Last week, we saw that allowing God and others into our emotions allows us the opportunities to live as wholly ourselves again. Expressing our emotions to others is a positive step towards reconnecting with ourselves and with God. Click here to read the first post in this series.

Experiencing and expressing emotions in the presence of others opens us to the possibility of further wounding, but it also opens us to the possibility of receiving comfort where we need it most. The wounded places are the places most in need of the love and acceptance of others, and yet we are least likely to allow God and others access.

It is time now.

We grieve so we can be comforted. We receive comfort and we (including the wounded places) become reconnected where we were once cut off. We reconnect to ourselves, to God, and to others. And we receive comfort so we can be healed.

Sometimes we are comforted simply in expressing the emotion, as when we let tears come that have been at bay for a long time. Other times, we are comforted by the presence of others, or by the felt presence of God.

In all cases, the comfort we receive brings healing that cannot come another way. Healing does not come to wounded places that remain in the dark, locked up and cut off from the light of day. Healing comes when our wounds are placed into trustworthy hands.

As the light and love of God and others enters, we are reconnected, and comfort and healing wash over the wounds and bring new life.

In this way, we are obeying God’s first and greatest commandment to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. How? Recovery from sexual addiction is not, as our flesh might like us to think, a call to a lesser form of living. Quite the contrary, walking away from sexual addiction is a walking towards God and others in the areas of our lives that are most vulnerable, weak, and needy. Walking away from sexual addiction is a walking toward a greater degree of wholeness in oneself, no longer cut off from parts within, but more fully integrated. And as we become more whole (more able and willing to access all the rooms of the heart), we become more able to receive God’s love and to love Him in return more fully, with all the parts that make up our lives.

Question: in what areas of your life can you give and receive comfort this week?

For you,

Josh

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing…that is a friend who cares.” – Henri Nouwen