With John Bates
God's Grace
My name is Jerry ( name has been changed ) and I would like to share my story so God can use it to help others be drawn towards Him. I am a man who believes in Jesus Christ but still struggles with many issues and the one that was most damaging was my sexual addiction. If not for the grace of God, I would still be suffering from deep hurts that hardened my heart and ultimately harmed me and many around me. I did not set out to bring destruction to my life or pain and suffering to my wife, children and others. I did not plan to have my marriage slowly crumble, end my military career nor step away from leadership in the church I attended. But my addiction robbed me of those things and more.
GRACE changed my life. I've heard it called God's Riches at Christ's Expense. The truth is Jesus Christ paid the eternal price for my many misdeeds. I stand here today not because I have any strength of my own, but because God, who is full of endless love, unrestrained mercy and who poured out His uninhibited grace, simply gave me yet another chance.
I was born in a catholic family where my parents tried their best to raise moral, honest, well-behaved children. For the most part, we were that. My parents taught me right from wrong, the value of honesty, the importance of commitment, how to plan for the future, dream, and how to make awesome chocolate chip cookies. As normal as I thought my childhood was, it was filled with fear and punctuated by peril.
My parents dealt with their own issues. My mom's mother committed suicide before I was born. She took on responsibility for her family too early in life that caused her to become emotionally disconnected and coming across distant. Due to working much of my early years, mom wasn't there enough for me. And when she was, she still wasn't. My dad's parents both drank to excess and died of alcohol-related health issues. As an adult child of alcoholics, he exhibited many of the same traits an alcoholic would. Ironically, the rare times he had a beer he seemed more cautious, careful and self-aware. At other times, his dreadfully low self-esteem seemed to govern his actions. His life was barely under control. His boiling anger was a source of terror for me and my brother. We could never be sure what would set him off. My mother offered me and my brother little relief during these shocking storms of rage. Such was life inside our home. Fear kept us in line.
I learned the lessons that would affect me for many years during my school years. I learned to see the world through a lens of rejection, inadequacy and self-hatred. To counter these I adopted control, perfectionism and arrogance. More and more I learned to hide who I was from others. I shoved my feelings deeper within. Pity was the only reliable type of attention I knew and I began to understand it falsely as love. When I felt helpless and out of control, I learned to arrange my life and circumstance so I could always be in control. My response to relationship was to again isolate; withdrawing from connections in order to numb the pain of rejection. I tried sports but quickly quit simply because it was too painful to fail and be ridiculed. I couldn't laugh at myself or admit my weaknesses. Academically, it was another story. If I couldn't be stronger or faster, I would become smarter. I took harder classes than my peers. Underlying it all was an intense fear of rejection that fueled perfectionism that said, In order to be good enough, I have to be flawless. I began to excel and discovered I could use a conceited attitude to cover my shame.
At the end of my freshmen year in college, I was lonelier than ever. I was doing well in my classes but had no friends. I collected porn magazines but that spring threw them out finding them lacking. I wanted a relationship with a woman who could fill my vacant aching heart. Over the summer I had an affair but discovered no hope. The next year I found myself surrounded by new Christian friends. I ended up acknowledging God's existence and sovereignty over my life. I had a conversion experience, purchased my fire insurance and started attending church. My growth as a Christian was sporadic and slow. I finally met someone in my senior year. We were together on and off for two years, dating, not dating, engaged, not engaged and engaged again. During this relationship all the things I hated about myself began to emerge, my anger, fragile self-esteem, weakness as a leader in a relationship and codependence. The emotions I tried to hide bubbled up in the vulnerable crucible of our relationship. Traits I'd long suppressed came to the surface. I started to see I was becoming a lot like my dad had been.
After college, I left where I'd been since first grade to join the Air Force as a second lieutenant. This ended our relationship for good and I thought my world was over. My plans were wiped out. I was alone in Colorado Springs with no friends and no one to turn to. But God used that humbled state to help pick me up and draw me closer to Him. I got involved in a church, learned to read the Bible and listened to Christian music. My life was put back in order, though I still desperately longed for the right woman to come along and fill that empty chasm where my heart ought to have been. Emotionally, I was lonely but otherwise in control. All those traits that had come out were conquered and resolved. Or so I thought. It turned out they were only dormant and were waiting to be emerge once more. My belief system was based on lies and my thinking was distorted.
I moved to Montana where I attended a church and received mentoring from the pastors and everything seemed to be better than ever. I met the pastor's daughter whom I fell in love with and married. Those old patterns emerged almost immediately. The expectation I had about marriage was nearly instantly crushed. I was disillusioned in my new relationship, struggled with anger, still very addicted to sex and found just because I was married didn't mean I was content. After eighteen months of marriage we moved to Los Angeles . My wife was uprooted from her support and fell into a sense of depression. I was blind to her needs being focused on my own. I didn't like my job, hated the L.A. traffic and dreaded coming home where chaos and disorder were the norm. More demands were instantly placed on me at my weakest point of the day and I became instantly agitated longing for relief from the day.
I refused to tell my wife no' fearing somehow deep down that if I said no' she would leave me. We started to read the Bible together only to stop when she resisted me with the slightest hint of disapproval. We began to pray together until I detected the faintest rejection. I was paralyzed by my own fears and began a slow spiral to the most regretful season of my life. There were many problems with our marriage and most of them were my own fault. At the time I was blind to the obvious and lacked the courage to do what was right, and the conviction to keep at it.
About this time I was traveling frequently with the Air Force. I fell to the temptation of porn in the hotel room. I subtly sought out co-workers I thought might be willing to have an affair. I was sure sex with one of them would help. I never crossed the line but desperately wanted to. I was on a hair trigger and would have easily started an affair with anyone who took the first step. Ironically, my fear of rejection was a safeguard for me. My fear of being caught kept me from anything beyond flirting. Yet my fantasy life was jam-packed with extramarital excursions. I was spiritually bankrupt and prayed fervently for a cure to my madness but did not hear an answer. I became more easily angered and a worse husband. I began to experience strange fits of paranoia. I lost patience quickly with my wife and I was too quick to point out her inadequacies. I saw my role of being a husband as teaching her to be independent. My method was to do very little and demand a gold medal for the slightest act of service I did.
Work was my only refuge but became an addiction. I put in long hours resulting in success and thrived on the world away from the anarchy felt at home. I led more and more of a dual life. At church I went from advising the pastor on small groups to becoming the lay leader of the ministry. I preached all the right words while hiding my true self. I was motivated by the good feelings I got when my name was mentioned in a positive way. I was pumped up when I stood in front of thirty men and delivered a sermon at a men's retreat. I thought I was all right when others told me so. It was all about me. And as long as I wasn't at home, I was moderately happy. Back at home, I was more depressed. It was a season of my life I look back on as a winter, cold and devoid of feeling. I was numb to those around me. I was not humble in seeking the Lord and growing. In my bitter, arctic heart I began to blame. I thought the emptiness I was feeling was everyone else's fault but my own. I thought a stronger grip would be able to hold everything together. Instead, everything just went more out of control.
I longed for relief, but only knew one place to find it. My bottle and pill was spending time on the computer. My thoughts were double-minded. I have to gain control. I want it more than ever. I have to stop. I need it now to escape. What I really needed was help but I couldn't beat my own over-developed pride and arrogance enough to actually make a call. I prayed for a cure but didn't listen for His voice. I was full of shame. As Max Lucado says in He Chose the Nails , my pride drove me away from God saying I don't need God I can handle it on my own' in essence, I'm too good for God.' And my shame kept me away saying, I'm too disgusting, repulsive' in effect I'm too bad for God.' Lucado says pride and shame are sisters, sharing the same parentage and result. Pride came before each one of my falls and shame kept me from getting back up again.
Nothing I tried worked. I tried the same things over and over again but discovered God has a way where I didn't. Help came but not in the form I wanted. I longed for the miracle without taking the smallest step in the right direction or raising my hands in surrender and allowing an all powerful God to assume control of my life. And then my secret life was exposed. My most shameful decisions thrust into the bright light for all to see. I was broken and smashed into tiny pieces. I wanted to die. As bad as it was for me, it was a horrible disappointment for my family, friends and co-workers. It grieves me today to think of all the people I hurt through my selfish acts. I am truly sorry for that and saddened that I had such an impact. The good news of my story began in a lonely hotel room where I shook in fear. Suddenly sober-minded, I was desperate to find out why I had gone down that crazy path.
As I looked, God was faithful to show me where I'd gone wrong. It was the first swing with a sledge hammer at the brick wall of denial I'd been living inside. I began to surrender myself to God more than ever before. Instead of checking the box, I began to really turn my life over to Him and His will. Instead of trying to figure it out on my own, I got into a 12-step program where I found a sponsor and accountability partner and shared with them my life. As I began to seek God's wisdom, I started to understand my true identity. My search continued over the next few years as I was separated from my wife and I left active duty. Christian ministry and honest evaluation helped. I began to accept I was a perfectionist yet prone to make mistakes and was a bitter sinner. I saw many of my core beliefs were lies and began to replace those deceptions with foundational truths. I am more than a conqueror. God declares me righteous in Christ. I'm a new creation, a masterpiece. As much as I learned about myself, I also began to get a different picture of who God is. I experienced His powerful, never-ending, unlimited-by-size love for me. I didn't see Him as a God who withheld love from me but a God whose love for me surpassed my understanding. He sustained me in my darkest hours. My view of an angry and distant God vanished and my comprehension of a forgiving Lord moved from intellectual truth to heartfelt reality.
I realized my problems were not someone else's fault which helped me to forgive myself and release my wife and parents from the accusations I had made of them. I worked to deal with reality instead of isolating and creating a fantasy world to escape to. Slowly, I began to enjoy more and more freedom. God helped me out of the spiritual and emotional prison I'd lived in for years. Without knowing or understanding it, my heart began to thaw. Spring was coming. New life and new hope was on the horizon. But difficult times were still in store for me. A year and a half ago my wife finally divorced me. I didn't want this but I do understand her choice. She had been hurt deeply by me over the years. So many of my regrets involve choices I made with her. So many amends I still owe her.
Last year I started attending a Christian recovery support group where I have continued the work of healing and restoration through a fearless and moral search of myself so I could allow God to change me. The changes that have taken place are truly happening. When I serve in church it is to truly serve rather than to gain accolades. I work hard not to spin or distort who I am, positively or negatively. The truth is I am a broken man, repaired little by little by an Amazing Grace that I don't deserve. I no longer hide my past, as shameful as it is, from those who God may be able to use it to bring His glory into their lives. I deal with hurts and resentments instead of stuffing them. I accept responsibility instead of looking to blame someone else.
I guard against the subtle pride that equates to five years of being clean from internet and video pornography. The truth is I have many years of having to remain clean ahead of me. I share this with you in hope you can identify somehow with the need to become humble before God and accept His promise of restoration. It takes letting go and letting God to do this. In the past, I would have been too proud to admit I had hurts and too ashamed to discuss the real me. My prayer is you are willing to take those first difficult steps. I thank God for each person who has heard God calling out to them with beginning this journey. I was never freer than when I admitted I was in chains. And when I did, God began to remove the shackles. I never gained so much as when I began to lose my life. Which leads me to this last scripture, one of my life verses: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9:24)
If you have a story of how God brought you from the point of despair to a life of hope, you may contact me via email to share your story and see if it could be used for future publications.