Hello friends!
Now I realize some of you may have read the title and thought to yourself: so she met more prostitutes and/or drug addicts? What wild story is it today? But no no. Today I want to talk to you about my 20 year struggle with masturbation and 11 year struggle with pornography.
The Lord told me I was going to share this part of my testimony at some point this year, and I threw every excuse in the book at Him (but Lord, my parents read this blog, the WiFi isn’t good here for me to write it, my church family sees this, I’m scared, my brothers subscribe to this blog, I don’t want to, what if people give me flack for this, and MY PARENTS READ THIS BLOG). But the Lord asked it of me, so I had to make a decision. And my decision is that I will not hide my story in fear or in shame.
Correction: I will not be ashamed of the parts of my testimony where my Savior’s grace was needed most. I will not be ashamed of the chains He broke off, the ugly pieces He loved, the decisions and actions He covered in grace. I will not be ashamed of where I needed Him to set me free.
I understand if this blog makes you uncomfortable, please believe that I am also so far out of my comfort zone. Literally no one ever wants to talk about their struggle with masturbation and pornography, and even just reading the words raises some level of shame in me.
But fear of man’s judgement is outweighed by the desire to obey my God. And if He asks me to sacrifice my comfort in obedience, I’ll do it. But if you’re uncomfortable, feel free to stop reading at anytime. I won’t be offended.
Spoiler alert: this isn’t a bad story. It’s filled with honesty and the goodness of His grace.
Let’s start at the beginning.
The first time I masturbated I was 8 years old. I was alone in my bed in the dark and I immediately felt dirty, and like I should be ashamed. I also hoped that no one would ever find out. I was so terrified that someone would realize how awful I was. But that moment, with 8-year-old little baby Susan, turned into a daily habit. A daily habit of masturbating and self-hatred. I eventually got to a point where I couldn’t fall asleep until I’d masturbated. That habit continued until January 2019.
I didn’t find pornography until my early teens. It was a total accident; some video came up on Facebook. I remember feeling immediately uncomfortable, aroused, guilty and ashamed. I remember feeling curious also. But shame kept me from finding more, and also the strong belief that watching porn was not good. Not necessarily because of anything that the Bible said; but because I was so scared someone would find out and then no one would love me.
So I watched foreign films. Which sounds really dumb until you realize that because of different countries rating systems, some movies are basically just soft core pornography with better music and you can say you’re watching it for the plot. (Unless you were me, in which case you skip all the plot points and just watch the sex scenes) I also found books that were more sexually explicit. I found pornography in things that are not typically classified as pornography, but it all had the same effect. So if you want to get technical, it wasn’t always pornography. But it still wrapped me in guilt and shame and warped my idea of healthy, Biblical sexuality all the same.
This struggle continued until January 2019.
I was 26, confessing to my mentor in her back room office at the store she runs. She was only the second person in my life that I had confessed this to. I wanted to be free from that struggle, and she would listen and pray for me.
At the time, I was in the beginning stages of pursuing a relationship with a man I really really loved and thought perhaps could be my husband someday, and I didn’t want to drag my masturbation and pornography issues into the relationship. I could see the bad fruit and pain caused by pornography and masturbation in my life, and we’ve all seen them ruin marriages and destroy relationships. He was the first person I ever told about this struggle. He was understanding, and he didn’t make me feel dirty or ashamed; but he also didn’t know how to encourage growth in this area, or hold me accountable. He struggled with the same issues too, so we were really just two people drowning in the same ocean needing a lifeline.
So I went to my mentor, and she prayed freedom and deliverance over me. I felt free. I didn’t seek out anything pornographic, and I stopped masturbating. I was free from these specific sins. The door was closed. For a while.
In July 2019, I started masturbating again.
See, here’s the thing: being free from sin doesn’t make you free from temptation.
Even Jesus, who was without sin, was temped during His 40-day fast in the wilderness by the devil. But giving into temptation is a choice. When you’re freed from sin by the power of Jesus Christ, you don’t have to act on it anymore. But with that freedom comes choice. The choice is no longer made for you by your flesh, but boy, it still wants you to choose sin. So good news! I was free, and therefore I had the choice and power to not sin.
So then came the hard truth that no one wants to hear: Sometimes I choose to sin.
I made the choice to masturbate again, and the door opened once more.
Masturbation didn’t become a habit the way it had been before January ‘19, but it was still there always whispering. And I tried so hard. And sometimes I succeeded in the fight, and sometimes I didn’t. I felt like a failure. Pornography was a much easier temptation for me to resist for some reason, (I realize now the reason was the grace of God) but my struggle since I was 8 years old started trying to dig its claws in again.
This January, after I launched with World Race America, I was at a thrift store with my team. One of them wanted to find a jacket, so we all went and browsed around. I was browsing in the book section, and I picked up a book and flipped it open. It opened to a very graphic description of a sexual encounter. I immediately felt aroused and flooded with shame at the same time, so I shoved the book back in its place on the shelf and walked away further down the shelves… And then walked back and picked up the book again and read more of the explicit content. I went back to our host home feeling dirty, ashamed, and really really hoping my teammates wouldn’t find out. What would they think of me? Probably nothing good. I was a failure again. The scenes I’d read kept replaying in my mind and I needed it to stop. Alone in the room I shared with a teammate, I went to my knees and begged the Lord’s forgiveness and asked Him to dull those images and remove the feelings of sexual arousal. I went to bed that night, and when I woke up the next morning, the memory of it was nearly gone. I mean, obviously I remember what I did and the general content of the book, but all the edges were dulled and sexual feelings were not there.
Praise the God of unfathomable grace, who always forgives and answers prayers.
I thought, “Perhaps I should confess this to my team and be vulnerable with them” and then I thought “Hm. Better not.” Because fear and shame are deep-rooted masters who despise honest vulnerability. What if that confession changed the way they thought about me, or how they interacted with me? What if it made me more difficult to love? So I decided not to tell them.
Then we got to Memphis in February. This was the time I realized that my struggle with masturbation absolutely effected the spiritual well-being of my teammates. It’s easy to say that masturbation effects just you and no one else, but what you let into your life spiritually absolutely can effect those around you. The first night there, I was struggling with feeling lonely, sad, and upset about some situations in my life. And I chose not to turn to the Lord for comfort, and instead turned to masturbation. And it turned back into a habit of turning to something other than the Lord for comfort, and fed back into guilt and shame. My actions had spiritual repercussions not just for me, but for the whole team. I opened a door in my life, and it spread evil into theirs. That night, every one of my teammates had nightmares. Most were sexually explicit nightmares, and all of them had a demonic overtone. When we woke up the next day, one person asked if anyone else had trouble sleeping/any weird dreams, and everyone else had. I knew immediately it was my fault. My team leader thought maybe there was some spiritual warfare happening and maybe a demonic spirit was in the one room, and I thought “She’s better at discerning spirits than I am, so she’s probably right.” But I knew in my heart that wasn’t true. I knew it was because of me. I opened a door in my life and negatively affected my teammates. Every single one. I was a failure again, and I’d failed them too.
And I said nothing. I let my team believe there was just some weird juju in the room and let my shame keep me silent again. Because now for sure they would think of me differently and have a problem loving me.
About a month ago, I had an inner healing. (If you’re unfamiliar, it’s intentional time where you let the Lord speak into a memory you have, expose any lies that may be there, and let Him speak the truth over you and into the situation). I went back to the memory of 8 year old Susan masturbating for the first time. I sat with my team leader and my team mentor interceding over me, and asked the Lord what lies I believed because of that memory.
I believed I was dirty, and I should be ashamed.
Then I asked what truth He wanted me to know.
I was still loved even then.
That’s the fear from when I was 8 years old: no one would love me if they knew what I did. That was the lie no one but the devil spoke over me for almost 20 years; No one’s going to love you if they know how dirty and ugly and sinful you really are. I had given ground to the enemy when I was 8 years old to let him speak the lie over my life that I was unloveable, and always would be. I gave him ground to tell me that I didn’t deserve to be loved, and that I should always be ashamed.
It was like a bomb went off. Just… oh.
Oh, I didn’t have to hate myself for all those years.
I didn’t have to feel like a failure every time I came up short. I didn’t have to feel guilty because I wasn’t strong enough to end this struggle on my own. Because that was the other thing: no one would love me if I struggled with this. Not even the Lord. So I couldn’t lean on Him and His strength to break the habit of masturbation; I had to break it myself first and then He would love me. And then I would deserve His grace, if I tried really hard and earned it.
But praise the God of unfathomable grace who still loved me even then.
So then we came to another question in the inner healing: who do you need to forgive in this memory? I needed to forgive myself (These were all my choices. Choices made when I was little and didn’t know what I was doing, and choices made now when I’m older and know what’s up). So I started crying.
I forgive you, 8-year-old little baby Susan, who gave ground to the enemy and didn’t know. And I forgive you, 27-year-old little baby Susan for continuing to give up ground.
Then I asked the Lord how I move forward from this?
I need to lean on grace and not be ashamed to let the Lord take the ground back for me.
Praise the God of unfathomable grace whose strength far outweighs mine.
So here we are. I want to share some things I’m rejoicing in in these struggles, and some things I am still struggling with in this struggle (yeah I know how dumb that sounds “struggling in the struggle” but I’m committed to it).
A few weeks ago, I was watching Schitt’s Creek (hilarious TV show. Highly recommend) on my laptop in Philly. I was on a website that was less than reputable, but safe from viruses, and an ad popped up. A really aggressively explicit porn ad, and… I blinked at it, closed the browser and went back to watching Schitt’s Creek. This may sound very ordinary, but I didn’t feel the usual rush of guilt and shame with that pop-up, I didn’t feel the temptation to find more sexually explicit content. That doesn’t mean I will always be free from temptations; there are still TV shows and movies that I will not watch because I don’t want to open that door again (sorry all my Outlander fan friends!). Although I will say I am a big fan of Game of Thrones, and that show’s sex scenes don’t have that kind of effect on me anymore. Now I’m just here for the dragons. But that moment with the pop-up was a victory, and I want to rejoice in it.
Praise the God of unfathomable grace who fully frees you of shame.
I still struggle with masturbation. I’m not gonna lie to you. I would really love to tell you that I don’t struggle with it at all anymore, and that I don’t even feel tempted, but I can’t. The temptation isn’t as strong as it was, say, a month ago. But it’s still there and I still stumble. Sometimes your deliverance isn’t instant. Sometimes it’s a process you have to walk out to completion.
I used to believe that my struggle with masturbation and pornography disqualified me from serving the Lord, that it disqualified me from prophesying and speaking into other people’s lives. And that is also blatantly not true. That’s like saying the price Jesus paid wasn’t enough. The truth is, my struggles don’t hinder my testimony; they enhance it. Everything that I do in spite of my sin struggles and weaknesses is done by God, so He gets all the glory. His grace covers over my humanity, and His love covers a multitude of sins.
But praise the God of unfathomable grace who’s present in every struggle.
If you struggle with masturbation, I want you to know you’re not alone. You are not discounted from serving the Lord. You’re not alone and you are so worthy of love and deserve to live completely free and unashamed by the blood of Jesus. He fights beside you even when you don’t feel like He’s there. He never leaves you alone, and He is always faithful to bring you the accountability and prayer warriors you need. The Lord is always safe to confess your sins and struggles to, and He’s always there to love you. No matter what.
(Also three Psalms that really help me in this battle are Psalm 25, Psalm 32, and Psalm 103)
Praise the God of unfathomable grace and boundless love.
“He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
Psalm 103:10-12 (NIV)
Praise the God of unfathomable grace
