We’ve made this a new series by adding two previous articles that we wrote into the series. It’s possible we may have other articles to add to the series after reviewing previous posts and then the title numbering may change slightly. However we will ensure the URLs don’t change.
Both the issues of miscarriage and abortion are understandably very emotional for women, and there is added controversy over abortion because of the legalisation of it in most Western countries. The context of these matters in relation to our ministry is to address how to help Christian women overcome the impacts of these issues with specific relevance to female sexuality and challenges they create to that. We recommend as a background to that, reading the previous parts of this series, especially the part of the second article which references Debra Pascali-Bonaro’s work. Her website in particular in the About section references the deep connection between sexuality and spirituality that women experience through childbirth. We can immediately understand that in situations where the unborn child has died in some way, the experiences are markedly different, and that it can have a deep impact on a woman’s own perceptions of her sexuality. Sterility is slightly different as it mostly does not occur from specific actions or choices a woman may have undertaken.
We’ve spent a fair bit of time reflecting in the past couple of days on the umbrella subject that is procreation, and that’s what has inspired us to create a new series, and there will be more articles coming that dig into the depth of different aspects of procreation. But for now, for the substance of this one topic, what is the appropriate way to address the specifics of these particular issues, for healing in the context of what we understand to be the appropriate form of Christian ministry, that is, the assumption that God is waiting to wrap His arms around each and every woman who has had an experience of this type and lead her to complete wholeness and restoration in her sexuality.
We believe this is to be accomplished through times of sexual devotion for women who are so concerned and that this follows the patterns of sexual devotion/development via affirmation of their sexuality that have been previously described elsewhere in this blog. That is, during a time of sexual devotion, the affirmation is to be applied by way of specific prayer addressing each particular part of a woman’s reproductive system, with each prayer reclaiming or reasserting the designed function of each part. We won’t describe all of the parts here (this information can be found readily online) but we will refer to the key functions, which include the following. Some parts have more than one function, of course:
- Parts concerned with the biology of physically creating life (for example, hormone production, ovulation)
- Parts concerned with the biology of nurturing and bearing life (for example, uterus, vagina)
- Parts concerned with the biology of early life (e.g. breasts, although technically these are not a sexual organ)
- Parts concerned with the biology of sexual arousal, attraction, desire and pleasure (e.g. sense of touch, nervous system, brain)
- Parts concerned with the biology of sexual intimacy and intercourse between husband and wife (for example, physical appearance, genitals)
We feel that we don’t need to confine the functions of a woman’s reproductive or sexual organs in the context of this ministry of healing solely to those functions which are concerned with biological reproduction. In this series we are intending to explore whether the functions of procreation should be limited to the physicality of it, or extended to consider the ways in which spiritual procreation relates to sexuality. That is, for a woman, the spirituality of procreation in the context of her sexuality is not just the part of her sexuality which brings forth a new life from her body in the form of a baby, but also the part which relates to the overall context of her whole life. Spiritual procreation is, in effect, anything within our lives that brings forth life, and that life can also be spiritual rather than physical in nature. However, a more topical application of the principle of spiritual procreation would be specific to the context of people within our families, and the type of life brought forth also spiritual in nature, such as leading them to Jesus.
In any case, we feel to wrap up this particular post at this moment by encouraging any godly woman who is reading this and who has been affected by the types of circumstances referred to in her personal life, to take the time for a sexual devotion with God and to pray affirmations concerning her body. These prayers vary somewhat depending on the situation; sterility is more of a spiritual death than physical, as the others area, and therefore the context for prayer in such circumstances can be different. A woman who has reached menopause is entering a period of age-related sterility, but a younger woman may be hoping for healing of specific medical conditions that enable her to have children. In the case where reversal of physical sterility is not possible, then a woman could pray about the opportunities for spiritual procreation in her life.