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Reclaiming Intimacy After Premarital Sex (Part 1 of 3)
By Heather Jamison

A woman took a stroll down a country lane. Coming upon a neighboring farm, she noticed the farmer held a crossbow.
"What's going on, Farmer Tom?" she asked.
"I'm taking up archery," he said.
The woman looked at the barn where Tom had aimed. Every arrow rested right in the center of a bull's-eye! "That's some fine shooting, Farmer Tom," the woman said and continued on her way.
"Thanks," responded the farmer, taking aim and letting another arrow fly.
Glancing over her shoulder, the woman saw the arrow hit the barn. But this one didn't hit a target; it just hit the barn. Then she saw Farmer Tom stroll over to the barn, pick up his paint bucket and brush, and paint a circle around the arrow.
All along, Farmer Tom hadn't been aiming for any bull's-eyes. He thought hitting the side of the barn was good enough. It only took a couple of strokes of paint to make it look like his arrows had hit the target.
When I engaged in premarital sex, I became like Farmer Tom. I didn't aim at authentic intimacy but shot in the general direction of what looked like love and thought that would be good enough. I could always paint a bull's-eye later to give the illusion that I'd struck true intimacy.
Once married, I aimed at escaping loneliness and thought painting the bull's-eye around my arrows would make me feel secure. The tendency I had refined while engaging in premarital sex, that of aiming at people to feel fulfilled, continued. Seeking to satisfy the longings of my heart through people had grown into a habit.
When I got married, I aimed at things to fulfill me, and I painted bull's-eyes around what I'd hit - a nice home, children and church involvement with Brian. With my arrows in so many bull's-eyes, I was surrounded by illusions of hitting actual intimacy.
I had relied on premarital sex to make me feel that I had an intimate relationship with Brian. But when arguments, trials and emotional detachment came between us, I no longer had premarital sex to fall back on. I saw it for the lie it really was. Even so, I was used to looking for the validation, or expression, of intimacy in tangible areas of my flesh. I turned, then, to new things in my relationship with Brian to confirm our affection for each other. They, too, didn't last - especially past the next fight or during times of mutual dissatisfaction. After many years of this, I realized that I had been looking to Brian to meet a need within me that he was not even capable of meeting. Gary Thomas explains it this way in his book Sacred Marriage:
We need to remind ourselves of the ridiculousness of looking for something from other humans that only God can provide. Our close friends have a son named Nolan. When he was just four years old, he saw me carrying some rather large boxes and asked me, in all sincerity, "Gary, are you strongest, or is God strongest?"
His dad laughed a little too hard at that one. And of course we adults think it's absurd to compare our physical strength with God's. But how many of us "adults" have then turned around and asked, perhaps unconsciously, 'Are you going to fulfill me, or will God fulfill me?" For some reason, that question doesn't sound as absurd to us as the one about physical strength, but it should! ... My wife can't be God, and I was created with a spirit that craves God. Anything less than God, and I'll feel an ache.
To reclaim authentic intimacy that has been lost to disillusionment, dishonor or disappointment through the sin of premarital sex, we must stop aiming at humans altogether and aim at where real intimacy is found - in Jesus. We succeed in hitting the bull's-eye through what has already been discussed - repentance and trust. We also hit the target through pursuit. We must aim the arrows at the Author of intimacy Himself. Then let go.
Reclaiming intimacy involves dying to self, pursuing holiness and modeling the love of Jesus.

Dying to Self to Reclaim Intimacy (Part 2 of 3)
By Heather Jamison

When God chose to be intimate with us, He chose to be intimate with a people who are lost (Luke 19:10), perishing (John 3:16) and condemned (v. 18). God gave His perfect love to lovers of darkness and evil (v. 20). He poured His absolute grace on us - we who are lulled to sleep in the lap of the Evil One (1 John 5:19), are formed in iniquity (Ps. 51:5), and are desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9). God loved the unlovable.
In order for a holy God to be intimate with us, a sacrifice just as holy had to be made. Jesus was that sacrifice. He hung on a cross for the sins of the whole world. He painted a picture of true love framed in service, self-sacrifice and death. "He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:8). Jesus died to Himself in every sense of the term.
To die to ourselves means giving up our hopes, our dreams, and our aspirations in order to follow Jesus. It means laying our self-will, our pride and our need to control on the altar and letting them die as a sacrifice. It means loving our spouse because God says to love, even if thoughts of our spouse's past relationships haunt us. Paul basically stated it this way: We ought to consider others as more important than ourselves (see Rom. 12:10). We can't do that unless we first learn to die to ourselves.
But the struggles of everyday life grab my attention more than the pursuit of dying to self. I find myself too often responding to the small, everyday irritations in the same way I approached premarital sex - selfishly.
Let's say Brian says he'll take over the household chores for a few days so that I can get some things done. Great! After two days the dishwasher is begging to be loaded. It's not my turn, I think. He said he would take care of everything. So the dishwasher remains empty. Or I find a stray pair of Brian's shoes in the hallway, and I leave them there because the owner is old enough to put them away.
Or maybe I am in a social situation. The conversation gets turned toward me. Do I relish the attention, or do I change the focus to Brian so as to honor him? Too many times I enjoy my conceit rather than practicing the humility that comes from exalting another through praise.
Premarital sex didn't make me this way, but it did cultivate my selfishness. In order to cultivate dying to self I need the virtue of grace. Even though I have been forgiven my sin of premarital sex, my flesh remains trained in the habit that premarital sex encouraged - feeding myself. In order to die to myself, I have to acknowledge my innate self-interest and change my thinking.
Whoever engages in premarital sex feeds his or her flesh, thus creating a barrier to reclaiming intimacy. Feeding the flesh the tasty morsels of selfishness only increases a desire for self-gratification. Instead of prayers steeped in humility, we may find ourselves praying, "Give me a husband who understands that I have other responsibilities besides him," or "Give me a wife who understands all I have to accomplish and go through at work," or "Give me a spouse who understands and cares for everything I think. Everything I say. Everything I feel." Give me! Give me! Give me!
Me. We have painted ourselves - our own expectations and desires - around the arrows. We've made ourselves the bull's-eye when aiming at authentic intimacy, thus revealing that premarital sex is nothing more than a manifestation of our own selfishness. We need to be honest, to name it and claim it for what it is and for what it has done - fostered even more selfishness. Only by recognizing what premarital sex really is and what has resulted from it can we change our hearts and minds. Dr. Larry Crabb writes,
Only when the central problem of self-centeredness is faced first and squarely can a desire to do right develop. Married folks would do well to think less about doing what good husbands and wives should do or whether they are properly taking their humanness into account, and more about how self-directed so much of their activity really is. Rather than figuring out practical ways to improve our marriages, perhaps we need to realize how badly and how often we need forgiveness. We want manageable activity and practical handles to guide us through the confusing times in our lives. But we will not be able to take the positive steps toward the enjoyment marriage was designed to provide until we first take steps to recognize more clearly the selfishness we so easily excuse.
Neither will we be able to reclaim intimacy until we first realize that, when seeking intimacy, the one on whom we focus is usually ourselves. To reclaim intimacy, our focus must be redirected from ourselves to God. Because of the mercies of God, we ought to aim our arrows for heaven.
Paul writes, "You were raised from the dead with Christ. So aim at what is in heaven, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Think only about the things in heaven, not the things on earth. Your old sinful self has died, and your new life is kept with Christ in God. Christ is your life" (Col. 3:1-4 NCV, emphasis added).
Dying to self means living to Christ. Jesus taught us how to aim at heaven when He taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10). Asking for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is requesting a bit of heaven to exist down here. We thereby acknowledge the fullness of God in heaven, His attributes and environment. We are saying, "I want a little of what You've got in heaven. I want what You want. I want Your will in heaven to be done here where I am. I want You! I want to fall in love with You!"
More likely, though, we find ourselves praying, "My kingdom come. My will be done." Doing so only paints bull's-eyes around our own selfish desires and creates an illusion of intimacy. We thus miss the target of intimacy altogether, settling for merely hitting the side of a barn.
Jesus died to His own will so that the unloving could love. We are to follow His example and die to self - in order to live. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal" (John 12:24-25).
Dying to self means dying to earthly expectations. It means embracing true humility. Humility cannot be offended because it demands nothing. "It is in the death to self that humility is perfected," writes Andrew Murray.
Be sure that at the root of all real experience of more grace, or all true advance in consecration, of all actually increasing conformity to the likeness of Jesus, there must be a deadness to self that proves itself to God and men in our dispositions and habits. The death to self has no surer death mark than a humility which makes itself of no reputation, which empties out itself, and takes the form of a servant.
Reclaiming intimacy includes dying to self that is then manifested outwardly in acts of service, forgiveness and honor.
Marriage is not a place to practice complacency. It is one of the most difficult institutions ever created. It requires the molding of two incomplete people who have a notion that satisfying their wants and desires is the aim of their lives. Unless this notion is got rid of, and got rid of quickly through dying to self, the marriage will become a competition for control and a wasteland of selfishness.
"If people understood the depth of self-abnegation that marriage demands, there would perhaps be far fewer weddings," writes Mike Mason. "For marriage, too, would be seen as a form of suicide. It would not be seen as a way of augmenting one's comfort and security in life, but rather as a way of losing one's life for the sake of Christ."

Pursuing Holiness in Marriage (Part 3 of 3)
By Heather Jamison

Dying to self means living for Jesus. It means resting in Jesus - recognizing and relying on what He wants. Living for Jesus can mean only one kind of life - a life of holiness. While forgiveness for our sin of premarital sex came freely upon repentance, personal holiness in the quest for intimacy comes with a cost. Victory to overcome what sin has created - increased selfishness, skepticism and relational vices - requires effort and a daily resting in Jesus.
"You can become a Christian for free but it is expensive to be a disciple," says Dr. Tony Evans. "You can go to heaven for free but to get heaven to come down here and join you on earth costs something…What's the difference between a victorious marriage and a defeated marriage? Discipleship."
Discipleship is the learning of and adapting to the teachings of Jesus. One way we can learn about Jesus is by looking at His life. Jesus' life reveals virtues of gentleness, humility, service, grace, power and compassion. Numerous books have been written on how to cultivate these virtues. But time alone with God and in His Word is the best way to gain understanding of His teachings. His Word is the only thing that hasn't been tainted by human ambition or fear. It is the only thing that can displace the lies that the Enemy has birthed through sins such as premarital sex.
In her book Praying God's Word, Beth Moore sorts Scripture into prayers that we can use to shield our minds against the Enemy's lies. Sections of the book contain prayers that are relevant to challenges resulting from premarital sex, challenges such as overcoming pride, idolatry, sexual strongholds and the insecurity of feeling unloved. It is a palatable resource for renewing the mind. In praying God's Word, we not only battle against the enemy but also we battle our flesh to purify our thoughts. The process of resting in the Holy One begins with renewing our minds with Truth.
Then, when we try to apply and carry out the truth of Jesus daily in our own lives, we enter a process of becoming holy. Holiness simply means set apart and different. In spiritual holiness, we are set apart from sin and the flesh. We become different from our own natures.
My nature, for example, says to think of my wants first. Holiness says to think first of others. My nature says to hold back physical affection at the times when I regret how easily I gave it before I was married. Holiness says to forgive and give generously. My nature tells me to ignore efforts to make myself physically appealing to my spouse when I believe Satan's lie that I was sought prior to marriage solely on the basis of the physical. Holiness says to honor my husband, and one way I can honor him is through his desire for physical appeal.
Holiness means that we are to become different from our natures, which have nursed us and comforted us. Our perception of holiness may be intimidating or fuzzy at first. But in time our minds will be renewed with the Truth, which gives us clear perception and a reflection of God's glory.
And that vision may, at first, be overwhelming. Annie Dillard, in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, tells about an incident that took place in the early 1900s when surgeons in the West perfected cataract surgery. These surgeons traveled extensively, performing the operation and giving sight to people who had been blind from cataracts, some since birth. Many of the adult patients became horrified after the procedure. Some, in fact, chose to return to blindness by closing their eyes and keeping them closed. Because their brains were at first unable to distinguish space, depth and size, the patients could not associate meaning to what they saw. They were unable to decipher walls, which they bumped into, or a shoe over which they would trip. Shadows looked like objects that had to be reckoned with.
Their experience is similar to the blind man whom Jesus healed. Upon restoration of his sight, the man interpreted people as trees that walked. Jesus then placed His hands on the blind man's eyes a second time and performed another miracle - that of creating perception for the man as well.
The surgeons in Dillard's book couldn't create perception for their patients. Instead, the patients had to go through the daunting process of learning it on their own. Before the operation, many of the patients were happy, oblivious to the reality around them. After the operation, many of them were stressed with an overload of perceptions. Having been given new sight, some preferred to return to darkness instead.
Sight was foreign to these patients, as holiness is foreign to all of us. It goes against our flesh. It is in opposition to our natures. We can become so overwhelmed when we read God's Word and see Jesus' holiness that we prefer to close our eyes and remain in darkness. We prefer to remain in the abstract world of touching rather than risk being overwhelmed by the details of actually seeing. We close our eyes, finding it difficult to focus on anything at all except what we can feel - our flesh.
Our spirits have not been trained to distinguish the depths and shapes of true holiness. The initial perception frightens us. Yet through time and practice, like a cataract patient whose eyes focus more clearly each day, we will see and become what God has intended. And in His holiness, we will learn how to reclaim intimacy that is lasting.
Although the pursuit of holiness can be overwhelming, it must nonetheless be done on an individual basis. Pursuing holiness through Jesus might be compared to a football game. Everyone in the stadium gets to experience the game - but at different levels of involvement. A sizeable difference exists between the satisfaction found by those who sit in the nosebleed seats versus those in the first row on the fifty-yard line. An even greater difference in experiencing the game exists between spectator and player.
All Christians are able to pursue holiness through Jesus. But not all Christians climb onto the field to do so. Some are content to remain in the stands as spectators. Without making a willful choice to play the game and go against the opposition - Satan and our own flesh - it is impossible to score and thereby attain intimacy.
When Brian used to play football, the quarterback would hand him the ball and Brian would run toward the goal line. In all of the games I saw, Brian always scored because every time he got the ball he dashed for the goal.
As a pom-pom girl, I often sat in the front row of the bleachers, cheering him on. Yet no matter how much Brian liked me, never once did he run to me when he got the ball. In fact, he never even looked my way. Had he done so, he wouldn't have scored. And the coach would have sidelined him for sure.
Football players know where the goal is. They know that the goal isn't in the bleachers. It isn't in the band corral. It isn't even at the nacho stand. The moment they start believing it is, they lose the game. What if Brian had said, "But Coach, I get weak in the knees for nachos. I can smell the melted cheese with chili peppers. When I get the ball, all I can think about are nachos, and I just have to go get some."
His coach would have replied, "Then don't play football. Get in the stands with the rest of the spectators! Eat your nachos. Feed your flesh. But don't expect to reach the goal."
The intimacy that was lost in my marriage, resulting from my sin of premarital sex, wasn't going to be reclaimed by watching others pursue holiness. If I wanted to reclaim intimacy through pursuing holiness I was going to have to get out of the stands filled with all of the appeals to the flesh and get on the playing field. If I wanted to reclaim marital intimacy with Brian, I had to learn that the authentic intimacy I innately desired would be found only after much effort and conscious pursuit.
No one else can pursue holiness for me. No one else can attain intimacy for me. I can't even rely on Brian to grow and give me total intimacy. I have to get beyond the distractions and fears of life and focus on pursuing holiness myself. I not only have to focus on it, but I have to actually participate in it. Achieving holiness is not a spectator sport. I have to spend time alone with God in meditation and prayer. I have to read books written about the pursuit of holiness. I have to seek accountability for growth and participate in Bible studies. I have to practice the virtues that I am learning. I have to learn that, while no one can do it for me, neither can I do it on my own. My pursuit may be individual, but it is only done by resting in another individual - Jesus.
When I rest in Jesus, He does the striving for me. And in His striving, I find peace. Brian knows when I am resting in Jesus. He says he can feel a huge weight lift from his shoulders. He can then be free to be himself, because I am not looking to him to meet all of my needs. Rather I am looking to Jesus. In Jesus, my needs are met. And I'll tell you a secret. When a husband feels free to be himself, he usually also feels free to be more kind, gentle and loving.
If you want intimacy, you must aim at the One who embodies it - Jesus. Take your eyes off the counterfeit bull's-eyes of your own desires and set them on Him. Imitate Him with others. Emulate Him to others. Adore Him for yourself. When you do, you will soon find that those bull's-eyes you painted "grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." You will also find that reclaiming intimacy in your marriage is not only possible - it is natural. You only need to aim at the right target.