Hope

I know this is really long, but bear with me, I promise it's worth it :)

First I want to tell you a little bit about my walk with God so the rest will make more sense. I was saved when I was 7 (or so I thought) but it never really stuck, I think I was just going through the motions and that I didn't really understand what it was all about. I had a really strained relationship with my dad, he was always extremely controlling and irrational, the tiniest things would set his anger off. I felt like everything I did was wrong and I didn't really feel loved. I went through a period of severe depression and I had an eating disorder by the time I was 16. I just felt that my life was in shambles and there was nothing I could do. To make a long story really short, I found Jesus again, quite ironically actually because it was through a sort of weird cult-like church that basically told me that if I left the church God would kill me, so I left (didn't die) and I started going to Memorial Heights Baptist Church in my home town because a lot of my school friends went there. From that point on, God did the most amazing things in my life, I did really well in school and ended up with a full ride to a great university, two years ago my dad got saved and almost literally transformed overnight into the loving, wonderful dad I that I know God always wanted him to be, I could go on and on about what He has done for me, it was just one blessing after another and I just kept growing in Christ and learning more and more about him.

However… even with all this time of blessing and recovery and just wonderful things God had done in my life, a wicked thread of sin had been weaving its way into my life: I have struggled with an addiction to pornography for three or four years. Every time I looked at pornographic images, I was overcome by this extreme feeling of guilt and despair, I felt like the scum of the earth, I felt so disgusted with myself, I felt like I wasn’t worthy of talking to others about Jesus when I couldn’t control this horrible sin rampaging its way through my own life, I struggled with the idea that God forgave me completely, no matter what, I couldn’t believe that after I’ve seen so many terrible things and wrecked my mind with these images, I just couldn’t believe that I could just repent and He would just brush that off me set me down and continue walking with me. I carried this overwhelming guilt around for so long, not a day went by that I didn’t think about it and that it didn’t hurt me terribly, I felt like I had repented and fallen back into the sin a million times and that I would never be rid of this vicious cycle.

Finally, as a camper at Falls Creek 2008 (Falls Creek is a week-long Baptist summer camp held in Davis, Ok), I felt God calling me to tell my family group (the people from our church was split up into small groups which we called "family groups"), I thought, “God this is CRAZY! Like, seriously, absolutely crazy! I only know one person in this group, why would you want me to do this?” I was scared, but finally, after years of disobeying Him and running away from His instructions, I made up my mind to answer that call, I confided in a dear friend of mine first (that one person I knew in my family group) and told her what I was going to do, then, during our family group time, I plunged into my testimony, my full testimony, leaving out nothing. God did amazing things that week and I was able to go home and tell my dad and step-mom about my problem, and since then, telling people about my addiction wasn’t really a big deal, most of my college friends know about it and all the people I've told have been really encouraging and have agreed to help me through this struggle. But I didn’t seek out accountability as steadfastly as I should have. I didn’t guard my mind as I should have. I was naive enough to think that just because its out in the open and just because I was free of the temptation for a few months after Falls Creek that it wouldn't come back again, the guilt remained, and I turned my back on God again, I went back to porn, having no reason whatsoever to do so and every reason not to. Again, I dealt with the cycle of falling and repenting, falling and repenting. Sometimes I would be able to go months without looking at porn, but the guilt and shame I felt always remained, I never felt free of that. The last time I looked at porn was about a week before Falls Creek 2009. Which seemed ridiculous to me because this year, I attended as a sponsor (a counselor/family group leader), and always in the back of my mind was the lie “You can’t be a sponsor, look at what you’ve seen, look how you’ve dishonored God, how can you talk to these kids about Jesus if you can’t even follow Him yourself?”

Even with Satan constantly feeding me these lies, I immediately saw God working consistently and purposefully. During a worship song Tuesday morning, one line really, really struck home with me, I believe it was "I'm so unworthy, but still you love me" as soon as I sung those words I felt an overwhelming feeling of God’s love pass over me, and, for a moment, I felt no more guilt. In that moment, I was free from the feeling of worthlessness that had plagued me for so long. After the service I talked to Jennifer (our family group had two sponsors, and she was my co-sponsor, also a tremendous blessing to me all week) and she gave me the verse I needed, a verse that I had really been searching for all these years and somehow I had never been able to find it, it was Romans 8:1 "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I was so grateful to God for bringing us together and for sharing that verse with me, it was amazing. Jennifer reassured me and we prayed. The guilt went away, this time, it didn’t come back, and still hasn’t. God is so amazing! Just like last year, I told the girls in my group, but this time, It was easy, I’d already done it before, so it was no big deal to do it again. A lot of the girls came up to me afterwards and kept telling me that it was so cool that I had so much courage to say that, but I just kept thinking, "well it wasn't really a big deal, it wasn't difficult at all."

A couple of days passed and the wonderful speaker we had (Ed Newton) was talking about those sins that you have to repent of over and over and over and over. Suddenly, as I listened to those words, I felt God calling me to tell everyone in the cabin about my addiction to porn… that was at least 100 people, and many of them were really good friends of mine, or adults from my church whom I had always loved and respected. I felt my face turn ashen instantly and was completely overwhelmed by fear, unbearable fear. But He just kept reiterating that telling a small family group and a group of my friends and my parents made me much more comfortable with talking about my problem, but that I still had a problem, so I needed to do something much more uncomfortable. For me, it was much much much much much more uncomfortable. Holding a microphone and talking to so many people has always been a fear of mine, I can talk to small groups just fine, but over 100 people?! That was just crazy, crazy and horrifying, absolutely horrifying. I spent the rest of the service with my face completely blank and drained of color, because there was a massive battle going on in my head. I (or Satan?) tried so hard to convince myself that I was just being emotional, it had been an emotional week after all, and I was really tired, but the call did not waver, he kept telling me to do it and I was still mortified. After the service I told Jennifer what God was saying, we prayed and decided to tell Steven, the youth pastor of Memorial Heights. We placed the decision in Gods hands and let Steven's advice be the final word, if he said I should do it, it was of God and I should go for it, if not, it was just me being emotional and I shouldn't do it. We talked to Steven, and it was and emphatic “Yes!”. I have never been more terrified in my life. We talked about my problem and he told me about x3 watch. I was SO relieved because the internet had been pretty much my only source, and it was just so great to know that if I ever tried to go to a porn site, I wouldn't be able to keep it a secret any more. That was really a blessing and I’m so thankful for it.

So, I walked back to the cabin slowly and shakily, still mortified about what God had asked me to do. In the cabin I prayed like I’ve never prayed before, just asking God for the words to say, for the strength, for the courage, for the tears I knew would surface not to interfere with what I had to say, for all of my friends and adults from the church who I had respected so much and the people I didn’t know at all to understand and support me. The praise and worship band (we always have one come to our cabin for the evening devotional) were doing their thing and I was just completely freaked out, but then they played the song "Marvelous Light", there's just something about that song for our church, (we've always just felt a really strong connection to it and all week people had been asking them to play it and they really didn't want to because they felt that it was over-played and stuff) but they did play it Thursday night, and that was the last little push I needed.

The band stopped playing, I took the microphone when Steven offered it, and plunged into a quick rundown of my past and all the good things God has done in my life, and then I brought in the porn, and talked of my struggles with it and all the feelings that went along with it. By God’s help alone was I able to get through the whole thing and only stop twice (I think it was twice) for tears, only with Him did he keep my voice from shaking and keep me on my feet, I was amazed that I didn't pass out and that I was coherent. That was all God. As soon as I finished I went and sat down in a chair and all the tears that God had been holding back so I could talk came flooding out.

Then, two of the worship band members came up to me and asked if they could talk to me for a minute. I figured they were just going to encourage me and give me some verses that would help me or something, but then they gave me a little white book, it was a Sexaholics Anonymous book, and they told me that they were also porn addicts, and that they were accountability partners for each other. I was amazed and so very relieved by all the wonderful advice they gave me. After talking to them, I was able to begin to form a plan to combat this struggle. I felt so much reassurance, so much relief to know that there are so many people who truly want to help me and who believe in me. It was truly amazing and definitely God’s plan that they would be the band to come and play in our cabin.

While I was talking to the guys, the campers and the rest of the sponsors were having their family group time. One of the sponsors came to me and said that my openness had opened a “Pandora’s Box” of openness, people started sharing things about themselves that they had never told anyone, struggles with sin such as mine, troubles in their family lives, etc. It was incredible. Most of the family groups didn’t get to bed until at least 1am. A bunch of people came up to me later and said that they also have struggled with a porn addiction. I gave them what little advice I could from my experience and then sent them to talk to the two band members who had been such a big help to me (I think they ended up speaking to at least 7 people by the end of the week).

Since Falls Creek, I have not been tempted once to look at anything pornographic (though I know it’s inevitable that I will be tempted eventually, I pray for the strength to resist it when it does come). A refreshing joy has replaced that feeling of guilt that I had carried around for so long, it’s just such a wonderful feeling. I downloaded x3 watch as soon as I got home, I’ve been browsing xxxchurch.com, and I’m in the process of memorizing the book of James, which I’m actually really really excited about. And I know a lot of the other people I got a chance to talk to have downloaded x3 watch too, and I’ve been keeping tabs on them, most of them have done absolutely splendidly.

So I guess I wanted to share my story not only to confess my struggle with porn, but also to help other people with the same problem see the hope that I have found in Christ and know that it is more than possible for anyone to have such hope and to be used for God's wonderful work, because God wants that for each and every one of us. :)

-Lauren

Pornography addiction is a serious problem, and we want to help. We have helpful free tools like accountability software to aid your recovery from addictions to porn and sex addiction.

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