Surviving Sexual Brokenness

Book excerpt: A man with his wife at the table on the other side of the restaurant is polite but distracted. A woman at work stares out her office window with a blank expression, her mind far away. A father wraps his arm around his daughter in the church pew; his eyes are on the pulpit, but his mind wanders. What about the college student on the soccer field or in the library? The doctor prepping for surgery? The realtor showing the house next door? The mailman on your front porch. Your Sunday school teacher . . . perhaps even your preacher. These people may be dominated by some form of sexual brokenness, from pornography to adultery to unwanted homosexual temptation. They share a secret they hope and pray will never be revealed. The urge to "act out" in their brokenness is destroying them because it conflicts with a life they have already chosen. They don't know how to live with it; they don't know how to be rid of it. They may not know what caused it; they only want to "cure" it. "Am I just a misplaced homosexual?" "Did God make me this way?" "Why won't He change me?" Surrounding them are the ones who sense something is amiss but have no clue what to do or where to find help. They may be confused by the teachings of the church: love the sinner; hate the sin. This seemingly Biblical response can actually send the message to the struggler that he is, in fact, unlovable because his identity seems inseparable from his sin. Surviving Sexual Brokenness examines the roots and the roadblocks and provides understanding, encouragement, hope and help through Biblical truth and Christian compassion for the freedom-seeker and those who travel alongside.