How to Suffer Well: Joy through the Pain

/ Freedom From Sexual Sin & Shame, Healing, Your Story / 1 Comment

Over a year later, I still experience daily pain all over my body. Physical pain has followed me around for months like baby ducks following their mama. Pain has left me asking theological questions: How can I suffer well? How can I not give up hope for healing? I want to believe that God will use this season for his good. I want to believe that he has not forgotten about me. I want to cope and find comfort in the Creator of the universe instead of his created things like food, movies, and aspirin. But what do we do when those things are the only things that bring us a few seconds of relief?

Maybe you aren’t suffering with physical pain, but I bet you’re suffering from something. Maybe you are grieving the loss of a loved one. Maybe you’re struggling with depression. Maybe you feel stuck in addiction and chained to pornography. Maybe you are single and have sexual desires, and don’t know what to do with them. We all experience suffering. 

I surveyed my friends on social media and asked them about suffering. I asked two questions: Do you suffer well? If so, how do you suffer well? The responses flooded into my inbox and comment section. Everyone is struggling. We must get out of isolation and share our pain with those around us. Their wisdom was so encouraging to me that I wanted to share it with you. 

How do we suffer well? Let’s read their wise words:

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Rape Culture Blog Series

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19 Part Series on Rape Culture on Aspire2.com

Dr. Sandra Glahn invited me to write this 19 part series on rape culture for her blog, Aspire2.com. All 19 parts to the series are listed below. By the end of this series, I hope that you will be able to see examples of rape culture in your daily life, understand that these cultural narratives dominate media, and take steps to help change these dynamics.

Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. Women and girls experience sexual violence at higher rates than men and boys. Eighty-two percent of all juvenile victims are female, and ninety percent of adult rape victims are female. Sexual assault affects everyone around us, yet most of the perpetrators walk away. Out of 1,000 rapes, 995 perpetrators will not go to jail. Because of this fact and many other reasons which this series will cover, many people do not report crimes to the police. Only 230 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are even reported to authorities. That means about three out of four go unreported.*

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10 Counseling Skills for Ministry

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Do you minster to women who are struggling with different types of crises and traumas? The book, Crisis Counseling, is a great resource to turn to again and again as different circumstances are brought up. I frequently use the counseling skills listed below in my current ministry to women struggling with sexual brokenness and in my future ministry with college students. All ten skills listed below have been taken and adapted from Crisis Counseling. You can buy the book here.

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4 Ways the Church Hurts Single Women

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4 Ways the Church Hurts Single Women

How many sermons have you heard on singleness and sexuality? Sadly, many churches fail to cover these topics in messages. Our singles are believing the lie that something is wrong with them for having sexual desires and curiosities. Can we free these women from shame and share the message that God created them as sexual beings? We need to talk about singleness and sexuality because our single members are asking questions like, “What do we do with our sexual desires?” If we don’t provide these answers, pornography could become their solution.

When the church views marriage as the ultimate goal, we are hurting everyone. We hurt the singles now and we hurt them again if they get married because they are entering marriage thinking that marriage is the solution. The real and lasting solution is Jesus. Yes, I’m married. And yes, I still have all the same issues I had when I was single. Marriage didn’t fix me. Marriage didn’t heal my addiction to masturbation and pornography, Jesus did. Marriage is not our highest calling, but rather following Jesus is our highest calling.

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Best Books for Intimacy in Marriage

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Best Books for Intimacy in Marriage

The Mingling of Souls

In this book Matt Chandler addresses topics of romance and sex. This book focuses on the marital process as a whole and gives tools to understand your partner and plan ahead for greater intimacy. (Buy on Amazon.)

Now You’re Speaking My Language

This book is specifically from a Christian worldview and is a useful guide to building a strong marriage that is based on intimacy. (Buy on Amazon.)

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#MeToo Podcast with Dallas Theological Seminary

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In this episode of the Table Podcast at Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Darrell L. Bock, Jurrita Williams, Jan Edgar Langbein, and I, Joy Skarka, discuss sexual abuse and the #MeToo movement. This is only the beginning of a conversation that needs to continue to our churches. 

When this was filmed I had a sinus infection and double ear infections. Praise God for speaking through me despite the physical barriers!

Only God would know that this video, which we filmed months ago, would be needed for such a time as this. 

3 Ways to Help Women Addicted to Porn

/ Inspiration, Pornography, Resources, Sexual Addiction / 2 Comments

“Porn for women” ranked number one in searches on Pornhub in 2017, increasing by over 1,400 percent since 2016. Despite the increase of women addicted to porn, Christians fail to talk about pornography and women. When scrolling through Twitter, one can find article headlines that read, “Talk to Your Son About Porn,” and “A Letter to My Sons About Porn.” Christians successfully talk about the dangers of porn for sons, but what about for daughters? Most articles about pornography use masculine pronouns, isolating women, yet, one-third of women report using porn on a regular basis.

Girls need rescuing from the chains of pornography, too.

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Does Sexual Shame Sometimes Make You Feel Stupid?

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You’re not alone.

As my now husband and I were dating, we felt shame for our sexual desires. We chose to avoid sex before marriage, but longed for “oneness.” No one told us this was normal, healthy even, and that God created us as sexual beings. The fact that we desired sex revealed that we were two healthy humans. Instead of praising God for our heathy bodies, we felt embarrassed for desiring something off limits. 

Enter sexual shame into our relationship.

This was not the first time I experienced shame. I felt the need to hide my sexual desires as a young single woman. I felt shame after going too far with my high school boyfriend, and after my dad found a hickey on my neck, and after experiencing sexual abuse.

Many things can make us experience sexual shame. We feel sexual shame when… (more…)

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