3 Days left…tick tock..tick tock. What do I really want to say that I haven’t said? What do I NEED to say? Ahh I know.
My process in following Christ was coming along well. For the most part I had stopped doing all the “things” that I felt that were wrong or hindering me from God. I was making intentional efforts and strides to grow, to learn, and heal. I was doing a corporate fast with our church, and I felt led to do a specific fast for a friend and her marriage. However this fast was different. It was from certain foods but also from SEX. Now let me be clear, I was NOT happy about this! Like for real I WAS NOT! My husband and I had a very active sex life and to not have any for a MONTH was unthinkable!!
However, I was to a point in my relationship with God that my desire to be obedient was more important to me than sex(not much more but more.) I talked to my husband and made sure he was ok with it. Now he wasn’t necessarily happy about it, but he understood and agreed it was important for me to obey if I felt that was what God was leading me to do. So with reluctance and without telling many people I proceeded to fast… BOTH, food and sex!
A few days into the fast I began reading Jenetzen Franklin’s book on fasting. I had already read it once but knew there was more I could get from it. One particular passage lept out at me like never before …through fasting we can break free of the bondages that have been holding you and your mind hostage… we stay bound because we fail to fast.” Then he proceeded to list a long list of examples one of which I just happened to be struggling with. This hit me hard. You see, I was removing all the actions, speech, and outward things that I could yet my mind was still bound in this one particular area. I heard the Lord say, “Through this fast, I will free you once and for all from your torment.” I thought, “Is that even possible?” You see I had come to terms that I would just have to “live with” this mental fight and keep it contained, because it was how I was made. “But free me from this? are you sure that’s an actual possibility?!? Well, we shall see!” I thought. Did I want to be free? Absolutely! I had tried so many time to be, yet always failed.
You see through all the years of having “sexual freedom” and “owning my sexuality” I had become dependent on fantisizing about others in order to be intimate with my husband. Specifically, women. I thought that because I couldn’t “shake” this desire or fantasy it was just a part of me. As long as I did not act on it, or indulge it, it would be ok. As long as I fought it, I could just try and suppress the mental part that wouldn’t relent. However, the closer I became to God the more torturous the thoughts were to me, yet I still “needed them”. I would explain homosexuality like this to people. I beleive it is how people are made, they can’t control who they are attracted to. They can only control if they act upon that attraction. Ex. I could be attracted to your husband, yet I choose not to pursue him because of my beliefs on how that it would be wrong. Can I help that I am attracted to him? NO, but I can help what I do or do not do about it. That was my explanation… to myself and others.
Well the fast was HARD… LIKE VERY HARD! Probably the hardest one I have ever taken a part of. Jimmie and I rarely went a week without sex much less an entire month! However I was now very curious and eager to see if I could be free like He said. I’m not gonna lie, I was not optimistic about it. This had been a part of me for so long I wasn’t sure it could just go away. I no longer wanted it, but I couldn’t make it go away. At the end of the fast, you can image… Jimmie and I celebrated! WOHOO! It had been so long no fantasizing was needed, however I was critically awaiting. The next time, my mind began to go to the places it had been before, yet just as quickly as a light switching on and off, what once turned me ON NOW TURNED ME OFF! The thoughts that once excited me, now nauseated me. I’ll be honest I was SHOCKED! Like for real I was. I had convinced myself that this was truly how I was made and that my mind and thoughts were just me and I would have to live with them. Yet, I was so WRONG! My mind was bound and it was now free.
Am I telling you this because I am preaching against homosexuality? NO! My point for this post is HOPE! Hope that whatever you think is impossible for you to be free from, God says there is freedom in Him. Hope that you will know that you don’t have to be tortured with thoughts or actions you can’t seem to control. He has come to renew your mind and set you free. Hope that even when you have given up hope in areas of your life and family, He will always be there saying… “I’m ready to set you free… to set them free.” Hope for the impossible…Hope for the improbable… Hope!
On the last 3 days that I have left… the Legacy I need to leave is HOPE!