In a recent podcast episode, we talked with Shannon Ethridge about dealing with our sexual baggage. I shared that I had thought of my baggage as an actual suitcase, opened up on the marriage bed with all the contents taking up space—leaving no room for me to be sexually free.
Sexual baggage played a significant role in my own struggles with sex.
The contents of my baggage
I brought quite a bit of baggage into my marriage: premarital promiscuity, a poor understanding of God’s design for sexual intimacy, and a sexual assault.
The baggage included a set of damaging beliefs about myself, about my husband, and about sex—all of which had led to habits of thought and action that interfered with intimacy.
The most damaging baggage of all was the feeling that I was “damaged goods,” that I was damaged even beyond God’s redeeming grace.
For years I walked around wearing a scarlet letter of shame. My shame and sin affected my marriage. As I walked this journey of addressing my struggles with sex, I became sex-positive—but only for the sake of my husband and my marriage. I wasn’t sex-positive for my own sake because I was still dragging around all that baggage.
I thought I didn’t deserve a good sex life. I also thought that a good sex life wasn’t possible because I had sinned too much.
Most of the baggage taking up space on our marriage bed was my own fault, after all. I’d made my bed, so that was the bed I had to lie in.
As long as I carried around that scarlet letter and saw myself primarily as that woman, my baggage remained strewn across my marriage bed.
The parables of Luke 15
Does this resonate with you in some way? Have you been dragging around sexual baggage of your own making?
Dear sister, might I suggest that you read Luke 15?
It is a chapter of parables.
The story of the lost sheep tells us that even if we have been lost in our sin, God has searched for us and rejoices when we repent and turn to Him.
As we read about the lost coin, we are told again that our repentance is worthy of rejoicing.
And then we see the lost son, the prodigal who squandered his father’s gifts and returned, repentant—and his father rejoiced at his return and showered him with love.
These parables say something loud and clear to us:
God is bigger than your sin.
And you, my friend, are not your sin.
You are God’s beloved daughter, created in His image.
Even with your sin, you are loved by a God who desires to be reunited with you. You are precious. You are cherished.
Your scarlet letter has been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.
Release your baggage
The moment I accepted God’s forgiveness for my sin, that baggage disappeared from my marriage bed.
If you are carrying sexual baggage from the choices of your past, know that I am praying for you to accept God’s forgiveness and embrace the joy and freedom of your marriage bed, too.
Could you use some encouragement in dealing with the baggage from your past? Start with the posts below.
More Than Many Sparrows
Lessons Learned from Premarital Sex
The Lie That Hurt My Marriage the Most
Unbearable Lessons
Prodigal Daughter of God: When Past Sin Is Dragging You Down
Check Your Luggage
Is Your Past Destroying Sex in Your Marriage? (guest post at Intimacy in Marriage)
If you have baggage related to sexual trauma, be sure to check out the resources listed in this post:
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We owe it to our spouses (and ourselves) to quench as much emotional and physical pleasure from them and for them do the same in return. To hang onto the past doesn’t allow spouses to freely mentally and physically surrender all they have, to give one another.
What makes it fulfilling is when spouses mutually realize it is them they choose to be with and no one else.
This is what finally got me to let go of my premarital baggage: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Hearing that all that was past tense—my sin and then my redemption—finally got me to understand that it was me holding on, not God or anyone else. I read this passage over and over until I fully believed it. (And I still read it from time to time, just in case I need to hear it all again.) Great post, Chris! Thanks for being honest, authentic, and encouraging.
That’s a great passage to help us let go of our baggage, J. Thanks!