When The Pain Hits Home

I have come to believe that everyone has a secret.

It hasn't made me suspicious of others; rather it has led me to compassion. You don't have to burn your hand on every fire to know that a flame can leave scars.

When I was fifteen years old the trajectory of my life changed forever. In the middle of May of that year my eyes were opened to the reality that sexual desires, if untempered by moral restraint, could rip lives and families apart.

Though my parents had informed me about sex, about God's design for it, and even vulnerably shared some of the pain from their own stories, nothing is like a dose of personal experience.

It wasn't technically my story back then and it still isn't today, so I will purpose to remain obscure. I was just a witness to the scene, taking a front row seat in the life of a friend affected by sexual expression gone wrong. It felt like a stick through the front wheel of my cruising bike.

On the night that I heard the extent of what had happened, I didn't sleep at all. I vividly remember locking myself in the downstairs bathroom of my family's home, curling up fetal on the linoleum floor. My body had gone limp. I tried to choke back tears, trying not to concern those in the house. I couldn't help but weep.

Hours later, as the sun began to peek back up over the horizon, the "fresh start of that day" felt like a mockery.

In the following months, I was intricately involved in an attempt to untangle what had gone wrong. There were countless conversations. I tried to be strong, wise and helpful. I tried to feel normal, but no number of inside jokes, weekend movie marathons or sunny days could break through the bleakness of my sorrow. I began experiencing migraines for the first time that summer. I asked my parents if I could get a prescription for anti-depressants because I could not seem to get control over my emotions.

It wasn't just the pain of this one thing. It was a new-found awareness of the chronic pain that so many others in the world were facing because of sexual disorder.

Adultery. Betrayal. Assault. Molestation. Incest. Manipulation. Sexual involvement without commitment. Abortion. Morning-after. Prostitution. Pedophilia. Pornography. Abandonment.

"How many ways can we find to hurt each other!?" I wondered in despair. In the name of freedom, I now saw that we construct jailhouses of lust.

"I want what I want, and I refuse to limit my appetite."

But then the appetite becomes the master, dictating and controlling.

That summer changed my life; it changed my outlook and sent me on a journey. Years passed. I searched for answers. I didn't just want logic to break the confusion in my head. I needed to know that we were not all destined to be slaves of our sexual desires.

The girl who could hardly get out of bed that summer was desperate for hope at the bottom of Pandora's box; I needed something that could put pieces back together.

Nearly five years later my journey brought me to a simple classroom, part of a small Bible school. That particular week, we were listening to a guest speaker from Spokane, WA. I sat transfixed, trying to take notes in the hopes that I could possibly remember everything of the layered description of the design of sexuality for men and women that he explained.

For a full week I sat listening to this kind-hearted, firey-mouthed man of God. He illuminated the truth of the Bible, and held up a mirror to the culture. The dysfunction in how we view sexuality was not unique to me and my friends, to Canada or to North America.

All around the world, all throughout history, the problem was epidemic. It was the tendency of mankind to mess this thing up, and it was to that kind of world that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was revealed. 

I breathed a sigh of relief that day, because this teacher hadn't just brought the diagnosis. He also spoke of the promise of healing.

Something to put the pieces back together.

Jesus, the Son of God, did not just die so that people could make it to heaven. He died to break us out of the hell on earth that we made for ourselves.

He came to wash us from our guilt and break the shackles of shame. He gave everything to put our dreams back together. On the final day of that week of classes, I experienced it in my own life. I was also a witness on the scene of my friends' lives.

I had a front row seat again, but this time to the restoration of bruised souls. I felt the healing presence of God come, responding to the honest prayers of young men and women. Many of us cried harder that day than we ever had before, creating a stream to carry away both our pain and the pain of those we loved.

Finally, our tears ran dry and in its place, we had hope.

I went for a bike ride later that day with a couple friends. The cold February air nipped at our faces as the sun began to set. We stopped in at a coffee shop for hot chocolate. I'm not sure why that matters now, but I guess I just know that I'll never forget how peaceful that ordinary thing felt.

Dear reader, we are committed to saying it over and over again in the hopes that even one will believe me today: The Lord loves to put broken-hearts back together and to fulfill the dreams that none of us deserve. His mercies are new every morning and His power is enough to dispel darkness and confusion.

There is nothing you have done that could disqualify you from experiencing His love.

Right here. Right now. Let your honest prayers be released.