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Find Hope Here with Teresa Whiting - Christian Women (Bible Study, Faith, Sexuality, Freedom from Shame)
Find Hope Here is a podcast about holding the messy, complicated, painful parts of life alongside the beautiful, joy-filled hope that Jesus promises. Join Teresa Whiting each week as she digs deep into God’s Word and shares truths that impact our everyday lives. Listen in as you're walking, running errands, or folding laundry. No matter where you are or where you’ve been, you will always find hope here! To learn more visit: https://teresawhiting.com/listen
Find Hope Here with Teresa Whiting - Christian Women (Bible Study, Faith, Sexuality, Freedom from Shame)
Breaking Down Sexual Walls: From Shame to Wholeness with Dr. Carol Tanksley - Part 1 (SEXUAL WHOLENESS SERIES)
Sexual brokenness often begins with wounds we don't want to face. Dr. Carol Tanksley, OBGYN physician turned ordained minister, draws from 30 years of medical practice and her own journey to explore how our personal stories shape our sexual decisions. Dr. Carol directs our attention to what Jesus emphasized most - the condition of the heart. While behaviors certainly have consequences, lasting transformation begins with addressing the wounds, lies, and empty places in our souls that drive our choices. Your story matters, and God wants to meet you exactly where you are.
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There was a time I found myself alone in a hotel room with a married man. I knew why he was there, that was very quickly obvious. But why was I there? That experience rocked my world. It kind of jerked me up. I at that point found myself on the verge of doing something I had said I would never do and up until then had not done. Why had I allowed myself to get into that situation? I had to look at the wounds I had, the lies I had believed and the empty places in my soul that led me to that vulnerable place.
Speaker 2:Hi, friend, you're listening to Find Hope. Here. I'm your host, teresa Whiting. Author, speaker, ministry leader, friend and fellow struggler. This is a podcast about the messy, complicated, painful parts of life, but also the beautiful, joy-filled hope that Jesus promises. Each week we dig deep into God's Word together and talk about how His truth impacts our everyday lives. I'm not going to ask you to sit with me and have coffee, because I seem to have my best conversations while I'm just doing life, so I'd love to hang out with you as you walk or fold laundry or drive to work. You're invited to join me in pursuing the hope God promises, no matter where you are or where you've been. I pray you always find hope here.
Speaker 2:Let's jump in to today's episode. Well, welcome friends. I am excited to introduce you to my guests. Today I have Dr Carol Tanks-Leon, and Dr Carol is an author, speaker, podcaster, licensed OBGYN physician and ordained minister. She's an expert on integrated wholeness for body, mind and soul, and she founded Dr Carol Ministries to help people experience wholeness, as God intended. I also want to let the listeners know that I had the opportunity to be on Dr Carol's podcast, and so I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes so you can make sure you go over and listen to that. But while we begin, dr Carol, if you could just tell the listeners a little bit more about yourself, who you are and what you do.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, Teresa, and it was such a pleasure to have you on our podcast. That conversation was so special to me and honored that you want to share that with your listeners. But as far as me yeah, I'm an OBGYN physician for about 30 years I would have never, ever imagined that God would have me doing what he has me doing now. Maybe 10 years or so into my medical practice I felt very clearly from the Lord that he had something a little unique for me to do and so that through some wrestling, ended up going to seminary and I got my Master of Divinity and then Doctor of Ministry and pursued that and for a number of years was sort of doing a dual track medicine and ministry and found that very beautiful and fulfilling.
Speaker 1:A couple of years ago the ministry part of what I've been doing had just continued to grow and stopped actively seeing patients in a medical setting, although I still have my license. But what I see God doing with me now is bringing the theological and the scientific, medical and my own experience with my own story and with the other people that I've been privileged to work with, to some of the most tender and important places that, first of all, our culture is wrestling with and then that we as humans wrestle with and that God wants to bring the healing and transformation that Jesus came to bring us all. And the area around relationships, intimacy and sexuality is such a big part of that and I know, Teresa, that is, I would imagine, a surprise that God has you speaking into that. But it's both a privilege and, in a sense, of weight to be tasked and invited to help people as God is bringing them, to deal with some of these most tender, important places in our souls.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, absolutely. I feel that same weight, as you said, because the responsibility of when you feel like God is saying, okay, I want you to speak into this, and you're kind of resistant and saying, god, is this really the area you want me to speak into? But you wrote a book recently entitled Sexpectations Reframing your Good and Not so Good stories about God, love and relationships, and I'm going to show it to anybody who's watching the YouTube. This is the cover, and I just finished reading this book. And, dr Carol, I just want to tell you what I love about it.
Speaker 2:First of all, I love that you're talking about stories. I think it is so important for us to get in touch with the stories that we have lived and the parts of our stories that we don't want to face or maybe talk about or think about. And you really help the reader to kind of be willing to go into their story, especially as it pertains to their sexuality and some of the things that they have experienced. And then also, I love at the end of every chapter. You have this beautiful what do you call it? It's like a narrative that weaves all the way through the book. I couldn't wait to get to the end of every chapter so I could read that next part of the story. It was such a beautiful addition to the book, but I'm curious what led you to write this book in the first place.
Speaker 1:Primarily because people were asking me for help in this area of their life around sexuality and I realized my story played into this and I was seeing in people's lives that information was not adequately helping the troubles that they had.
Speaker 1:I'm sure many of your listeners, as are mine on our podcast Teresa, are Christians and probably have heard in church or from other Christians or whatever, that God says this is what you're supposed to do with your sex life and the standard narrative of that kind of information. It doesn't fit with many people's stories. So many people have done things that were not what that church narrative says you're air quotes supposed to do or maybe things have happened to them what they love, what they hate about their bodies, about relationships, about intimacy, maybe abuse that they happened or trauma, some kind of trauma and then acting out of that things that they have done. A common part of the story of those who have talked to me is pornography, whether they were exposed at a young age, men or women and have wrestled with that and simply saying do this and don't do that.
Speaker 1:It hasn't been very effective. And so, as I was wrestling with that in my own story and with the people that were asking me for input into their stories, it just kind of came together that Jesus needs to come into the middle of our story. Thank you for noticing that story was such a big part of this book. I know that's a big part of your work, teresa helping people look at that and stories with women in the Bible who have struggled with sexual stuff.
Speaker 1:In the book I bring in vignettes of a lot of people. Some of them are individuals, some of them are composites from people I have worked with who have struggled with some area around their sex life from all different angles. Because I think what Jesus would say is it doesn't matter the particulars of your story. You can come, you can bring the particulars of your story and let's work with that, let's find transformation. And looking at those particulars with honesty and compassion is where we have to go with our story. Just trying harder doesn't work. Collapsing in shame doesn't get you anywhere. So what I found in my own story and helping other people wrestle with their story that's how this came to be.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and I love those two words honesty and compassion so important to honestly look at what we've walked through and to look at it compassionately. I feel like we kind of tend to lean toward one or the other. I can honestly tell you the things that are wrong and the things that I've done and things have been done to me without a compassionate voice, or sometimes we can just be all about compassion but not really honest and facing the things that we need to face. So I love that you bring both things that we need to face. So I love that you bring both. And one of the things that you talk about is how often this is a Christian podcast and most of my listeners are believers and in the church there has been a lot of focus on behavior, on right and wrong. This is sin, this is not sin. So what's helpful about that and what is not helpful about that kind of an approach?
Speaker 1:There is a thing called sin. You cannot read the Bible and follow Jesus without saying that there is a thing called sin. But when we make sin primarily about behaviors, we miss so much of the full story around it and I imagine some of our listeners right now, teresa, have felt like, well, I'm sinning, I just better buck up, I better try harder. And I find myself not doing that. When we say that sin is behavior, it is and behaviors have consequences. Things that we do, for example, with our bodies. It makes a difference. We're talking about sexuality. You know, pregnancy, a sexually transmitted infection, impact on the heart. You know, if I go from one hookup to another, my heart gets wounded. All of our behaviors have consequences and there's something deeper.
Speaker 1:Jesus cares about behaviors.
Speaker 1:They matter to him.
Speaker 1:But if there's anything Jesus cares about more, it's about matters of the heart and we must get one level deeper and look at the matters of the heart when it particularly comes to matters around sex and sexuality.
Speaker 1:Jesus talked about this in the Sermon on the Mount. He said you've heard it said don't commit adultery. But I say to you, if you look at a woman to lust after her, in your heart you have already committed adultery with her. So there's a heart level underneath and for all the good work that the Christian church has done in so many areas, I think focusing on behaviors around sex often has missed the matters of the heart. And those matters of the heart matter to God. And I have found in myself and in others that when you bring in the matters of the heart and deal with that, then the behaviors take on a whole different level and in one sense are a lot easier to deal with. It's not that you don't have to do something about the behaviors, but they lose their hooks on you when you deal with the matters of the heart.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I agree with that a hundred percent. I think you know we, our behaviors, stem from our heart. So unless we are dealing with our hearts first, the behaviors are just a symptom of what's going on deeper. So I appreciate that so much. Another thing that you talk about in the book and I loved this and I think that so many of us miss it that sex and intimacy are related but they're not the same, and I really want to dive into this concept. I want you to talk about what do you mean by they're related and they're not the same, and why is it so important for us to understand this? Because I think this might be a new concept for some people. I'm not sure it definitely is a newly formed concept for me.
Speaker 1:The King James Version of the Bible often uses a euphemism for sex, as we do, we often use euphemisms for sex. The King James Version of the Old Testament often uses to know. No, and frankly, that is what's in the Hebrew. Adam knew Eve and they had a baby. That connects sex and intimacy. That is the way God intended it to be. God intended intimacy and sex to be connected within covenant marriage in an absolutely glorious and beautiful way. The very first picture of this, I would say Genesis 2.25,. The man and the woman were naked and they knew no shame, no clothes on their bodies and unashamed and they knew no shame, no clothes on their bodies and unashamed.
Speaker 1:Have you and I ever experienced that I certainly haven't Right, but the point is there also were no coverings over their minds and hearts and souls Also, that's the sense of the original Hebrew. So you cannot experience intimacy just by taking the clothes off your bodies. I think our listeners will recognize that If you have gone from hookup to hookup to hookup outside of marriage. Is that really intimacy? Is that part of your soul that is longing for connection, getting satisfied? I believe this also applies inside marriage. There are plenty of marriages where little or no intimacy is happening, whether or not sex is happening. So when you think, if I take the clothes off my body, am I really experiencing intimacy? You can within marriage, but they don't necessarily have to be connected. There can be plenty of sex without intimacy, regardless of relationship status. And, as Jesus himself demonstrated, you can and we need intimacy even if you're not having sex or if you're not married, regardless again of relationship status.
Speaker 1:When you think of Jesus, the most fully alive human being ever to walk this earth, yet he never was married and he never had sex, but he needed intimacy, just like every one of us human beings do. Intimacy, I would say, is the sense of seeing and being seen, knowing and being known. I think our hearts all hunger for that, if we just pause long enough to recognize it. Jesus, also in human form, had that honest need. How did he deal with that? First of all, it was 24 7 connection with his heavenly father. Intimacy with his heavenly father was the air jesus breathed. He lived in that every moment. But there is also a sense in which that wasn't air quotes enough for jesus. He also needed people and deeply sought intimacy with a few others. He needed Peter, james and John.
Speaker 1:So for those like myself who are not married, my husband passed away. I am now living single again. For those like myself who are not married, I need that kind of connection with a few other humans. That doesn't mean I take the clothes off my body, but I need to find the places where I can take the coverings off my heart and experience knowing and being known For married people. That is part of what you must pursue with your spouse. Pursue taking the coverings off your heart also.
Speaker 1:And in marriage, bringing that together with the physical union in sex, there's something that is kind of in fact it is exhilarating when that happens within marriage and when it includes the physical component of sex. That, I believe, is what God intended when he created sex as an object. Lesson of the intimacy he experiences in himself, god, the Father, god the Son and God the Holy Spirit, so intimate we are told to think of him as one God, and he is. And sex within marriage was a physical object. Lesson of that. And yet, as human beings we all, regardless of relationship status, still need that sense of connection and being known and seen.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love what you said about take the covering off of my heart, like that. That is something I I think that many people have done that at one time or another and they were wounded, and so now I'm not taking that covering off my heart. What would you say to the person? Because, because intimacy is scary, it's risky, it's vulnerable and and if you've been hurt and you've been wounded, that's a scary thing to do. What do you say to that person who's listening and saying, yeah, I did that once, or maybe several times, and this is the result and no thanks, I'm not doing that again absolutely understandable.
Speaker 1:I can see why you would say no thanks, I'm never doing that again. That was part of my story in my growing up in a dysfunctional family, with all the sexual dysfunction I mean, there was just a whole bunch of stuff. I had thick walls around my heart and it was no thank you, even though I knew there was some hunger there, but no way was I going to go there. How would Jesus look at someone who felt that way? I think he would likely say something similar to what he said to the woman in John 4. We often call her the woman at the well, for we often call her the woman at the.
Speaker 1:Well, he would say I see you and let's deal with this, the invitation to a safe place to look at the walls, to look at what happened to you. It's not first, what have you done, although that matters but even more deeply behind that, what happened to you? You didn't wake up one day and decide to have issues, sexual issues or otherwise. You didn't wake up one day and decide I'm going to close off my heart, I'm going to close off my body or I'm going to use my body to get something, because it's the only way I can get anything. You came to that from somewhere and I believe Jesus would invite us to ask that question deeply, not to the exclusion of the behaviors, but to look at those matters of the heart, at where have you been wounded, what are the wounds you have accumulated, what are the lies that you have been led to believe, what are the empty places in your soul that you are still trying to fill in some ways, maybe sort of okay, in some ways, perhaps very illegitimately, and to look at those things. So it's not okay. You better get your act together, let the walls down around your heart and find intimacy. It's the process of finding the healing so that you can let the walls down around your heart. It's a step-by-step thing. Some people who have been wounded look at trust or letting the walls down around their heart or something like that, as an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Okay, I've got walls down. Okay, that's not serving me well, so now I'll let them all down and no boundaries, and that's no healthier. And so for the person who has been wounded, it's often I stick one toe in the water and I find where I can be accepted with a little bit of safety.
Speaker 1:I learned to trust my gut, so to speak. Not that my gut is all knowing. Learned to trust my gut, so to speak. Not that my gut is all knowing that. I learned to listen to the part of me the God given sensitivity that this is safe or not safe. Now, that can get distorted too. That's only part of the equation. But I learned to listen to that and I learned to trust the part of me that can make a decision, that has agency in managing relationships. I learned that there are some risks worth taking and I gather the courage to take a small risk and practice. And when I get a little better, I can risk a little bit more and practice a little bit more. That's the process. Not all at once. Yes, a little bit at a time, and that is worth the struggle to learn that.
Speaker 2:I love that you call it a process. I think that's so true, and it gives people permission to not feel like they just have to do this big thing all at once, but it gives them permission to take it slow and to be sensitive and to, like you said, dip your toe in the water, and so I think that's a great, that's great advice. You've alluded to your story a couple of times and I know you've shared it publicly. Would you be willing to share just as much as you're comfortable about your own personal story with the listeners?
Speaker 1:I was born and reading the Bible, but I also grew up in an extremely dysfunctional household. There was a lot of dysfunction there, including sexual dysfunction. By the time I became a young woman, I was in deep distress and God had a lot of things to teach me, as he did, and I started to become functional. I felt like my heart needed and was ready to pursue intimacy. This was in my 30s. I wanted to be married. I never had been married and I was wanting and hungering for relationships.
Speaker 1:And in that process there was a time I found myself alone in a hotel room with a married man. I knew why he was there. That was very quickly obvious. But why was I there? That experience rocked my world. It kind of jerked me up.
Speaker 1:I at that point found myself on the verge of doing something I had said I would never do and up until then had not done. Why had I allowed myself to get into that situation? I had to look at the wounds I had, the lies I had believed and the empty places in my soul that led me to that vulnerable place me to that vulnerable place In my particular story, as God would have it. Out of my mouth came the words. I can't do this. I must be about my father's business. It was God's rescue. My clothes did not come off, he left. That was a miracle in my situation, but it did push me to have to deal with these places in my heart. I did. It was not easy work but I'm so grateful that I did In my story.
Speaker 1:A period of time after that, god brought my husband into my life and that process of having to deal with those places in my heart allowed me to be open when God did bring a loving husband into my world. My wedding night was beautiful and we were able to experience a very happy, intimate, sexually intimate marriage until he passed away. But that process of having to look at those places in my heart help me understand both how difficult it is, the time and effort that it takes, but also the true and honest healing that Jesus can bring. Although I remember the parts of my dysfunctional past in that hotel room with the, you know, it's not that I have forgotten those things, but those things are healed scars. They are not open wounds in me.
Speaker 1:God truly brought me a degree of healing so that those scars can become demonstrations of his grace and that I don't have to. I don't have to try and hide them. It's not that I parade bad things I did or that happened to me, but they are examples of his grace and I can make them available as an invitation for others. My scars aren't going to be identical to your scars, but just the fact that we are all are all scarred. I can make that available to others to say, yeah, if God can do that for me, he can do that for you too. Let's walk this together.
Speaker 2:You are speaking my language. I love that illustration about the scars because I really I feel so strongly that God wants us to bear our scars as a testimony to his grace. I think about Jesus rising from the dead and keeping his scars as a symbol of victory. He said here touch them, look at them, put your hands in them. This is the power of God that he could raise me from the dead. And that's what your story has become. It's become this testimony of look at what God has done, and so somebody else who is out there bleeding out can look at you and say God has done that for her and so he can do this for me. So, so beautiful.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna break in and interrupt this conversation right here, but make sure you come back next week, where Dr Carol will talk to us about sexuality and singleness, about the spiritual and biological and emotional factors that contribute to our sexual decisions, and also she gives clear pathways to healing. In the meanwhile, you want to go and check out all of her amazing resources. I will have links to her book, to a free resource that she has created and to all the ways that you can connect with Dr Carol. If you enjoyed this podcast. Would you be willing to take two minutes, get on Apple Podcasts and leave a five-star rating and review? That is one way you can partner with me to spread the word about Find Hope here. In closing, I want to leave you with this prayer from Romans 15, 13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope.