On the discussion of fear — Do you fear the abuse that happened to you makes you dirty?
It is very hard to separate an act that was imposed on your body and an act that you control. That seems an easy separation, doesn’t it.
If it is such an easy separation, why do so many of us identify “as” the abuse we received?
For years I was wrought with duplicating my past by bringing sexual exploration into my today. Even in my marriage, I allowed sexual escapades that I didn’t want. When I was single, I found it hard not to give myself sexually to the men I dated (or didn’t date).
My point is this: I am not the sexual abuse I received. It was the abusers’ sin not mine. The abuse doesn’t make me bad – my choices will or will not do that. Two separate things.
In Mark 7, Jesus was talking to a crowd and then clarified with his disciples. He said,
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.
18“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?
19For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”
Mark 7:17-19 *(NIV)
I love Jesus. Are you so dull? Makes me laugh. The point is that nothing that enters a person from the outside makes us bad! Period.
Jesus brings us back to that clarity and gives us back choice.
