I asked Jesus to save me when I was young – maybe when I was eight, I don’t remember for certain. My grandmother was the one who told me about Jesus, for which I am grateful, but she really didn’t know very much about him, and for a long time I was afraid of God. I thought he was angry and impatient and ready to send me to hell any time I failed him. I had few friends as a child and was often tormented for being ugly, and I didn’t have any reason to think God cared for me any more than anyone else did.
My life in my parents’ house did very little to help set straight my misunderstandings about God. We did not live in a Christian way. Though my mother sent us children to Sunday school at a local church, we did not worship at home. We did not pray or read the Bible. My father was an alcoholic, and there were often perverse and drunken men in the house. My father also kept pornography in the house, and at a very young age I discovered his pornography and began reading and watching it, too. What I learned from pornography gave me even less reason to feel worthwhile. I surely didn’t measure up to any of the “standards” of womanhood or beauty or value I found there.
My father was a lonely, cold and sarcastic man. I can remember only one time in my life that he sat me on his lap. He was reading a story to me, and was angry that he had to do it; my mother had made him do it. I remember that he did not know my age, year in school, my birth date (which is unusual for a parent in America, where celebrating a person’s birthday annually is expected), or even my middle name (in America most people have three names: the first or Christian name, the middle name – which tends not to be used so much – and the last or family name). I thought my father hated me. That, together with the lies I learned from pornography helped explain, I thought, why I had so few friends. I thought because I was unattractive, I must be a worthless person. I believed that men didn’t value women unless they could have sex with them, beat them and make fun of them.
I was always depressed. I kept to myself. I often dreamed about killing myself. (But, thank the Lord, I knew he didn’t allow people to kill themselves, so for that reason, I did not.) I went to see a lot of psychologists for help throughout my teenage, university and graduate school years. They didn’t do much good. I was still depressed and wanted to die; they often only managed to point out new reasons for me to be depressed that I had not thought of myself.
In university, I experimented a bit with drugs. Also, since I believed I could never be happy till a man wanted me, even though I knew it was wrong, I tried to give myself to a man. In the university where I was studying, there were plenty of people happy to oblige me. But God protected me in spite of myself. Once I found myself in a bedroom with a promiscuous man who had pursued me for some while. Suddenly, for no reason, he said “We can’t do this!” and went away. I never could get him to explain why he’d done so, other than that it had something to do with my being “different” from all our fellow students, and he didn’t want to spoil that. (Today, I think that “difference” he couldn’t quite explain, but which was so valuable to him, was the indwelling Spirit showing himself in my life in spite of my own behaviour.) That sort of thing actually happened to me more than once. Thanks to God, and no thanks to me, I am still a virgin today.
A few years later, after graduate school, I moved to my current town and joined my church New City Fellowship. At New City I joined with a group of people who were studying the Bible and praying so that they might be set free from their life controlling problems. We used the very helpful studies published by Living Free, a ministry which first wrote materials designed to help people get free of drug and alcohol additions.1 As a result of my experience with these studies, I have learned that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit … discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
God’s word is able to uncover and heal the deep broken places in a human heart. I have also learned that we cannot hope to solve our problems alone. We need other believing people around us to challenge us to repentance (“brothers, if anyone is caught in any sin, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted,” Gal. 6:1); to bear our burdens (“carry each other’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ,” Gal. 6:2); and to pray for us (“confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed,” James 5:16). Over time, I have learned to stop longing for a man to give me value – God has done that! (“to all who received Christ, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” John 1:12).
I haven’t used drugs now in many years; I don’t smoke or drink. I have ceased to be depressed. I no longer dream about dying, but now thank God for my life. (Before, I used to be ashamed to tell people what my middle name was – I was angry about it because I thought it was an unkind joke and a lie; but now, I gladly admit that, when I was born, God my Father saw to it that one of the names I was given would be “Joy!”) I am genuinely able to look back at the sorrows of my earlier life and thank God for it all; because I see how he was caring for me, his child even when I couldn’t quite believe in his love (“we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” Rom. 8:28). I see too, that he used much of the suffering to make me a better, more compassionate person, who wants to see people saved from going through what I have. “Blessed be … the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our suffering, so that we may be able to comfort others in all their suffering, as we ourselves are being comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).