This is the most vulnerable/raw blog I have ever written, so before I start, I want to thank all of you for the incredible support you have shown to this point, because without it I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing this. This is something I haven’t even shared with some of my closest friends and family. I’ve wanted to write about this at some point but I never really knew how to put it into words until today’s inspiration. In our weakness we can see His strength and our scars are testament to his faithfulness in renewing us and making us whole again. I know I’m not the only one who has been down a road like this before. I hope you all can get something out of it.
So on our bus ride to Johannesburg, where we will fly out of tomorrow for Asia, I watched a movie recommended to me by my alumni squad leader Drew. The movie was “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” I don’t know how many of you have heard/seen this movie but I thought it was a decent movie in its own right. However, what really got me thinking was not the movie itself but a quote from it.
In the movie, the main character sees the girl he likes being mistreated by her boyfriend and also his sister being physically abused by her boyfriend. This leads him to ask his school teacher “Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?”
The teachers response was, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” The question itself didn’t trigger anything but the response really got me thinking.
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
This statement I find to be way too true, also outside of dating relationships. Why do we as people often accept love that is a counterfeit of the real thing? Their is a greater love out there for us but we often can choose not to accept it. Why do we let this happen and often times simultaneously compromise our morals and what we know to be true?
For me this looked like struggling on and off with pornography from my freshman year in college to December of my senior year.
Growing up throughout middle and high school I never looked at pornography. I knew it was wrong and I personally couldn’t comprehend why anyone would do such a thing. Unfortunately once I got to college I experienced the struggle first hand. I had liked a girl for 3 years during high school but I was always too insecure to do anything about it and actually ask her out. In the middle of my freshman year at college when I was starting to gather confidence she started dating a friend of mine.
(I want to make it clear that I do not blame either of them at all for this struggle as neither of them even knew of my feelings and I was happy to see them both happy. In fact if it wasn’t for this part of my testimony I wouldn’t be who I am today, so for that I am thankful.)
This led to me to further insecurity and accepting a lie from Satan that I was unlovable by anyone besides my family and friends. No one will ever want to be in a relationship with me.
This feeling that I would never find someone to love, led to a negative spiral that I was stuck in for 3 years which led to even more troubles. I resorted to a counterfeit love in watching pornography.
It sounds foolish (because it is) and it makes no sense but I felt like no one would be ever like me by choice so the closest thing I would get to being in a relationship would be through this form of counterfeit love. Pornography led me to feeling so much shame, which led to a feeling of further isolation and an overwhelming feeling of being unworthy of anyone’s love, especially the love of God.
My heart to tell others about God’s love was never a problem in this time, because I still whole heartedly believed in it. But when it came to accepting His love for myself, that was something I could not do.
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
I did not feel like I deserved any amount of the love Christ. Who was I to accept the love of someone I had continually turned my back on and disobeyed. I knew His love was limitless but at the same time, I couldn’t comprehend how that love could be for me. I knew I didn’t deserve it.
I didn’t know of this quote until now but it is exactly what I had struggled with. This was the struggle for so long until I recognized the truth.
The truth that Christ’s love is something no one deserves.
Once I took this to heart, that no one on earth deserves His love, did I finally experience freedom from the guilt, the shame, and the loneliness I had felt.
Since the end of December in 2016 I have been clean of pornography. It was only once I received God’s love in full for myself was I was able to reach out and let God pull me out of the sinking sand I had tried to get out of on my own for so long. He pulled me out of the sinking sand onto the solid rock of who He is because for some unexplainable reason He loves me. He has taken the shame and guilt I used to feel and if from this day forward, His love happens to be the only love I ever experience I am still eternally grateful, because it is more than enough and more than I deserve.
Other counterfeit loves include, but are not limited to, things like, a need for money and success, the feeling of being drunk or on drugs, or as it was in the movie, being “stuck” in an ungodly or even abusive relationship. I don’t know what counterfeit love you may be struggling with right now, but I pray if you are, you see it as the false love that it is. Don’t fall for the temptation of only accepting love you think you deserve. You are more. God’s love is the only real thing and it is the best gift ever given. I pray that you accept His ultimate love none of us deserve but God so desperately wants to give you anyway. His gift of His love for you came at the highest cost in the form of His life. To Him you’re invaluable and deserve more love than this world has to offer.
At the end of the day, we are all broken and sinful people. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone first leave the perfection and beauty of heaven to come live in such a broken world only to endure so much persecution. And despite all of the hate He faced He lived a completely blameless and sinless life only to sacrifice himself and die an excruciating death on the cross so we may live. That is the ultimate love. The love that doesn’t make sense. The love no one deserves. The love that I want to continue to receive because it is the only love I need. The love I want to spend the rest of my life sharing with others everywhere I go.
