You are Not Alone

About 6 weeks before the affair started, I was sitting next to a creek with a great friend. He was talking to me about some issues that he and his wife were going through. He wasn’t an emotional guy by nature, not the type of guy to open up easily. Yet, here he was being vulnerable, honest, transparent. He was admitting that he didn’t have it all together. He and his wife had helped us start the church, and this conversation represented my vision of “community” that I’d been talking about since the church began. Life on life…messy…raw…honest.

In that moment, talking to my friend, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me and tell me “He is safe. You can talk to him. You can be honest. You can be real. You can tell him of your struggles. You can tell him of your marriage issues. This is your chance to come clean.” At the same time, another voice in my head, one that I had listened to for years, told me “If you share anything with him, he can ruin you. If you talk about the pornography, if you talk about the lust, if you talk about your marriage issues, you will lose it all.”

I felt all alone. I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on inside of me, or I’d lose everything. So by holding it all in, I lost it all.

I know this post isn’t for everyone…but it is for SOMEONE. No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you are struggling with, no matter what thoughts you have had, or what web sites you’ve gone to…YOU ARE NOT ALONE. The enemy of your heart wants to convince you that you are the only one, that no one else has been there, no one would understand, and if you get real, if you are honest, it will destroy you.

I’m not here to tell you that confessing whatever it is that holds you prisoner won’t destroy you…I’m not here to tell you it won’t cost you…I’m not here to say that if you confess your junk things will be okay in your marriage, in your ministry, in your relationships. I am here to tell you that you won’t have to wake up tomorrow and pretend to be who you are pretending to be right now. I am saying that the freedom that you long for is on the other side of brokenness and honesty and confession. I am telling you that the price you are paying by staying in bondage is far greater than the price you will pay if you share the dark parts of you heart.

I spent 15 years believing the lie that being honest about my struggles would cost me everything…and that lie cost me everything.