I have been healing from the effects of the sexual revolution for about 30 years now. If you had told me as a 24-year-old that my life would be marked
by emotional and spiritual wholeness, that I’d one day celebrate 28 years of marriage and three beautiful daughters, I would have thought you cruel
for holding out that kind of promise.
My life up to that point had been overwhelmed by the choices my parents made, which wounded me (divorce, father’s addictions and abandonment, mother’s
horrible live-in boyfriend), as well as the destructive choices I started making for myself as a teenager (sexual promiscuity and regular drug/alcohol
use). The more I engaged in these behaviors, the worse I felt, and the guilt drove me into evermore destructive choices. My broken family had no
religious, moral, or parental guidelines to put limits on my behavior. My mom was completely wrecked by a horrible relationship with a man who
I would later find out was a predator. At the tender age of 18 he proposed to me one day during a lunch, complete with a ring and his plan that
I would have his babies, but my mom would raise them. This was the man who I had lived in the same house with since 5th grade, and tried to see
as a father figure, even though he was never interested in being a father to either my brother or me. It was just one more big crack in my already
terribly damaged self-image as a young woman.
I would go on to have lots more hook-ups and drunken, drug filled nights as I moved into my 20’s. But I was getting desperate to understand why I was
even on the earth. What purpose could my crappy life even have, and how could I ever hope to be different? I read self-help books thinking that
was my answer. It didn’t take long to understand that reading about what was wrong was much easier than fixing it. Those books became a trap for
me because I could understand the problems, but knew I was powerless, no matter how many times I determined to start fresh, to get out of the pit
I was in.
I was only sure of a few things at that point. I wanted more than anything just to have a family of my own, but I was also committed to never doing
to my children what was done to me. It felt like a no-win trap, because I knew in my morally bankrupt lifestyle I would never be a good wife or
mother, nor would I ever find a spouse the way I was living. By my early twenties I had become convinced nothing about my life would ever be different,
and I would be stuck and alone.
But a kind Christian man would come along in my mother’s life and fall in love with her, though she wasn’t a believer. My brother and I thought she
was so desperate for a man that she was willing to settle for a “Bible thumper”! It soon became obvious that he wasn’t like anyone we’d met before.
He shared his faith with me, and told me for the very first time in my life that I had a Father in heaven who knew me, loved me, and had a plan
for my life. As I listened I was undone. Was it true that the God of the universe really knew me, and not just knew me, but loved me, even the
way I was? The offer of salvation, the need to repent of my sins, being washed clean from the stain of sin, and knowing Jesus would be with me
always was an offer I could not refuse. (My mom accepted Jesus as well.)
Healing came slowly but steadily as I pressed into living life with Jesus, taking in His Word, surrounding myself with healthy Christian community
in a church committed to making mature disciples of Christ. Learning to practice healing prayer where I brought the pain of the past to the cross
and Jesus exchanged it for truth and wholeness was, and still is, how I live free in Christ Jesus. The Lord has given me so much more than I could
have ever hoped or imagined in this life, the most precious being a deep knowing that I belong to Him.
Submitted by S.
