Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. James 5:16
Now is the time! If you’ve been holding something back, something you haven’t been telling him, NOW is the time to come clean. If you’ve had suspicions of something but you’ve been avoiding saying anything because you just didn’t want to know, now’s the time to say something. Draw the truth out into the open. By bringing it into the light you take its power over you away. Will it be painful? Probably. Will you enjoy it? Most likely not. However, Jesus tells us in John 8:32 that when we know the truth it will set us free. Allow me to share from my personal experience of a truth setting us free.
(my journal entry the day after Christian told me the truth) “AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE! Oh Lord! Never in a million years did I ever expect to say this, but Thank you for Christian’s sins! Well, thank you for the forgiveness of sins and the freeing power of forgiveness!” All day that day, God’s presence was as thick in the air as the August humidity. I came into our bedroom to get Christian’s laundry and could BARELY get there due to his clutter on the floor! Desiring to do something nice for him I started to pick up his uniform hangers that littered the room. Among the rubble, there were a LOT of old notes (recently recovered from his parent’s house) from past girlfriends (which brought back painful memories for me of another fateful day). I picked up one of the notes thinking it was from me, opened it and read it. By the end of the note, not only was I disgusted, but I was also saddened by the very perverted things I read (from one of the girlfriends before I came along). I sent him a text complaining about it and after a few more texts regarding the box of notes and the need to get rid of them all, I felt a gentle urging to “clear the air” once and for all with him. We’d been fasting for 33 days now and I wasn’t about to have gone through all that time just to have unresolved issues afterward! Over the last 9 years I had occasionally asked him about the other woman never feeling satisfied with his lie that they had only kissed. And so, this time I asked him a little differently. I asked him to “be honest”, “do NOT spare my feelings” and to “tell the truth”. “Were you really a virgin when we first had sex and have you ever been with another woman before or after me?” (Just writing about this again is giving me butterflies in my stomach. But you need to know because God allowed us to go through this so that we could share this experience with others and help you get through it too.) His response was “Yes & yes L”
So I asked, “how many?” And he told me “2”. “2 others?” I asked. “Yes” he said. After that we spent the next 4 hours texting. Me asking questions, details about the affairs, and him responding to them honestly. I won’t lie; a lot of his answers were extremely painful. Yet his honesty was soothing (“Wounds from a friend can be trusted”). He was FINALLY allowing me to see the truth. He was finally releasing the secret that the enemy had snared him with for 13 years. Held him captive to, enslaved him with, depressed him about for 13 years. Until Jesus said “The truth will set you free”. Christian had been enslaved in his sins, held captive by the enemy and his lies for so long that he had become depressed and difficult to live with. That day he was set free as the 13 year secret came out into the light. The truth was the key to his prison cell and my forgiveness allowed him to come out into the open for the first time in 13 years. In telling the truth we were able to take those skeletons out of our closet, look at them, admit that they were there, and then together agree that we will NEVER let the enemy taunt us with them again. Then together we handed them over to God so that He can take them and separate us from them. As far as the East is from the West! As if they had never been there to begin with. Afterward, we both felt giddy and light and for the very first time in our married life, we BOTH wanted to have make-up sex. But I’ll get into THAT a little later.
[The LORD] say[s] to those who are bound, “Go forth,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.” (Isaiah 49:9a) Sin holds us captive. We are slaves to our sins, new and old. We are slaves to it, held in darkness, until we let the Son of light set us free. Our sin, and the guilt that it brings with it, hold us in bondage to the enemy. Only by the grace of Christ and His blood sacrifice can we ever even hope to gain our freedom. And yet that still isn’t enough. Because we have free choice, we have the choice to stay in bondage or gain our freedom through Christ. But it is only by our choice to allow Jesus’ forgiveness to sink into our hearts and remove our sin that we can truly become free. It’s our choice. Momentary pain and gain our freedom from secrets in our marriages, or remain in bondage to those secrets. Which do you choose? And remember BE BRUTALLY HONEST!!!
Christian’s comments:
Again, I am a dirtbag. Yes, I slept with two other girls while I was in college; each of them multiple times. I have no excuses and won’t waste time attempting to create any. We’re not here to talk about that, though. We’re here to talk about the freedom that comes from confessing.
After the four hours of texting, I started to feel liberated. Yes, my thumbs were a little sore, but the feeling of freedom was unbelievable! It felt as though I had been carrying a huge boulder on my shoulders. After confessing, the boulder was gone! I felt taller, lighter, and almost giddy. I don’t remember ever feeling so happy. Granted, things were still tense between Tamar and me, but I knew there was nothing else between us, holding us back. WE WERE FREE!
Husbands and wives; don’t let the enemy stand between you any longer. If there is something you need to confess, do it. If there is something you need to ask, do it. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but it has to be done. Your marriage (and sex life) won’t get better if it doesn’t get done.
Tamar Knochel 