Spiritual Breakthrough: Bringing God Into My Shame
- Emily Myers
- 6 days ago
- 10 min read
If I have prayer warriors out there, you can sigh in relief. This week of Woman In The Word content has been different and personal, but maybe that's exactly what it needed to be? This blog is an outlet for me that helps me process the battles I face in a way that hopefully helps others.
This whole week, as I was writing through struggle, I thought maybe someone out there can relate. Maybe someone is going through the same thing and they need to see it's possible to fight the feelings of hopelessness and mistrust instead of giving in to them. Whatever sprinkles of wisdom these posts have offered you, it honestly made this week of pain worth it to me. What also made it worth it is the moment I had with God yesterday.
There are some things I want to keep private, so I won't detail everything that happened between me and God. But I will share what led up to it, the beauty of the moment we shared, and where it's left me. With that said, if you are related to me, this is a post you may want to skip.
Before finishing this post, if you want to dig deeper into the struggles I've been facing check out: Struggles In Surrender Part 1 and Struggles In Surrender Part 2.
I sought Him even when I was angry at Him, even when I was struggling to trust Him.
I've spent the past several days processing my feelings through writing, praying to God--a lot of times I write those prayers down in my journal--and I sought comfort in His word when I felt my heart was open to it. It wasn't on the first day, let me tell you.
On the days when I didn't have the strength to seek Him, I sought the counsel and comfort of Christian friends who I know I can trust to give me Biblically-sound advice. To me, that felt like an act of seeking Him, because it wasn't about what my friends would say, but what God would say through them.
I let myself feel my emotions and I didn't hide them from God.
As if we can hide anything from Him? Some people would say it's not okay to be angry at God. It's not okay to yell at Him or question Him. I disagree. Is He deserving of my anger? No. But is it important for me to release in order to move through the complete cycle of emotions and reach the breakthrough I have? Yes.
It's okay to bring all of your emotions to your relationship with God. He can handle it. He isn't going to run away from your anger or turn His back on you because you're struggling to trust. He's going to meet you right in the middle of the mess, let you express yourself, and then help you regain strength and peace.
Opening up to God, sharing how I really feel, crying to Him through every ache, is actually one of the things that makes me feel closest to Him. Coincidentally, it's also one of the things that makes me feel close to a human companion. For me, trust and intimacy is built through honest conversation and sharing of our darkest parts. Because it's in the sharing that you provide an opportunity for someone to accept you, for someone to demonstrate their trustworthiness, and strength to hold your emotions. As I write, I actually feel that's a revelation in and of itself.
Our relationship with God may mirror the relationships we have with others.
That means whatever relationship roadblocks we face, like trust issues, control issues, hyper-independence, people-pleasing, fear of honest expression, etc. may be the same issues we bring into our relationship with God. Additionally, whatever makes us feel closest and most connected to others may be the very same things that will make us feel closest and most connected to God. And that's actually the perfect transition to my moment with God, the moment where we had true intimacy.
I brought Him into my shame physically and emotionally.
My struggles are rooted in two lies that, for many years, I believed as truth.
The first: I will never have love in my life. I will never get married.
The second: My blessings are tied to my performance.
These lies created this storm of hopelessness and striving for perfection. As long as I was good, as long as I didn't sin, I felt like I had a chance to receive the blessing of marriage. But when I envitably felt too exhausted to perform or too exhausted to continue hoping that the season would change, the hopelessness would rise and with it came my anger.
The why God questions would come. The comparison to others who haven't had to work so hard to attain love would come. It is crippling and suffocating. And the hopelessness makes me feel disconnected from God, because at my lowest moments, I don't have the strength to even be comforted by Him. All I can do is breathe, sleep, and function on autopilot until my heart is open to receiving His word again.
But the lie isn't where the shame or disconnection from God resided. My shame resided in my failure, in the sin, in the thing that made me feel separated from God. For me, my shame resided in my bedroom, in my desire for touch and connection. It resided in my body.
This is a hard topic to talk about, especially because I know some family members who read this blog. But I feel like the devil perverted my desire for intimacy at an early age. My desires were never grounded in lust, but that doesn't mean the devil couldn't exploit a good desire. It's no different from how he twists and perverts other good things like marriage, church, and mankind.
When I first awakened love and that desire for physical touch rose, I was quickly exposed to porn, but not just any kind of porn. There is a category called Bondage. Yes, literally. This exposure was around the time the novel Fifty Shades of Grey was released, or at least the movie. So, that should give you an idea of how the devil perverted my good desire for sex, physical touch, and connection with something dark, violent, and evil. It's also why I'm dedicated to changing the way I write sex in books, because I don't want to contribute to anyone else's downfall the way that novel contributed to mine.
While I had felt the conviction of watching porn and broke that bad habit long ago, my desire for touch and intimacy remained. And so I continued to live in the sin of masturbation. It wasn't that I wanted to sin or feel disconnected from God. Honestly, I only did it once a month when the natural desire arose, unless I had been exposed to some form of arousing material.
In getting closer to God, I made the decision to not only change the way I write books, but the books I consume. That now applies to the movies I watch, the content I consume in general. But even after removing those arousal triggers, I still have a grown woman's body that desires not only emotional intimacy but physical intimacy.
In the recent weeks, when all of my struggles came back to the surface, it was so heavy trying to suppress my body, trying to suppress something natural and good. I knew God had cleansed me of the devil's perversion. No more porn. No more dark thoughts to get me off. I knew my desire came from a good place. Yet, I was still told to suppress it. And that just made me feel disconnected from myself and angry at God for not giving me a husband that would free me from the shame and sin of this desire. Then, I finally gave in and I spiraled back into shame and disconnection.
In that moment, I invited God in, but I still felt guilty, because it felt like something I wasn't supposed to do. After days of processing, writing, praying, reading His word, the desire resurfaced again. Only this time, it didn't carry the same weight. It didn't feel wrong. I had clarity in knowing I'm not seeking anything dark or perverted. What I'm seeking isn't even truly sexual. It is pure connection, pure intimacy.
Do you want to know the thought that elicited the physical desire? I imagined I was being hugged by my husband--whoever he is. I imagined he was caressing my arm and had his palm pressed against the back of my head, just craddling me and making me feel safe while fully clothed. It wasn't sexual at all. I knew I was craving connection, intimacy, safety, and comfort, and that's what I was trying to provide myself by imagining that moment. Still, my body reacted.
My breakthrough didn't come from squashing my desire for intimacy, but in inviting God into it. I invited God into the place where the shame lived. I invited God into my bedroom, into my desire, and we had intimacy. He taught me to see myself through His eyes. He allowed me to let go of my shame in that moment, not because I suppressed a desire He gave me, but because I finally invited Him into it wholeheartedly.
We are told to bring God into every room, every situation, and yet I always felt like He didn't belong in the bedroom. Maybe that's what society tells us? Regardless, I can remember not even wanting to hang a cross in my bedroom, because it felt like what would happen in front of that cross would be dishonorable. But the truth is, God's presence is what drives out darkness. If God isn't in our bedroom, then who else is? Furthermore, God created our bodies. He created not only our emotional desire for intimacy but our physical desire for intimacy. He crafted every nerve ending. He crafted every aspect of our anatomy. And He never asked us to put clothes on or hide in shame.
"And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." Genesis 2:25
It was only after sin entered the world that Adam and Eve realized they were naked and made clothes for themselves. That tells me God thinks our bodies are pretty amazing. Not only that, he thinks sex is amazing. Why else would He tell Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply? Why else would He tell husbands to delight in their wives?
"As a loving deer and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured with her love." Proverbs 5:19
There may be people out there who think I'm wrong for what I did. Maybe I am. I'm not bringing you scripture and interpreting it through a lens to support what I did. What I do know is that I have never felt closer to God. I have never felt more love for God. I have never felt so free--free from shame, free from sin.
God allowed me to see myself through His eyes. He healed the sexual trauma I'd been yearning for my husband to heal. He came into a space that the devil used to play. He reclaimed that room and He let me reclaim my body, my mind, my self-perception, and my sexual desire. He allowed me to let go of my shame and finally feel like a woman, a woman of God.
In my story, this moment was pivotal, because of the spiritual attacks I'd faced in the realms of sex, desire, and my body. Expecting man to heal what the devil broke was never going to work. It was aiding my idolization of marriage. God was the only one who could heal these wounds inside me. And I am so thankful I didn't let shame continue to keep Him out.
If you are struggling with your sexual desire, your body image, or sexual trauma, invite God into that area specifically. I'm not saying He will lead you to do exactly what I did. We all have a unique relationship with the Lord. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to relationship with Him. There is only one answer to every question--seek Him, and He will lead you to whatever breakthrough you need to heal.
In closing, I want to reference back to a statement I made earlier: Whatever makes us feel closest and most connected to others may be the very same things that will make us feel closest and most connected to God.
While my primary love language is quality time, it's no wonder that physical intimacy allowed me to feel closer to God. It's one of the things that excites me most about getting married one day. Obviously, marriage is so much more than that. But as a woman who has never experienced safe and loving sexual intimacy, even though I was married, this aspect of Godly marriage excites me.
Physical intimacy is a reflection of the intimacy that exists outside of the bedroom. I crave both forms of intimacy, emotional and physical. But in my relationship with God, it always felt unfulfilling because I couldn't have everything I needed to feel safe, whole, loved, and connected to Him. I was able to have quality time with Him, but He wasn't able to fulfill all my needs, because I wasn't letting Him. I didn't think I could or should. Now, I feel like I have true intimacy with the Lord and I pray that this relationship only continues to grow.
This breakthrough I had with the Lord has shifted my desperation for marriage to an excitement for marriage. I was always worried about the sexual trauma I would bring into that relationship. I was worried about carrying perverted sexual desires and dark thoughts into our bedroom. I was worried about not being able to fully connect and be pleased by my husband because I'd been conditioned to be aroused by violence and domination. I was worried I would lead mine and my husband's sexual relationship to a dark place, a place we couldn't escape, a place shrouded in the same shame I'd been so eager to let go of. Now, I don't have those worries. Now, I know that safe and loving touch is exactly what I want and it is satisfying.
I am excited. Literally, I'm smiling as I write this. And that tells me, it is good. This moment was necessary--for my healing, my relationship with the Lord, and my relationship with my future husband.
Journal Prompts:
What makes you feel the most connected to the people in your life? And how can you bring those same strategies into your relationship with the Lord and grow your relationship with Him?
What relationship roadblocks are you experiencing in your earthly relationships and could they be playing a role in your relationship with the Lord?
Your relationship with God is personal. You are a unique creation crafted specifically by Him. You have unique needs and unique struggles. And God created you exactly how you are, so that He can meet you in your uniqueness and have a unique relationship with you.
As an author, this is something I relate to. I love creating characters with different flaws and traumas, quirks and mannerisms, because it lets me step into their shoes and experience life through their unique perspective. I love the literary journey of restoration and redemption.
I'm not saying that's what God is doing with us, but I can imagine if we were all the same and He had to read the same story a billion times over, that wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as getting to live a brand new story through each of His unique creations. So, let God meet you in your uniqueness and build your own personal relationship with Him. Bring Him into every room, every situation. Remove the roadblocks and connect with Him in the ways you know how to, not just the ways you're told to.
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