiety its NO WONDER people want this feeling and find it through intimacy. We bypass our self-control and what our flesh desires, therefore loosing oxytocin with partners other than waiting for our spouse.

Oxytocin creates a bond between you and who you are intimate with. Which is why its so important to hold back with any sexual acts before marriage. Its an invisible bond, that is why you still may think and have feelings for past partners. It is a bond that makes you feel loved, what we search for when we are lost, beaten and broken. This is the power of sex. This is also the power of God. God created Oxytocin, God created sex, but he created it to be between one man and one woman in marriage. (I may have lost some of you there, but I still love homosexuals. No different than me and my sinful self)A BEAUTIFUL thing! Just read Song of Songs!

Which brings me to a verse I have always found to be profound. I was raised in a Christian home, knowing full well God didn't want me having sex before marriage and I always wanted to follow Gods rules. Some rules I thought were more important than others, and for some reason the three bad ones in my teenage mind were sex, drugs, and alcohol. So I craved verses that would tell me rules and why like 1 Corinthians 6:19-20;

"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

YOU yes YOU were bought at a price! Jesus died on the cross for YOU. His blood covers YOU. This means he will carry your burden of shame, guilt, worthlessness. That verse also says, you are not your own! Wow!! We are children of God, we are His and he wants to take care of us, just like you would of your own child.

I felt so worthless after I was raped. I had lost my virginity and the one thing that I thought left me with an ounce of dignity. So VERY unfortunately I reacted like many victims do. I went relationship to relationship with a very hard heart, and kept seeking this oxytocin "high" that was no longer the same. I did the exact things I didn't want to do, and here I'll finally share the verse that is so profound to me to this day;

Galatians 5:7
"For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not to do what you want."

SERIOUSLY!!?? BLOWS my mind!!! Are you grasping this? My body wants to do what is opposite of my sinful desires, and I do exactly what I don't want to do. It is so frustrating. I'm telling you I'm a professional sinner. Yep, daily throughout my day I do exactly what I often set out not to do. I fail. And when I failed before marriage it had some large consequences.

Oxytocin is also something that you give away. When you have this bond, you have given a piece of you away. 1st Corinthians 6:18 says "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body." So what this is saying is that it is the one sin that not only sins against God, but against yourself. Double whammy. Double consequence. Double shame. Now I keep bringing up words like shame and guilt because I was entrapped by them. They created my feelings of worthlessness and hardened heart. It created a sin cycle that left me on auto pilot sin and darkness. I honestly have about a year of my life I don't remember a lot of because I was in such a dark place. I was so numb I had no feeling. Men were telling me they loved me and I had no feeling for them. And I was looking, searching for love, I had even found it but it wasn't enough. Jesus was knocking, and I was running in shame.

My story reminds me so much of Eve. She was dangled that beautiful fruit being told "surely you won't die", she saw it was "good","pleasing to the eye" and sinned, and then immediately hid from God. She was so ashamed. We do exactly the same. We gain this knowledge like Eve did when we are intimate before marriage that we wish we didn't have because we still could have been living in the "Garden of Eden". Sinless, blameless. Doesn't that sound wonderful. Well I have good news. Through Jesus Christ you can be blameless in his sight. Jesus stands in the gap between you and God. God see's his perfect son Jesus and not you.

So I could write another 10 blogs on this but whats important is healing through this.

1. Become aware. You have to realize you sinned. Confront your past, and you may need to do it head on. Its like open heart surgery. There is pain, and a scar to prove it, but you will be given a new heart.

2. Confess your sin. This is how we "clean house" and get rid of our junk. He just wants us to say sorry and give it to him. He knows your heart, which also means you need to mean it. Matt 7:7 says "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." If it is in His will, and trust me freedom is in His will he will give it to you.

3. You need to receive Christs blood, and visualize his blood covering your sexual past. He wants to take that yoke upon HIM. He wants to carry our burden. YES again the guilt, shame, pain, anger (a whole other topic especially for those of you violated. You are not worthless. You were bought at a price, it says that above in Corinthians. He paid for you with his blood and wants you, all of you. Even the dirt. There is nothing you can or could have done for Him to love you less.

4. Work out your anger. And come to find out, yes there is anger. pray about it if you don't think you have anger. I didn't think I was mad and I was. Write anger letters with "I feel" statements.

5. Forgive. Forgive your past partners (YES also abusers, IF you don't you are holding on to them. Let them GO, it is the best thing you can EVER do for yourself and the). The hardest part for me in this process was forgiving myself. I couldn't take the blame off myself for my stupid, stupid mistakes.

6. Pray, Read Gods word, come to Him, go to counseling. I am not a professional counselor, so seek it.

7. Find community. The more I share my story, the more I find more and more people who can relate. Sex is often a "hush, hush" topic, when it is pertinent to a healthy marriage. Which brings me to

8. Work on intimacy in your marriage. This is a huge deal for your marriage and has huge consequences from previous sin. Sex with your husband is meant to be the highest level of intimacy that God so beautifully created. This will be a result to the healing steps above, honestly. My life has changed in way more ways than one from my healing. wink wink ;)

This is the whole reason behind the ashes2crowns name. God turned my dirty ashes into crowns of beauty. Isaiah 61:3

If you have resonated with this PLEASE share with others, and please don't hesitate to email or ask questions! Lastly PLEASE read The Invisible Bond by Barbara Wilson. The study could change your life. Well ultimately God will, but through the study He changed mine. Love ya!

Check Ashes2crowns out of facebook and @suzanneholling on twitter.

The Storm

Isaiah 43:2
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you."

I have friends and friends children that have been diagnosed with cancer that "doesn't look good". I wake up in bed to hear a confession that my child has been to "re-focus" at school three times already this year. No one shows to Sunday Night Bible study. Helpers, but not expected youth come to Youth breakfast ministry. Feel like I'm failing my husband and family as he comes home with stressful job changes. Cannot get ahead on cleaning/organizing my home. More friends are loosing babies. More friends being taken over by fear and anxiety. Big pink elephants in the middle of rooms that no one wants to talk about. The largest ministry I help serve with 100 moms I feel like I'm failing as a leader. I feel defeated in leadership conflict. Husbands grandpa died, and I didn't even get to mourn yet because of another crazy day with children and missed the funeral. I read the news and want to weep. My heart aches for the lost. I Feel enclosed by darkness. The enemy is trying to bring me down in every aspect and ministry in my life. But God is still constant. I'm learning to find joy, celebration and thankfulness in the storm.

I often feel like I'm standing in the middle of a firing range. But I'm choosing to celebrate because God is refining me in the fire. I woke up at 3am the other morning with an epiphany that through the storms I wrote above God is actually answering my prayer. For months I have been praying for true humility. And I truly believe through everything that I feel that I'm "failing" at, God is refining me. I'm at a new level of feeling humble and wanting to serve. When I'm put in the place where I am reminded that I'm truly no better than anyone around me, I want to serve more. I don't deserve Jesus. I didn't deserve the cross. I don't deserve forgiveness, but Jesus has freely given it to me. Humbling? Yes.

I don't "deserve" the storm, but what if I didn't have it? God wouldn't be teaching me this lesson. I want to be refined don't you? And then I think, man this storm really sucks. YES, absolutely I don't want to downplay the crap in your life, but I hope I'm being clear in that there is hope, a silver lining. Sun after the rain, and we may even look at the sun differently after that rain. I'm so humbled that God is so much bigger than I can even understand.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."


I fully realize I'm living first world storms, and I'm constantly able to take a step back and realize how blessed I am. We still have running water. We don't have bomb shells flying over our heads. I can go to church and worship freely. I can go to a public place without the fear of being killed by terrorists. But my point is we have daily struggles, fears, anxieties, let downs, illness, and failures that are our storms, and bring us down. We can be crippled by our pain, or choose to rejoice in the process of refining. Humbling? Yes.

Until recently I still had a thorn in my side when I thought of my past sexual violators. When and if their names or family members would come up I would cringe. So I received a word from God to contact them. To tell them I forgave them. To completely clean the slate, which brought me more freedom. I no longer cringe, but pray for them. I pray they and their families will come to Christ, and find a new freedom in HIM. I also asked for their forgiveness because I let myself into some bad situations, and didn't fight for myself like I should have. Humbling to ask their forgiveness? Yes. Freedom and refining as a result? Absolutely!

Giving thanks and praise in the storm has brought me new joy, and this is my prayer for you. Choose joy my friend. Even a good weeping can cleanse the soul. Breath out the bad, inhale the good. Breath in the Holy Spirit, and exhale the evil spirits saying "you aren't good enough", or the ones bringing you fear. In the name of Jesus cast out those demons. Claim it. You are good enough. God made you just right because he doesn't make mistakes. He is perfect although we are not, so take His yoke upon you.


James 1:2
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,"

You may be in this time of trial, Praying you find peace, joy, and refinement. Much Love! xoxo