One year ago this month, I was sent to Quantico Virginia for a marksmanship school by the United States Marine Corps reserve. One night during my training, a few of the guys and myself went out to a restaurant for some food. Our waitress that night was a beautiful young girl who I was very attracted to. She was attracted to me as well and after exchanging numbers that evening we continued to talk for the next few weeks even after I returned to Nevada. This sweet young girl opened up and shared her heart with me. She shared her deepest thoughts, her recent hurts, and other pains she had experienced throughout her life. She even shared her personal dream of being a pilot in the military, something she said she hadn’t entrusted to any other man. We didn’t share the same faith, but she believed in God, and besides she was beautiful I could lead her to a stronger relationship with Jesus later. Nothing bad was going to happen anyway, it was just a friendly long distance relationship.
After talking with her for over a month on the phone and through skype, she made plans to come out to Nevada for a visit. She was originally from northern California and had numerous friends she wanted to visit so the trip wasn’t just to see me. However after she arrived, things turned out a little different then I had “thought”. It was premeditated, or was it? I had set it up, but I wasn’t going to take it that far, I’d be a gentleman, I'm a good guy, I can resist, I’m a Christian, or am I? We could just share a hotel room and nothing would happen…. maybe a few drinks just for fun and that’d be it…. In sequential order it happened. I got us a hotel room, we had some drinks, we hit the club, and then I woke up….
I woke up in a panic….guilt gripped me, there’s no way that just happened. There is no way I had just stumbled back into my old self. Unfortunately it was real. That night I drank so much I blacked out and didn’t remember anything…. I was sick, in more ways than one. Physical sickness from binge drinking is bad, but when your body, soul, and spirit are all sick, it’s a miserable existance. I had tried to ignore the reality of what happened the night before and she didn’t say much about it either, in fact it wasn’t until later that evening when she actually told me what had happened that night…my heart ached. One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced. I was immediately convicted. I was ashamed, humiliated, hurt, and angry at myself. How did I let this happen and how could I change it? How can I take this back? There has to be a way!
Rather than escaping from her and the situation and going to God in humility and begging for forgiveness, I just did what I always used to do to cope with a mistake. I thought it was easier this way. I could just go back to the bottle everyday and I wouldn’t have to remember anything anymore, the shame would be gone, the pain would be gone and the sorrow with it… or would it? I dove head first back into the bottle. In fact for 2 weeks, I was back into the old Andy. The drunk. Most of you reading this know him. You’ve seen him first hand. He always expressed that fun loving exterior with a big smile on the outside, yet inside he was torn apart, once again drowning himself in shame, guilt, and depression. 2 years of sobriety was gone overnight. God had rescued me from alcoholism nearly 2 years before this! But during those two weeks you wouldn’t have known that. You couldn’t see it, I lost that witness through my actions in one night.
For 2 weeks, I continued drinking and clubbing not wanting to admit that eventually this would all catch up to me. For 2 weeks, I tried to forget what I had done while constantly doing more of what I was trying to forget! Day in and day out I continued to pile on more and more guilt, more and more shame. Rather than repent and cry out to God to save me from myself, I walked in deception, and the god I reached out to save me had a familiar bitter taste, a pungent smell, and a worthless reward.
That second weekend I was supposed to go to church with a buddy of mine from my reserve unit. This is the guy that I had been mentoring, I had been encouraging him in Christ, praying with and for him. He knew all the amazing things that God had done in my life over the last 2 years, and he looked up to me. He wanted more of God, and he wanted to learn more about being a Christian man from me. What did I give him in all my confidence and wisdom? Confusion. Once again he watched as I went out that night to the club the night before church. And like clock work, it happened in sequential order again, drunk, club, woman, blackout, wake up… My buddy was the one who picked me up from the hotel the next morning too…
He didn’t even speak to me. He didn’t need to, his body language said it all. He was mad. Correction, he was irate! Not only had we missed church, he had just watched his Christian brother that he looked up to drink another night away, throw more of his heart away, and embrace more sin and destruction. Saying I let him down would be an understatement.
A few hours later, after he’d allowed the anger to fade, he simply asked: Dude, what are you doing…? What the heck happened to you…? He didn’t need to say anything else. I drove home that night lonely and alone. I wore sadness on my face for that hour and a half drive home, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. What had happened to me?
I was deceived! I was so ashamed that I didn’t feel like I could go to God with my guilt. I didn’t want to go to God, after the mistake it was easier to keep making them rather than to run to God. Rather then seeking God for forgiveness after the initial error, I ran away from Him instead and in doing so I made the situation even worse. I remembered David, and realized I had repeated the same mistake he did. David having slept with another mans wife made the situation worse by ordering that womans husband to the front line to be killed. He tried to cover up sin with sin, which never works. David committed sin after sin and made mistake after mistake until FINALLY he had a “what the heck are you doing?” moment and realized Who he needed to go to.
So where does one go to eliminate shame? There is only one place….
I in all my pride, I got down on my face and bawled my eyes out for a very, very, very long time…not only did I screw up once, I kept on screwing up day in and day out for 2 weeks! God save me! There were a lot of hard tears that needed to come out. There was a lot of grieving I had to do over myself, and my actions. Thankfully we serve a God that responds to shame with love and grace, and through humility comes freedom!
Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.
Proverbs 18:33
Rather than making things better with the girl, I did what many men in her past did and what I usually did with woman. I deleted her out of my life. I left her without answers, and just tossed her out of my life. If she didn’t exist then maybe I could forget anything ever happened. This didn’t work however, I never forgot…
Fast forward 1 year. Almost a year to the day that I met the beautiful young waitress. I’ve now grown in maturity as a Christian man and God has been teaching me so much this year about trust and love, especially in the last few months. This was a new year, a year to start fresh, a year that God had told me was a year of restoration.
Currently I am on a road trip and have been traveling north from Georgia the last few days praying for people and loving people. God has healed people in front of my eyes, backs, knees, ankles, and various other pains and hurts have been eliminated through love, prayer, and the name of Jesus. Little did I know however that the greatest miracle I'd see this year was about to happen. Yesterday I was headed up to Quantico to spend some time with a buddy who I haven’t seen in 3 years. About 30 miles south of Quantico, God plants that girls face in my mind…. God, what are you doing? Do you have to bring that up? Of course he did. Why? because there was something that I needed to give her. An apology.
This morning, with a cup of coffee at a Starbucks. I met with this young girl, and I apologized for wronging her. I apologized for using her, taking advantage of her, and not acting like a Christian man should. She said it wasn’t a big deal and she was over it, but I knew that I had hurt her and although I couldn’t change anything, in order for us both to heal there needs to be forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness isn’t the easiest thing to do, but most of the right things in life aren’t easy. Thankfully she responded with forgiveness. After we talked for a while and caught up on life, I was blessed with a wonderful opportunity to hold her hand and pray for her. Although I couldn’t take back what I had done to her, I could ask God to heal her heart, and restore love in her life, bring back the trust she’s lost in men, and allow the wounds in her heart to be mended. I blessed her as well asking God to give her the desires of her heart, and to prosper her always. Lastly, I reminded her that she is a child of God, and that God loves her so much, and that she is so special to him. As I opened my eyes and looked into hers, I could see the where pain had left and peace had come.
After the prayer, she went her way, and I went mine. But today I believe God healed some wounds in both of us, and He restored some love in both of our hearts.
So why am I telling the world this? Because she’s only one of the people I’ve hurt. And if you are reading this, and you are one of the woman that I’ve hurt, the I want to apologize. And if I can, I’ll do so in person as well. There are many of you that I’ve hurt over the last decade. I used you. I used you to alleviate the pain and hurt in my life, or to make myself feel more like a man. I manipulated you and I used many of you for whatever my heart desired, having no care or concern for the path of destruction I’d leave in my wake. Instead of using the gifts that God gave me to bless you and show you his love, I used those gifts to seduce you and entice you to give me whatever I wanted.
As embarrassing as this all maybe, I’ve come to a point in life where I’ve surrendered completely to God and have died to myself. I’ve given up all of my hurts, sorrows, and pains, and exchanged them for his love. Over the last few years God has shaped and molded my heart to be able to trust in him, it has been painful, but it is rewarding. It began through forgiveness. By surrendering all my hurts and shame God allowed me to forgive myself, and in turn I am now free. In asking your forgiveness, I hope to set you free from the bondage I’ve put you in. The hurt and pain and brokenness that I dealt out to your heart. Let this be a start of restoration in your heart, let this be the start of letting go of the pain and just surrendering it to God.
For any men who read this. Don’t sit so high in your chair bro. Don't even let your pride rear it's nasty head. Pick up that sword and slash its head off. There are woman in your life who are waiting for you to be a man. And it starts right now with righting your wrongs. Don’t wait. Healing begins when we step out of our comfort zone, out of our "manliness" and right the wrongs we've done to the woman in our lives. They are waiting….
