2008

This month we wrote in our newsletter about the opportunity that we’ve had to be involved reaching out to students who are struggling with pornography addiction via Everystudent.com. Clint Clark, a counselor and support group leader in Colorado, provided the following list of resources for any of our readers who might share a similar struggle and want help.

SEXUAL ADDICTION RESOURCES

False Intimacy: Understanding the Struggle of Sexual Addiction, Harry
Schaumburg, NavPress, (1997).
Strength in Weakness: Healing Sexual and Relational Brokenness, Andrew
Comiskey, Intervarsity Press, (2003).
Out of the Shadows, Patrick Carnes, CompCare Publishing, (1988).
Don’t Call It Love, Patrick Carnes, Bantam (1991).
In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behavior,
Patrick Carnes, Hazelden Publishing & Educational Services ,(2001)
Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions, Gerald
May, Harper Collins, (1988).
No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Shame, by Marnie C. Ferree, Xulon
Press, (2002).
Women, Sex, and Addiction: A Search for Love and Power, Charlotte Kasl,
Harper, (1990).
Where Do I Go From Here? Annette Comiskey, www.desertstream.org
Beauty and the Breach: Liberating Marriage from Sexual and Relational Sin,
Andrew Comiskey, www.desertstream.org.
Life Ministries, www.freedomeveryday.org, support group materials for men,
women, young men and spouses. Xulon Press.

SEXUAL ADDICTION RESOURCES
Practical Resources
Internet Filters and Blocks
www.bsafehome.com
www.cybersitter.com
www.cyberpatrol.com
Accountability Software
www.covenanteyes.com
www.x3church.com/x3watch/
Therapeutic and Support Resources
Support
Sexaholics Anonymous – www.sa.org
Celebrate Recovery – www.celebraterecovery.com
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous – www.slaafws.org
Sex Addicts Anonymous – www.saa-recovery.org
S-Anon - www.sanon.org; Support for those affected by someone else’s
sexual behavior
Recovering Couples Anonymous – www.recovering-couples.org
Counselors
Clinton B. Clark, MA – Counselor and Support Group Facilitator; Areas
of focus: sexual compulsion/addiction, marriage counseling, sexual
abuse/trauma, individual therapy. clintclarkma@yahoo.com; 303.591.7675
Informational Resources
Designer Sex, Philip Yancey. Intervarsity Press, (2003).
The Pornography Trap: Setting Pastors and Laypersons Free from Sexual
Addiction, Mark Laaser and James Earl, Beacon Hill Press, (2002).
Faithful & True: Sexual Integirty In a Fallen World, Mark Laaser, Zondervan,
(1992).
Falling Forward: The Pursuit of Sexual Purity, Craig R. Lockwood, Desert Stream
Press, (2000).
www.clintclarkma.com

I’ve been in full-time ministry for almost 13 years, but throughout that time I have really wrestled with trusting that God is good on a deep, heart level. It’s always bothered me that I doubt God’s goodness like I do, but I think that I resigned myself to the fact that this would always be a struggle. However, the battle intensified this summer while Rich and I were in Mexico City on a 5 week summer project with the boys, fellow Campus Crusade Staff, and 70 + Missionary Kids. As I walked through some really challenging circumstances with some of the students who were dealing with unbelievable things like incest, a faith crisis, and struggles with friends, I was also facing my own grief with the daily reality of life amidst deep suffering. Mexico City has 1 million street children aged 4-12, and that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of their poverty. As the summer marched on, my heart stopped and did an about face. It was like I stuck out my arm to the Lord to go no further. It was just too painful and scary to be close to Him. When were the bad things going to happen to me and my family?

I have always been a deep feeler with my heart and brain on overdrive. As a small child, I used to pray that Satan would become a Christian. When we ate dinner out at Luby’s Cafeteria, I would burst into tears if I saw a Senior Citizen who was eating alone. As an adult, the way this battle plays out is in my heart and thought life. When I see a struggling homeless person, I immediately wonder why it’s not me. As I’ve been walking through life with my dear friend Kelly, a widow with 2 small boys, I cry out to God on her behalf while simultaneously wrestling with God as to why He would allow this to happen.

One of my life values is that my insides match my outsides. I have become increasingly aware of the disconnect in this part of my life. On the outside, I move forward in courageous obedience, but on the inside I am hiding under the bed afraid of God as if He is the boogy man. The analogy I’ve made is that I am hanging on tightly, hands shaking, waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Recently, I started really looking at the struggle up close, and I asked a dear, trusted mentor if she thought that this was the thorn in my flesh or if it was something that I needed to unpack more. We agreed that it was more, but that ultimately God was the one who had to heal my heart. I honestly didn’t even know where to start, but thankfully, God was already pursuing me in a life-changing way.

The team that Rich and I serve on within Campus Crusade is so wonderful. Last month we had our annual team retreat. We were required to present a Life Map that outlined the major events in our life journey, ranking them from -10 to 10. I’ve done many life maps over the years, so I didn’t really even think much of it. It was just something that we were going to do to get to know our team better. But filling in the blanks was like shining a floodlight into the darkest, scariest parts of my heart. For the first time I really saw why I feel like I am hanging on and waiting for the next tragedy.

When I was 9, my sister was sexually abused by a neighbor. When I was 10, my mother, sister, and I were involved in an armed robbery. When I was 12 we moved. That same year, my mom suffered from a stroke. When I was 13, I was in a school bus accident. That same year my Dad lost his job twice. We went from living a comfortable middle class lifestyle to being unable to make ends meet. At 14, my parents filed bankruptcy, and we lost ‘everything.’

I know that many of you have probably suffered more than I did, and I definitely don’t want to paint a totally bleak picture. During those same years, I became a Christian, had more incredible opportunities to thrive in my small Texas town than any child deserves, and I watched my parents’ love deepen through unbelievable struggles. The point I want to make, is that as I was writing my life map, I saw the pattern of hanging on terrified of what was around the corner, while going on with normal daily life. That is what 10 of my most formative years were like.

However, it was time to break the pattern. I knew that God showed me this because He wanted to heal me.

I long to be the kind of woman who lives in freedom. I want my internal posture to be a woman totally surrendered to God and deeply in love with him. I long to be able to face trials when they come with a deep and abiding faith—not hanging on for dear life all the time as if life is like a walk across a tightrope. I long to live without fear and worry being the true songs of my heart. God had some major work to do, and it’s begun.

At our team retreat in addition to presenting our life maps, our wonderful team leader Ken led us in a two day study of Servant Leadership. A few things really stuck out to me. One was “growth in character by the servant leader must always be kept in view. The two biggest things that harm the opportunity for character growth are pride (self-promotion) and fear (self-protection). He went on to ask the question “what flesh patterns did you see repeated in your childhood?” It was a huge “ah-ha” as I recounted my mantra of trusting no one but myself. I also started the pattern of wanting to know ‘why’ for everything that God has done. As you know, this just isn’t how God works.

As Ken continued sharing about Servant Leadership, I took a scary step and shared my struggle with our team. I felt stupid and naked. I wished that I could take the words back. However, a few of our teammates initiated great conversations throughout the retreat and promised to pray for me. During our last meal, one friend shared Psalm 131 with me. God used this beautiful scripture to speak to me.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

It’s really hard to describe what happens when God moves in your heart, but I’ll take a stab at it. As I read this Psalm, I felt as if the Lord was speaking directly to me. For starters, I need to not occupy myself with understanding every mystery of God—the whys and what ifs are not for me to know right now. The second thing that literally quieted my soul was the picture of a weaned child with its mother. After nursing three boys, I know what the clamoring of a hungry nursing baby is like, and I know what the satisfaction of a weaned child is like. God was asking me to calm and quiet my soul and He was leading out.

I have not been miraculously healed in a one-time event, but I am humbled to share that God is working in me each day. As I have scary, fearful thoughts, I am learning to take them captive and talk to God about them. I’ve also noticed a different kind of thought creeping in. I’ll have a scary thought, and I follow it to its logical conclusion in a fearless way. It looks something like this: yesterday I had a thought pop into my head about getting breast cancer. I actually followed the thought to the scary parts and changed the ending with my family being o.k., God being glorified, sharing Christ with the people in the hospital, and rejoicing at the opportunity to take a nap in my hospital bed, which rarely ever happens at this stage of my life. Like a typical mom, this internal dialogue all happened in a matter of seconds while I was making peanut butter sandwiches for the kids. But I experienced peace instead of incredible fear that my kids would grow up without a mother, that God is mean to let people get cancer, and that it was inevitable that I would be one of them. Can you see the difference?

In this mental ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, I chose to respond in a way that honored God and matched up with my life calling and purpose which is “to walk closely and fearlessly with God, loving him with my heart, soul, mind and strength, and inviting others to do the same while loving them well.”

It was a HUGE victory for me!

I share this with you today because maybe, just maybe, in light of our country’s political and economic crisis, many of you might be battling fear too. Thoughts of what if, how are we going to pay for this, and why Lord, are plaguing the average citizen from Joe the plumber to Suzy the working mom, to Kourtney the missionary (feel free to insert your own name into the equation). We women are masters of smiling and engaging in daily life while we are internally fighting World War III with our fearful thoughts.

Today I want to encourage you to take some time away with the Lord and raise a white flag—a time of intentional surrender to His special story for your life—the good as well as the painful. The second thing I want to encourage you to do is to surrender your rights. Only you know what you are hanging onto with clenched fists—a house, someone’s health, a challenging child, your spouse’s addiction, a sick parent, your retirement account. I want to encourage you to give up your rights to these things and give them back to the Lord. It might be painful. You might even have to symbolically pry open your fingers like my friend Karalee does when she gives something back to the Lord, but I encourage you to be courageous and bold—making as Alcoholics Anonymous would say “a fearless moral inventory” of what you are clinging to.

Finally, I encourage you to write a formal prayer of commitment that you will choose to be a herald of the Lord during this season of our world’s history. You are called to be a herald, or a missionary, just like me. But your scope is your own personal sphere of influence—only you know who that is.

In conclusion, I pray that we would all continue in this pattern of surrender. In the beginning, it might be 20 times of surrendering the first day. But my prayer is that the discipline of surrendering our rights to the Lord would become a habit—that eventually our internal dialogue would automatically go to trusting God first.

On the back of our retreat notebook was this beautiful poem. When I spoke in Phoenix, I had everyone close their eyes while I read it. You obviously can’t do that right now, but maybe you can say it as a prayer back to the Lord as you read it today.

He Had No Rights

Mabel Williamson, former OMF Missionary to China

He had no rights:

No right to a soft bed, and a well-laid table;

No right to a home of His own, a place where His own pleasure might be sought;

No right to choose pleasant, congenial companions, those who could understand him and sympathize with him;

No right to shrink away from filth and sin, to pull His garments closer around Him and turn aside to walk cleaner paths;

No right to be understood and appreciated; no, not by those upon whom He had poured out a double portion of His love;

No right even never to be forsaken by His Father, the One who meant more than all to Him.

His only right was silently to endure shame, spitting, blows; to take His place as a sinner at the dock; to bear my sins in anguish on the cross.

He had no rights. And I?

A right to the comforts of life? No, but a right to the love of God for my pillow.

A right to physical safety? No, but a right to the security of being in His will.

A right to love and sympathy from those around me? No but a right to the friendship of the One to whom I have given my all, led as is a little child, with its hand in the hand of its father.

A right to a home and dear ones? No, not necessarily; but a right to dwell in the heart of God.

A right to myself? No, but oh, I have a right to Christ.

All that He takes I will give;

All that He gives I will take;

He, my only right!

He, the one right before which all other rights fade into nothingness.

I have full right to Him;

Oh, may He have full right to me!

Amen…

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