This is a hard blog post for me to write. The hardest, probably.

The words aren’t hard to find. They’ve been locked up inside of me for about twenty years, waiting patiently for this day to come. They’ve made their way out here and there, in one-on-one conversations or with small groups of trusted friends.

But still there are days when it feels much safer to keep those words quiet, stashed under my bed or in the corner of a dark closet where they belong.

At least, that’s where he told me they belonged.

He is the enemy of my heart. The deceiver. The father of lies. The one who wore the skin of a serpent and offered the fruit to Eve, knowing that one bite would bring her death to her body and introduce shame to her soul.

(We will talk about another He, one who is everything he is not, later.)

This he — the lowercase one — wanted to make sure I never experienced freedom. He wanted me to stay buried beneath the shame, believing that I was the only one in the entire world who carried this particular burden. He wanted me to take my secret to the grave, to live my life thinking I was all alone.

So no, the words themselves aren’t hard to find. The hard part is knowing that other people will read them.

Here they are:

I am a woman who has struggled with sexual sin.

Growing up in the heart of the Purity Movement meant that I was bombarded with messages about setting boundaries with boys, dressing modestly, being careful about the things I read and watched, and, of course, saving sex for marriage. And honestly, those things aren’t very hard to do when you don’t have a boyfriend, you grow up in a conservative Christian home, and you’re a firstborn child who is naturally a rule follower.

It felt like the Purity Movement was made for girls like me.

The problem was that nobody taught me how to set boundaries with myself. Because it was assumed that I, as a girl, didn’t need them.

After all, the message I kept receiving was that girls don’t struggle in that way. Girls are supposed to be the ones making sure that guys don’t struggle in that way, by wearing skirts longer than our fingertips and covering up our bellies at the beach.

But what about the girls that do?

What about the girls that learn how to clear their browsing history in middle school so their parents won’t see what they’re Googling? Or the girls who keep reading that paragraph in that one book or replaying that one scene in that one movie, ashamed by the fact that they just can’t peel their eyes away?

How about the girl who locks herself alone in her room when she’s anxious or stressed or heartbroken or even just bored, and she turns to the one thing that gives her a brief physical release from those feelings for a moment…but then those bad feelings are immediately replaced by worse ones, feelings like regret and disgust and shame.

Because if this girl has been taught her whole life that “only boys” struggle with this thing, then what does that make her?

It makes her dirty. It makes her broken. It makes her irredeemable, unloveable, different.

At least…that’s what I believed. That’s what he would tell me as I laid on my bed, face burning as the endorphins wore off and left me with a hot coal of shame smoldering in my chest. I remember thinking that if anyone, even my closest friends and family — no, especially my closest friends and family — knew the truth, they would never look at me the same way again. I didn’t want to look at me again.

Here’s the thing, though: in those moments, when I felt the darkest and dirtiest I’d ever felt, I knew that Someone else was looking at me. And somehow I knew that He wasn’t looking with shame, or disgust, or anger, or even disappointment.

In those moments when I hated myself for giving in to temptation again, something inside of me held tight to the belief that this He — the He who knew me inside and out, who chose to go to a cross in my place, who promised to never leave my side once I knelt by my bed and asked Him into my heart at four years old (which is also around the time my struggle with sexual shame started) — was looking at me with only love in His eyes.

And His heart was breaking for the little girl who thought she was all alone.

That’s why, in January of 2021, this kind and gentle Friend of mine led me to a point where I had no choice but to start telling others about my secret.

Don’t get me wrong: it did not feel kind or gentle at the time.

It actually felt a lot like dying.

The best analogy to what I went through when I first started confessing my sin is having food poisoning. When we let some harmful food into our body, we have to go through an intense period of suffering to get that bad stuff out. Every last drop.

That’s what it felt like for me when I first started to drag this thing I’d kept in the dark for so long into the light. It was excruciatingly painful. It was, hands down, the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

But two years later, on the other side of that suffering, I am filled to the brim with a joy that the best of my writing can’t put into words. I wake up every day and dance (sometimes literally) in the freedom I never thought would be mine.

I am so, so thankful that my Savior loved me too much to let me stay in the darkness, and I’m also thankful that He showed me there are people in my life who love me that much, too. People who didn’t run from the skeletons in my closet, but instead helped me clean them out to make room for better things.

Things that are full of life.

Hear me say this, sister: we are not alone. You are not alone. God is raising up warriors, an army of women and girls who are finding their voices and telling their stories, stories of the One who loved them at their darkest and rescued them from the deepest pit of their shame.

I am one of them.

There may be people who read this and wonder why anyone would choose to share about something so private. I understand this thinking, but I also believe that this way of thinking is what has kept so many women trapped in cycles of sin, shame, and silence, convinced that no one else — certainly no one in the church, anyway — could understand what they were going through. It’s the underlying or even blatantly spoken message that “women just don’t struggle like that.”

It is wrong.

Sin thrives in darkness. Shame keeps us stuck. Secrets whisper that we’re alone, that no one will understand our pain and so it’s better for everyone if we keep it to ourselves.

But when we let the light in, it can change everything. A few months ago, I sat in a small circle of women I’d been getting to know for about a year in a Bible study when a question arose in our discussion: How could someone consistently struggle with sin and still be a Christian?

One of the girls spoke up. She very calmly and bravely shared about her struggle with pornography and masturbation, then explained how the Lord had used confession and accountability with other believers to set her free. She emphasized that sharing about her sin was a crucial part of her healing journey.

Until this point I’d only talked about my struggle in one-on-one settings, but my friend’s courage in sharing with our group inspired me to share pieces of my own story with them. By the end of that night, half of the women in that group opened up about having similar struggles. I remember them echoing some of the very same thoughts I’d had. 

I thought I was the only one.

I was told it was only a guys’ issue.

I believed there was something wrong with me.

I was twenty-eight at the time, I had grown up in the church, and I had never experienced anything like that before.

Joy Skarka, author of Sexual Shame in Women and How to Experience Freedom and a recovering pornography addict, explains the power in listening to someone else share their story first. When a woman who has been struggling in secret hears another woman openly share about that same struggle — whether it’s with sexual sin, depression, jealousy, loneliness, binge eating, or something else altogether — it lets her know that she is not the only one fighting her particular battle. It may even give her the courage she needs to share her own story, perhaps for the very first time.

Joy sums it up with these words: “I go first so she can go second.”

For so many years I was terrified of telling my story. Now, I think I’m more afraid of not having the chance to tell it. Once you start talking about how God rescued you from something you never thought you’d be free from, it becomes surprisingly hard to stop.

It might sound dramatic, but there are moments when I stop to look back on what God has done in my life and heart over the last two years, and I feel nothing short of a walking miracle.

When I was caught in the throes of my sin, I would confess it to Jesus and know that He forgave me. Even when I had to confess multiple times in a day, multiple days in a row. I knew His grace for me was endless.

But He wanted me to experience more than forgiveness. He wanted me to experience healing. And for me, that meant letting His people see the parts of me I thought were too ugly for anyone else to love by finally saying out loud to other trusted believers what I’d kept inside for all those years.

It meant sitting across from my friend on her couch late at night, holding a mug of tea and sobbing as I told her things I had never told anyone else.

It meant sitting across from the therapist I’d been seeing for two years, who knew everything about me except this thing, and trusting that she could hold this, too.

It meant cracking open the closet door that little girl shut tight, sure that her monsters would scare everyone else away, and watching in awe as the Light scared them away instead.

I am so glad that God didn’t let me stay in the dark by myself. He knew that my heart needed to heal — not only from the sin itself, but also from the shame.

Because it turns out that the shame was what kept me trapped in the sin. Once I began to speak aloud the secrets I’d been so afraid to share, the temptation I’d struggled with for most of my life suddenly lost its power. Once I knew that I could be loved just as I was, I didn’t want to go back to the darkness anymore.

Being known — really, truly, deeply known — is what set me free.

After over two decades of wrestling with a sin I thought made me unloveable, I have spent the last two years walking in freedom and wholeness I never thought possible.

Jesus has broken my chains. He has rewritten my story. He has grown flowers from my grave.

What has Jesus done for you?

I’ll go first.

If you or a woman you know is struggling with pornography, masturbation, sexual shame, or any other unwanted sexual behavior, or if you would like to learn more about how to help women who are struggling with these things, Willowdale Chapel welcomes you at Celebrate Recovery. 

Here are some additional faith-based resources that may be helpful:

Authentic Intimacy

Beggar’s Daughter

SheRecovery

The Peacemaker Center (local counseling center)

“Pornography” (from the “Can I Say That?” podcast by Brenna Blain)

“Soooo, about pornography.” (from the “With the Perrys” YouTube Channel)

ABOUT OUR BLOGGER

Kati Lynn Davis grew up in Chester County. After a brief stay on the other side of Pennsylvania to earn a writing degree from the University of Pittsburgh, she returned to the area and got a job working for a local library.

When she isn’t writing, Kati enjoys reading, drawing, watching movies (especially animated ones!), drinking bubble tea, hanging out with her family cat, and going for very slow runs.

Kati is pretty sure she’s an Enneagram 4 but is constantly having an identity crisis over it, so thankfully she’s learning to root her sense of self in Jesus.

You are invited to IF:2023

What to expect:

• Join women worldwide via live simulcast at our Willowdale Kennett Campus, March 3 (6:30-10:30 pm) and 4 (9:30 am-5 pm).

• Be inspired by top Christian speakers:  Jennie Allen, Christine Caine, David Platt, Sadie Robertson Huff and many more!

• Experience amazing worship.

• Come with a friend or make a new one!

$35 fee includes live simulcast, your choice of 5 lunch options, snacks, beverages and gift!  Or register to watch online. Register HERE. Registration deadline is February 24.  For scholarships contact Carole Hoy at choy@willowdalechapel.org.
We hope you can join us!

Carole Hoy
Women’s and Groups Pastor
Willowdale Chapel