Format: Paperback; Verified Purchase
I began reading When His Secret Sin Breaks Your Heart in hopes of understanding the effects of sexual sin on the wife of someone who was involved in sexual sin. What I got was many hours of ministering to my heart. I am not the wife of one who struggles, but have been the man struggling with sexual sin. Kathy Gallagher has spent her life ministering to women who have been broken by their husband's sexual sin. She herself has also been through the ups and downs since her husband spent many years involved in sexual sin. She speaks from the position of someone who knows, but more importantly someone who has been healed by the great healer himself, Jesus Christ.
The book is a collection of letters written in response to letters she had received. These letters touched on just about every subject related to sexual sin that I can imagine. Divorce, separation, dealing with suspicion, the importance of gratitude and the roots of homosexuality are among the subjects that she ministers to. I say ministers to because she does not simply relate some data about a specific subject, but she opens her heart and allows the Holy Spirit to speak through her to touch the hearts of her readers. Her writing style is inviting and familiar. It is almost as though she were sitting opposite me in a small sitting room and speaking to me.
At times her letters were loving, understanding and encouraging. At other times they were confronting, direct and honest. She would confront the selfishness that was shown in the letter from Lauren who was trying to justify divorce because of her husband's use of pornography. Rather than agreeing with Lauren, Kathy Gallagher offered that God will use this time of suffering to purify her. The ultimate goal that God has in anything that we experience is to make us more and more like Jesus through the process. This was a major theme throughout the book. The struggles that we are going through will be used by God to make us more like His Son.
Kathy does not use her own experience, but uses scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit to respond to the writer's questions. In regards to confronting Joyce's husband Kathy sighted Matthew 18:15-17 as a guideline for how to confront him. First go to him alone, then bring one or two as witnesses then tell it to the church. The objective is to bring about an understanding about his sin. Help her husband to come to a point of honesty and repentance. This brings glory to God and brings everyone closer to the Lord. As she says, "Let's hope that your husband will WAKE UP out of the delusion that he can participate in such darkness and still think he's walking with the Lord." Restoration to a right relationship with the Lord should be our primary concern.
I have come away with new insight into the collateral damage that is caused when a man engages in sexual sin. I have also gained more understanding of my own sin. I have also seen the Holy Spirit at work in her writing and in my reading of her letters. I am thankful of the way these letters have ministered to my heart. I would recommend this book to any spouse of someone who is engaging in sexual sin.