Hope for Sexual Brokenness - Part 2 (Episode 93)

Brent continues his interview with Blaine Bartel about resurrection from sexual brokenness.  They discuss the process of healing from any brokenness and how it is possible to find a new life of freedom and health as well as how to help heal the marriage traumatized by betrayal.

Transcript:

Welcome to Life and Love Nuggets, where licensed therapists Brent and Janice Sharp share how you can thrive in

your life, your love, and your relationships.

Welcome back, friends, to Life and Love Nuggets. We're continuing our conversation with Blaine Bartel. If you had

not listen to the last podcast, listen to that. But there's. We just felt like we got an introduction done and Blaine's

been such a good friend for what year? What do we actually mean?

I think around 2012 or 13. Somewhere in there.

All right, so yeah, 13 years or something like that. And so. And has this just amazing ministry now to men and to

couples. And have. Has a intensive that you're doing now with couples and called the House of Resurrection. We'll

have you talk a little bit more about that in a minute. He's an author. Many of you know him from the 80s and 90s

where he's a TV.

Star buyer by night. Every time I see Laura Cook, who does worship at Sanctuary Church, she just. She never says,

hey, Blaine, it's Fire by Night, which is an old TV show. You can YouTube it. It's. Yeah, it's. It's. If you like the 80s, you'll

like fire by Night.

So anyway, so. And then life took a big turn and you share quite openly about life. We talked about last podcast

about came to an end and started a whole process. That's where the whole idea of resurrection came into your work

now that you do, because it's what God is bringing you through.

Right.

You know, and so when we talk about. I mean, when you think about your own, you know, experience there, and we

did mention that even though we're talking about sexual brokenness in our culture and the struggle, particularly for

guys deal with this. And I think these principles apply to any brokenness. And we all have brokenness. We know we

all are limited. We all have places in our life that we can't fix ourselves. We weren't designed to fix it ourselves. It

really is the grace of God, his strength that does that. And yet we're talking about a particular brokenness in this

context. And so can you speak a little bit to what. What happens? Because I think the, you know, the church or the

world has just looked at. Well, that's just. That's just bad. You know, this is just bad behavior.

Right, right.

Bad behavior. Stop it.

Yeah.

You know, so what's going on there that happens in us?Well, that was my biggest question. For those who didn't watch the last or listen to the last podcast, I shared a little

bit of my story. So 15 years ago, I disclosed by God's terrifying grace, 23 years of sexual addiction, including

pornography and infidelity and reaching outside of my marriage. I mean, it was awful, and I was awful, and I never

felt like I was a hypocrite. Brent it wasn't that I wanted it, accepted it, wanted to live this secret life. I hated myself. I

hated what I was doing. But it just seemed no matter what I did, I could not stop. I'd have seasons where I'd maybe

will myself to not looking at porn or acting out for a few months, but it would just always come back. At least in my

church world.

The only help I would get when I'd go to men's conferences or read books was just get accountability. Maybe get a

rubber band. Snap a rubber band. You'll feel the pain whenever you have a tempting thought and you won't wake you

up. Yeah, won't lust anymore was just all this kind of external work that you could do to stop this run, you know, be

like Joseph, run from lust. And so I finally get sent to Phoenix for therapy, and it's a secular therapy center. I was

there for 30 days, $30,000, and I'm there in the first week. And they're like, what is going on? They kept asking me

about my past and my childhood and my teenage years and this word trauma, and all of this stuff. And I'm like, what

does that have to do.

Let's get to the here and now of how do I stop this? Give me some tools, right? But over time, I began to realize that

for any addict, for anyone reaching out in any addiction, we're not reaching out. I mean, for the most part, because

we want to be evil or we want to be addicted or we want to bring crisis into our life and family. We're covering or

masking or medicating something internally that is painful. And so it may be unforgiveness, it may be bitterness, it

may be a trauma event that you've never got past in your youth. For me, it was several things. I was sexually abused

when I was a kid by a boss. I transgressed as a 13 year old sexually in a way that I was so ashamed of with a family

member.

There were just so many things that I was holding on to, and then there was some deep seated bitterness and

unforgiveness towards a few people in my life that I woke up every day just wanting to figure out how to eliminate

them from the world. It was awful. When you have that kind of pain. When you have that kind of storm inside of you,

the natural thing for you, if you don't get that healed, is to medicate it. And so I was amazed as good counselors like

yourself began to help me to see what needed to be healed, to. To identify the trauma. And by the way, trauma is not

an event. It's an event that hasn't been healed. It's an open wound. And God began to heal those open wounds in my

life.

He began to bring forgiveness and also to give forgiveness where I felt like I needed to. And as that stuff began to be

healed, as God began to take those things away, all of a sudden freedom became attainable, like I wasn't needing to

escape anymore. So that's one of the things, you know, when a man comes to an intensive at House of Resurrection,

pretty much the first day, that's all we're doing, is we're digging into what is taking you there. What is taking you there

maybe in your marriage, what is taking you there in your past, what is taking you there in your. Your emotional

triggers, what are. What are you not handling well? And let's figure out what's getting you there, and then let Jesus

begin to. To heal that so.

So good. And so, because the reality is, as you said, we're medicating some kind of pain, some kind of traumas in

our life, and we're not looking back to blame it, but it's to understand and actually, the brain, it's kind of smart for the

brain. I mean, whether it's a sexual experience that energizes me or, you know, does all that. That it does, or whether

it's alcohol or a drug that numbs me out or whatever, it's kind of brain. It's kind of smart, you know.

Right.

Because it's a way to medicate that. It's just not productive.Right.

It's just not healthy.

Right.

You know, and this also is why we talked a little bit about shame, you know, the last podcast. And, and that keeps

people bound up because they feel so horrible, and it. Because it just keeps happening. And then, you know, how

many times people repent and apologize and commit that they're going to better, and then happens again, and then

we kind of assume, well, God's probably getting sick and tired of me, you know, is mad at me because I'm a bad boy

or whatever. And then we carry the shame. Shame, which is just the, you know, and then we're trying to, as you said,

willpower our way through that shame to better so we can be presentable to people and to God. And it just makes it

all worse because the more shame we feel, the more medicine we need.

Yeah.

It's just, it's the opposite. And so when the church has, you know, wagged our finger, you know, people for their bad

behavior.

Yeah.

We're actually making it worse.

Yeah.

Instead of being able to be with each other in their messiness.

Yes.

And say let's together. I've always believed that many people think that even with Jesus, that our sin, he's on the

other side of our sin and he's looking at it going, you need to clean your mess up. Instead of realizing, no, he's

standing right next to us and in us. Right. And saying, okay, let's. This is not helpful. You know, this is not productive

for your life. So let's work on this together. And I'm going to give you the strength to do that.

Yeah.

So, so it's, it really is. We call it kind of inside out healing. Right. We find God's presence in our life, his healing, his

deep love for us, even when we, you know, may fail again, you know, but that soaks in us and then all of a sudden, I

don't need that medicine. I don't need the false medicine. You know, we say that sins an inappropriate response to a

real and legitimate need.Yeah. So good.

And, and God has a certain way to get those needs met legitimately. But if we don't know how to do that, then there's

like a gazillion counterfeits. But every time we choose a counterfeit, it's like drinking salt water. You know, you come

up over a ridge on the coast and you see the ocean and you're thirsty and it's like, oh my gosh.

Right.

Everything I need, there it is. But the minute you drink salt water, it just makes you thir. More thirsty and so it just

anyway makes it worse. So the work you're doing is just, you're hitting the core of this. I just love that.

Yeah. To, to a man, we've, I don't know how many. I think it's close to 200 men that we've worked with intensives. And

one of the things we do in the evening as the sun sets, we have the guys that come in, take three stones. And of

course the stones in the woman caught in adultery were meant to destroy her, meant to kill her for her sin as a result

of her sin. And we just have the guys prayerfully go outside in the evening, take a black marker and write down the

stones that were sent their way to destroy them. The biggest, you know, the biggest enemies in their life. And some

will write lust, and others will write maybe unforgiveness, but almost to a man. Every guy will write something to the

effect of I'm not enough, I lack, I'm not good enough.

And when you talk about shame versus love, it is only the love of God that can cure that trauma of feeling like I'm not

enough. And these are men, as you know, that are successful, have great families, like good looking guys, and they

still feel like they're not enough. And what radically altered everything for me was a deep revelation and

understanding of the parable that is Jesus. Most popular, most probably quoted parable is the parable of the

prodigal son, or the son that wasted right. And for that son to go to his dad and commit the most heinous act, to say,

I would like you to be dead, but I can't wait for you to die. So I want my inheritance now. And then the Father gives it

to him.

So he takes his half, wastes it partying prostitutes, doesn't even go back because he's repentant. He goes back

because he's hungry. And he realizes he's destroyed his life. So he comes back ill motived. The father runs to meet

him in that moment. And what does the father do? Not what this father would do, you know, this father would say,

where have you been? How much money do you have left? And are you ready to fully apologize for your sin? The

Father embraces him, wraps his arms around him, gives him a robe, puts a ring of authority on him, puts sandals on

his feet to say, you're not going to be a slave when you come home. You're still going to be a son.

Like in the house.

And then I'm going to throw a party for you. I'm going to celebrate with the whole community. That's your home. That

is unconditional love without any conditions. And it's the kind of love that doesn't make sense practically, if you're a

real dad, to have that kind of radical, gratuitous love. But it's love when it comes from the Father, when it comes from

God as our Creator. It's love that changes us, it transforms us. We realize we are enough, that we are not enough

because of what we've done or who we know or what kind of titles we've accumulated. Or how much money we have

in the bank. We're just simply enough because we're his sons, changed my life forever. Because it's out of the

goodness of God that we find repentance and allegiance.

Absolutely. We could just put a period on it.That's beautiful.

That is it. That is the message. And God allows us to still run our own life. Now I always add a little bit to that story. I

think the father had to at least had a conversation with the son going, son, this is not a good idea. Please don't do

this. But the son is like, no, I want to do this. I want to get my needs met my way.

Right.

Okay. And he let him go. And he didn't chase after him. He didn't send little emissaries to check on him. But he was.

We believe he was standing on the front porch every morning looking, is this the day?

Wow.

Is this the day he's going to come back? But he doesn't make us do it. You know. And so. But he gives us the

opportunity to come to the end of ourselves. And. And that is the. We've been talking about. That's the greatest place

of strength we can have. Which is so contrary to our thinking that the place that I have nothing. The place that I To

the end of myself and I've failed in some way. That's the beginning of recovery and resurrection and strength. And so

now we know that these particularly sexual brokenness. And you said it so well about the. What men face that I'm

just not good enough, which they've bought. That comes from condemnation. Right. That comes from. There's

something not okay about you, who you are. And that's where shame comes from. And it is.

It is the opposite voice of God. You know, Conviction. We all call it the two C's. Condemnation and conviction.

Yeah.

They come from completely two different sources. But when we go through things like this, they're both coming at

us.

Yeah.

You know, and it's helping people learn how to stiff arm condemnation. Because scripture is very clear. There is no

condemnation in Christ. Not even an ounce.

Right.

Conviction, which you said perfectly was. Comes from the heart of a loving God. This is. There's nothing you could

ever do that would make me not love you. Not a thing. You're my child. Yeah, but this isn't best for you. This isn't how

I've designed you to thrive. So let's look at that.Yes.

Let's turn a corner. Let's do it differently. I'm here to give you the strength to do that. We want to welcome that voice

in.

Absolutely.

And gosh, I just. So many people out there that are just struggling with condemnation because they've had well

meaning people in their life. And I think this is where we got to wake up as the church and whether it's leadership or

parents or whatever, we've had well meaning people use condemnation to manipulate us.

Yeah, that.

If I can make you feel bad enough.

Yeah, you'll do.

You know, then you're gonna better.

It is poison, you know, including the church.

Absolutely. We're just, we've been horrible at that.

Yeah. I mean, I read a study several years ago. 73% of Americans believe God to be punitive, critical and judgmental.

So the vast majority of Americans, including Christians, believe that God is a very judgmental God. Well, where are

they getting that from? From pulpits, you know, from. From family members, from preachers. Using shame and

judgment. Try to transform behavior, maybe even out of a good heart, you know, do this or you're going to, you know,

or this is going to happen to you. And that is just not where God begins. God does want to change our behavior. He's

not sloppy. He's not like, yeah, go live anywhere. Like he didn't.

Yeah. He cares deeply.

Yeah.

Right.

But he wants it to be out of the right impulse. It's a woman caught in adultery. The first thing he does is love andprotect even a sinful person in that moment from the judgment of the religious people. But then he does say, go and

sin no more. And I believe that wasn't just go and behave. I believe there was authority and power in that command.

There was something being passed from Jesus to the woman to say, you can do this.

I will give you the strength to do it.

You don't have to be that person anymore. And that's the beauty of God, is God begins with love. He begins with

goodness. And as we receive that, we receive power to actually find transformation and see changes in our life. Not

to perfection.

Absolutely never.

All about, right, progress, not perfection to progress. And you know, one of the things we do at House of

Resurrection is we did. I remember when we hit our first hundred guys that I'd done intensives with as many as we

could still find, which are most of them. We sent emails out and we did a survey on how many of you are still walking

in this pathway.

Wow.

We're still walking in the pathway of purity and not perfection, but walking in that pathway. And the secular numbers

are 20%. So it's a credit to Christ and it's a credit to his work of resurrection. But in reaching out to these guys, I

asked them, you know, what has been the key for you? You know what, you know, the 73%, what is it that. That

helped you to hold on to this new life? And, and I was hoping they'd say the intensive, right? That two days was

Blaine. It was powerful. You know what they send? They said, you stayed with me for a year. So when a guy exits, he

engages in a Thursday night online gathering that we do every Thursday night for a year with these guys.

And they come in and we do work with about 15 to 20 guys that are currently clients or have graduated from the

intensive. But to a man, say, I learned so much from my brothers and I felt so supported during that season. And just

coming back week after week, it just began to take root. And I believe that if we're going to break the strongholds in

our life and stop the pain in our life, we can't look at it as man, if I just do this thing or if I just have this one

counseling appointment or if I, you know, just do this eight week group, it has to be a commitment to say, lord, I am

going to do this for the long run. And I'm going to. Yeah, I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay in this game.

So I, I love them. We do the mountain analogy in Katheros and we have stations, eight stations and climbing the

mountain to freedom. And one of the ideas that we share with guys is if you fall, if you stumble climbing this

mountain of freedom with Jesus, you don't ever fall to the bottom. You fall at 4,000ft and the mountain might be 10,

but you haven't fallen to the bottom. Get up, brush off, bandage up and keep climbing.

That's good. Beautiful. So we have talked about this idea that the whole idea of resurrection is a process. It is a

marathon, not a sprint. It is not just a quick. It's done life on life in these kind of experiences because it's messy,

because we know that this betrayal trauma, the impact it has on marriages is just devastating. And I know you're

trying to be a part of that too. And helping couples recover and wives to heal and men to know how can I help, you

know, my wife heal in those environments. And so can you speak to that? What, what do you. Or some of the keys

there that you.

Well, you could speak better to it than me. That's why I'm bringing you in to do the Marriage intensive with us. Yeah, Imean, I can. What I can say is that when a man is doing work, coming out of sexual brokenness, he's doing his work,

but then he's got to do the work of rebuilding love and trust and hopefulness in his spouse by small acts of love and

kindness every day and sacrifice. And so my part of that is helping men and training men to do that, to walk back

into a marriage with love and empathy and understanding and with very low expectations of how quickly she is

going to respond to that pain and to that hurt. So I work more with the men's side of coming.

Coming in with that kind of heart, with that kind of love, with that kind of empathy, being willing to go the distance. If

it takes a year. If it takes two years. We made vows, we're committed. I'm going to stay there. I'm not going to be

impatient, which most men are. And so at our marriage intensives, we will have you and Dr. Ken McGill and a lady

named Melissa Algara, who specialize on the women's side. And they'll help women to process. What can I do to

work through my own betrayal? How can I find healing? So, yeah, my work is with men and you are going to handle

the others. So feel free to comment on that.

Well, it's that patience is what we find the key. I find the attitude, the hard attitude. When I find a man that's like, I'm

willing to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes.

Yes.

Then it's like, okay, you know, if they are, first of all, if they're blaming the wife for this, somehow, they're not ready.

Okay. This is never her fault.

All right.

The. But it is that patience that. You know, there's one study that was done that was just really eye opening. It said

that the. There was a study done that showed that the physical trauma that a partner. Now I deal with some opposite

where the woman's had the affair and the man's been betrayed. But we're talking here a lot mainly about. Or the men.

The man was betrayer. But the effect on the body, the physical body of the one that was betrayed is similar to if they

had been beaten within an inch of their life and left at the doorway of the hospital. That that's what the one that's

betrayed feels. That's what their body carries. Wow.

And so you can imagine if that if somebody had actually been beaten up in black and blue, they wouldn't even want

to Be in the room with the person.

Right.

For a while. Right. And it's going to take a while for the betrayer to just simply respect that and go, I understand you

don't want to talk, you don't want me touch you don't want to be around me or whatever. And you also spoke to the

fact that trust is earned.

Yes.

Trust and forgiveness are different. You know, we always say that forgiveness is a one way street. God can give us

the ability to forgive somebody even if they never change.Yes.

We can't make the wife forgive the husband. That's her work to do.

Yes.

And she can do that again whether he changes or not. But trust is a two way street and it requires change on that

other person's part and change for a long enough period of time until I feel secure now. And so both of those are at

work. And for the man to understand that I have to earn this, you know, I mean, we don't have to serve penance to be

forgiven by God. No, but in human relationships we serve penance. I mean, we have to prove ourselves.

Absolutely.

And so when guys can go into this recovery, you know, with that kind of attitude and help make sure that she's

feeling safe and secure and that she's in a process of healing, we're hoping that the woman's in her own individual

counseling. Right. You know, and then once she has some measure of healing there, then we can start building for

the future. You know, how do we thrive? And this now is part of our testimony instead of this took us out.

Yes.

And you know, I've, my experience is similar to what you're experiencing with.

With.

Men, the recovery of men, that when I get a man and a woman on the couch both willing to try and willing to submit

their lives to God and to do their part and allow it to take as long as it's going to take. We see amazing, I mean, 70,

80% of them walk away and not only did they just make it, but they would say we're better off than we ever were

because we are both healthier and our marriage is healthier. And so then we begin to look at, okay, what are the

building blocks of marriage? And because many times out of each, either one of their brokenness, the marriage is

kind of, you know, gone dormant a little bit, you know, and even though we don't blame that, it's still a factor, you

know, in this. And so anyway, speaking of that.

I did promise in the Last podcast.

Oh, yes.

You've got to say that I would give everyone the four things you told me that would. That would cause me to still love

Laurie ten years later after. Because you married us, you and Bishop had. And one of my fears in remarrying because

I went through a divorce in 2010. So getting remarried four years later to Laurie, were both part of sanctuary and

was. I was madly in love with her, very committed to her. I knew were compatible, but I was afraid that maybe

marriage was a problem for me. And maybe when I feel confined or caged or I have no way out, maybe that's why I

sinned in my previous marriage. So I was really concerned. So I remember coming to you and talking to you aboutthat, and I remember you.

Sharon Blaine, if you'll do these four things, if not every day, every week, but try to do them every day, it will be a ritual

connection that you'll begin to engage with Lori, and you'll find your marriage not only continuing to be good, but it'll

get better. You'll be more in love with her in five years, 10 years, than you were when you got married. And I said,

okay, so you wrote.

These, what snake oils you got, right?

Yeah, we'll see. And I put them into. Just so I could remember them, I put them into Task T A S C. And the first one

was just loving, gentle touch. The kind of touch that has no expectations, but just. It communicates care, safety, and

love. Affirmation was the second thing to find legitimate things that you love about your spouse, actually say them,

thank her for those things. And then s with sacrifice. Like, what can you do? If not this day, what can you do this

week? It goes a little bit above and beyond, or maybe even a lot beyond to say, I care and I love you and I appreciate

you. And then the last one was connection, to be connected in deeper conversations than just how was work. Like,

how are you doing? And here's how I'm doing.

And talking about dreaming about the future together and grandkids and all of those things. So I put those on my

phone. I looked at them every day. I began to make them a part of my life. And I will admit there have been weeks I

didn't do all four. But 11 years later, I am still madly in love with Lori. And what the beauty of that is it gets

reciprocated, you know, Right. You give and you receive and you give and you receive. And it's like this love that just

continues to grow. So I think Though some of those foundations of understanding that marriage is a continual giving

of your life away to the other and seeing how that is reciprocated to where God begins to grow. Both of you together.

Yeah.

Beautiful. Anyways, it really is feeding, we always say. We call it the care and feeding of your marriage, you know, and

so many get distressed. Many distractions in the world that pull us to other things. And so things like that, those

simple ways that you feed the marriage and it lets it grow, you know, and everything we've been talking about, it's a

process, you know, it's an ongoing process. We don't just. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be hungry for

lunch here in a little bit and then I'm going to want dinner tonight. And we got to do the same with marriage, you

know, if we're not feeding it's, it's. It's kind of atrophy, you know, and so. Well, this has been beautiful. I feel like we

could just keep going.

There's a lot of other things I'd love to talk about, but I'd like to just make sure. Clear how everybody can get ahold of

you and some of the work that you have done. I know we didn't really get to talk about it. Your first book was called

Death by.

A Thousand Lies, which is basically my story of sexual addiction, disclosure and then the journey of resurrection

coming out of that. And we're working on a book that's getting close that is kind of the follow up to that, which is

rather than death by a thousand lives, resurrection by a thousand mercies and speaking. Speaking more into what

that resurrection life looks like. So yeah, if they just go to blainebartel.com or just google Blaine Bartel, however you

spell it'll find its way to our site and all of our information.

This is the manual?

Yep. That's our Katheros masterclass. It's an eight week class with video training and churches and individuals are

using it all over the world. It's Jesus pathway to purity and we just follow Christ and his principles and pathway to

living a life of what we call not purity of behavior, but purity of heart. If we can start with the heart, the behavior willfollow.

Beautiful. And then what is the one for parents and their kids? Yeah, do you have a title for that?

Yeah, it's called Cathedrals for students. So it's on that site as well. But it's a 30 day journal and four videos that a

father, son or father mother can do with their son. And we are right now because I hear people saying, what about

the girls?

What about the women?

We are working this year on catheter for women, including teenage girls and I'm not doing it. We've got a wonderful

therapist and counselor that is going to do that who has experience wonderful both in that world, but also helping

others come out of it.

So beautiful. Well, this has been so rich. Thank you for being here. I know you've got a lot on your plate, but thank

you for taking the time to do this and I know that there's a lot here that you've been able to pick up and for your own

life and relationships and. And I just love the. The way that you and everything that you do portray the love of God,

you know, and how that is not just, you know, a thing we say, you know, but how that actually soaks into the hearts of

men and women and we can trust God. So whatever you're going through, whatever you're facing, though, we all

have something that we need to release into God's hands. Go to website, get resources, and pray for the work you're

doing.

I'm just so proud of you, Lori, and what you're doing. And it's just you're allowing God to do amazing things. So thank

you for that.

Enjoyed it, Brent.

So for today, go in peace. Blessings as you go.

The Life and Love Nuggets podcast is a 501 and is supported by gifts from people like you. To donate, go to

lifeandlovenuggets.com donate this podcast is produced by Clayton Creative in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The content

should not be considered or used for counseling, but for educational purposes only.