My Redemption Story, Part 4

My healing from pornography addiction began when I stopped trying.
I was tired from maintaining a ‘good Christian girl’ image for 27 years. My mustered, artificial strength wasn’t providing relief. Striving brought spurts of sobriety, but it was never lasting — it never bred rest. I believed what I had felt since age 12- I was dirty.

It would make for a much cleaner ending to say that my struggles didn’t follow me into marriage. Ryan and I were married in 2011, eleven beautiful years ago. The end. Bye!
But that’s not the truth.

I couldn’t escape the shame, guilt, and cyclical behavior. Ryan’s arms have always been a safe landing place from the spirals. He offers me both the freedom and security to share…everything. But anytime our emotional connection wanes, boredom peaks, or I feel dissatisfied with reality, temptation lurks. Much like how someone might escape reality through online shopping, Netflix binges, or over-drinking/eating, my escape is just less socially acceptable, especially, in the church.

But lasting relief from cyclical behavior doesn’t come from what you do or don’t do, look at or don’t look at, think or don’t think, or even for how long, but from resting in what Jesus has already done. He doesn’t require 12-steps, but asks us to sit down beside Him — because it is finished. Our relationship with Jesus has never been based upon ‘do,’ but our acceptance of His radical, lasting rest.

I began to heal when I could rest in my attachment to God. This steady, secure realationship has never faltered, despite my behavior. And I’ll be honest, it took me three years (and continued pop-ins to this day) to undo the ‘doing’ and usher me into a new position of rest. I slowly stopped coping through my flesh to deal with emotional pain, and instead learned to live from my spirit, where I’m united to the Spirit. I stopped trying to live independently from God, because God became dependable.

Connection is the antidote to addiction, and we are always connected to God. Where unconditional, proven, I’m-here-and-I’m-not-going-anywhere-love exists and flourishes, shame dies.
It took time…it’s still taking time. But with the death of shame, I was able to not only cognitively comprehend my identity in Jesus, but experientially understand it. I went from a secret identity of dirty to living in my real identity of pure; from feeling alone and abandoned, to never alone, always welcome. My head-knowledge beliefs meshed with my when-the-shit-hits-the-fan-beliefs, and I started to experience true, healing traction — actual victorious sobriety.

Strived-for and earned victory is a nice placate, but Jesus’ victory — our shared victory — is secure. It’s a victory that provides rest, even if we screw up again; not a victory that is flimsy and contingent on performance and behavior. Jesus gives rest from the steps, the doing, and the cyclical purging that happens after messing up. Because His rest is unconditional: it replaces the fear of messing up again, something that mustered-sobriety just can’t offer.

When the pressure to perform is off, the soil changes. When safety and security are steady, new life buds. I was once shame enriched, but now I’m nourished by new life. Freedom blossoms even when I mess up, even when I don’t feel it, even when God feels far off again. Because freedom is no longer contingent on me, but on Jesus. 🌼