The Beginning

I started to write this and decided at once that there was no reason for me to tell this story. It is personal, it is private, and there are parts I wish I could bury from the world for forever. But the Psalms tell us over and over again to declare what the Lord has done for us. For me, that means I have to let you see where I started. Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?...Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing…to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent.(Psalms30:9, 11-12)


It is easy, so easy, to say we love God. To mean it in our hearts, to claim it in the streets, and to reject it in our actions. I did. I was saved when I was four years old; I have never gotten over His sacrifice and never experienced a phase where I was too cool for God. Most of us don’t. My problem came when I felt safest and where I felt surest: romance. I owned every book on Christian dating (and walking away from dating), held mile-high standards for personal purity; I felt invincible.

It’s easy to feel invincible when you have never been tried.

When I was twenty, God brought a precious man into my life. He was a gift. When I looked at him, every year of waiting became worth it, melting away under the power of his smile. We were meant for each other, and when we were together, the world had no challenge too rough for us to weather. I loved him with all the saved-up passion of twenty years of waiting, and he loved me right back.

It was the simplest thing that shifted our relationship from the glowing blush of pure first love to something far from innocent. We went on a date with a big group from our college, where we were encouraged to hold hands. That little gesture was incredibly sweet to me; it was the first time I touched a man with love. It was also far more dangerous than I knew. That simple touch unlocked a passion we could not quell, and what was a flickering flame became a raging fire that eventually devoured our relationship. Before we knew the danger, we had given away far more of ourselves than God intended, and then covered that shame with deceit. Our purity was shattered and the lie was soon after.

He giveth more grace(James4:6).

I’ve learned more about the grace of God and the healing of his redemption in the last three months than I ever understood before.