Opaque No Longer

                Opaque is a word that I never really knew the meaning of until recently when I looked it up.  It means, according to Merriam and Webster Online 2015, "not letting light through:: not transparent."  After looking that up, I had to look up the difference between "transparent" and "translucent" to figure out exactly what they meant.

                Transparent: "able to be seen through."

                Translucent: "not completely clear or transparent but clear enough to allow light to pass through."

                A common catch phrase that is generally used in deep conversations between confidants is "I want to be transparent with you."  I know I've said it before, and I've heard many people say it or something similar to convey the same message. 

                But the truth is, I have never once meant it.  At most, I have meant "I want to be translucent with you," but never have I really wanted to be transparent, see-through, completely and utterly open for viewing.  I have never wanted to give the world a window into my heart because I alone knew how ugly it was for so long and how dark it had become.  To let someone see me for who I am?  To be transparent?  It's a terrifying concept, really.

                Yet here I am, unready to be transparent and unwilling to stay opaque - so perhaps I must settle for this thing called translucency, this partially unveiled in-between that is neither one nor the other.  All I know is that I must let some light in.

                When I was 12 years old, I accidentally found myself on a website with explicit videos and pictures depicting actions that I could never have dreamt existed.  I recovered from the immediate shock and temporal paralysis within a few seconds and moved the mouse to hit the "back" arrow on the screen.  When it didn't go back to the search page, I found myself slamming the button on the poor little mouse and fast as I could - with no results.  When it finally occurred to me to close the tab altogether, I was relieved of the scenes that had played out in front of my unwilling eyes.  Irrationally scared of getting in trouble for an unintentional mistake, I didn't tell my parents.

                A few months later, mid-way through my school year, I looked up something to do with human anatomy and clicked on "images".  The pictures that appeared shattered yet another piece of innocence in my mind, and I remember feeling baffled and not understanding.  Once again, I clicked away as quickly as I could, thinking it would soon be gone from my mind, like the first time.

                Except it wasn't.  What were those images?  What else was out there?  How could I have accidentally seen those things, not once, but twice?  Without purposefully looking for anything less than pure, I had found images that were revolting, and yet, they held fast to my curiosity.  What, I wondered, could I find if I was actually searching?

                Intrigue overcame me and another few months later, close to my 13th birthday, I found myself alone with a computer once again.  Entering a few key words provoked the internet to bring up images, videos, stories that changed my entire life.  My disgust never left, but the stories I read held my interest long enough to take me captive - because that's exactly how addiction works.

                For those of you who are reading this and have been blessed enough to have never experienced addiction (yet), let me stop and explain something to you.  Addiction is powerful and it can control your life.  It can chain your mind in ways that you could not conceive of.  It can break you in like a dog with a muzzle, or a once-new shoe that you choose to wear every day for 8 hours straight, or a cave blown to smithereens by a stick of dynamite, or a ship that succumbs to the roaring waves of the ocean.   It takes your strength and your willpower and crushes it like the Hulk Smash against opposition.  It's very real and a huge issue when it latches onto you.

                Did I want to be chained?  Absolutely not.  When my curiosity had been more than satiated, I tried to give it up.  My every intention was to cease to read the stories that I had been reading, and to cut out the images that I had been viewing.  Neither of those things happened, and there aren't human words to express the horror, remorse, and weakness that I felt.

                And could I tell anyone?  At 13, in the 8th grade, living what, on the outside, seemed to be the perfect life of a good Christian girl, could I tell - anyone? 

                This was an issue that boys struggle with.  Pornography wasn't a worry for girls.  I'd heard whispers about it in relation to young men, but on the occasion that I caught a smidgen of a conversation about it, never had young girls been mentioned.  For a boy to deal with this problem seemed possible, perhaps even likely - but for me, a girl?  How could I confess the truth about something that nobody had considered - period?  I felt unable to.

                So I didn't.  My secret caused me to quake with fear at the idea of telling someone.  For another person to know what it was that I spend so much energy trying to hide was too much to handle.  So I started to build walls - not just to keep others out, but to try to contain what I held onto so closely inside of those walls.  If I could just contain the problem, maybe I could control it, too.  Right?

                But I couldn't.  Solutions evaded me and nothing that I tried lasted.  A few months would go by and I would begin to think that I was free, only to feel the noose around my neck pulled tight again, reminding me of my chains and my inability to overcome them. 

                The summer I was 14, I wrote a letter to my Mom, telling her about my addiction.  I told her about my struggle and that I felt helpless and horrible and that I was sorry.  My hands shook as I gave it to her, but my entire body shook as I locked myself in the bathroom while she read it, trying not to weep openly.  I left out a key part of my struggle in my letter, though - I made it seem as if I had conquered my sin and it no longer had a grip on my life, when in reality, the battle had yet to be won.

                So my Mom did what every loving Mother would do - she told me how much she loved me and that I was forgiven and a new creation in Christ; that the One Who formed my inmost being adored me no matter what, and had already covered me in Grace.  She checked up on me a few times in the months that followed, but that wasn't enough to break my habit that was becoming a lifestyle. 

                So I fell back into it, just as my Mom stopped asking about it.  The temptation was there and it drew me in stronger than ever before, as if to show me that my pitiful attempt to get help and become free had only served to deepen the hole in my life that I could not seem to fill.  I begged sanctuary, but the innate failure was that I could not escape myself.  I couldn't reach out and pull myself out of the hole, because I was the one in it.  I could not help myself.

                Since I could not escape, I found myself becoming resigned to the fate of slavery to addiction.  It was misery if ever there was misery.  I lived a squeaky clean, shining life on the outside, but in my heart I felt collapsed and fake. 

                I went through times where I thought I had attained freedom, and I went through times when I thought I could never, would never be free.  Some days, every smile that I gave away was fake and simply a guise for my depression and inability to escape myself.  The pain was a great burden that I hide extremely well considering its size.

                But it was impossible to hide forever, and a part of me always knew that.  As desperate as I was to contain the poison inside of myself, my efforts only served to increase the toxicity.  The putrid environment I had fostered in my heart was bound to spill over.  No matter how tall I structured the walls around my heart, I could never build them fast enough to compensate for my addiction. 

                This summer, those walls couldn't withstand the pressure anymore, so they broke.  I told my parents, my sister, and some of my close friends. 

                Telling other people was one of the best decisions I have ever made, period.  After telling my Mom (the whole story, this time), and seeing that I was still secure in her affections, I had the boldness to tell my Dad.  A few close friends came next, and they reaffirmed me as well.  Telling my sister was hard because it means having to admit to not being the example I should have been for her, but it was relieving as well, because her strength helped to sustain me as the battle inside of me raged on.

                And so the walls were broken, but that left me to pick out and sort through what rubble remained.  My emotions regarding my sin varied a lot initially, from outrage at the porn industry of exploiting humans sexually for profit to wondering how anybody could still love me to fighting the temptation to get on my computer and fall back into sin. 

                As time went on and I talked to more and more people about it, I was shocked to discover how many girls said they had either fought or were fighting the against the same temptations.  None of them were given all the help they needed and a couple had never even told anybody until after hearing about my journey.  Pornography has been categorized as an issue that men and boys deal with, and that doesn't personally effect women, but let me tell you something: pornography isn't just those Playboy magazines anymore.  It's not something you have to mail-order or something that only comes on glossy paper sheathed in plastic wrap.  It's everywhere.

                It's on the billboards we pass while driving on the freeway.  It's in the grocery stores as you wait in the checkout line.  It's advertised as you scroll through your email.  It pops up in all of your spam mail.  It's all over television and the radio.  Unless you go and live in a deserted cave or a place void of all technology, it's inescapable. 

                It's an epidemic that is being ignored by everybody.  The adult generation would like to believe that they can fend off all of these sources of pornography for their children when they can't, and the young adults and people struggling with this are filled with shame for a sin that they can only begin to break away from when the light shines into their darkness and they choose to tell someone.  You can dig yourself into a hole, but how can you dig yourself out of it? 

                James 5:16 says, "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." 

                Only flaw there?  I'm not righteous. Nobody is, really.  It is not by my righteousness that I am healed.  It is not by my righteousness that I am saved.  It is not by my righteousness that I am forgiven.  It is not by my righteousness that I pray.  It's by the righteousness of Jesus alone that I have mercy, grace, and love poured out into my heart and life.  He is my One True Hope.

                Being opaque only lasted me for so long, and it only served to prolong and enflame the damage that bring addicted to pornography did to me. 

                So, why am I posting this?  Why am I choosing to be so very open and transparent with nobody in particular, but everybody in general? 

                This is for the people, girls in particular, who have struggled like I have.  This is for those who need that second chance but don't even know where to begin.  This is for the newness that I am learning to experience and that I want for you, too.  This is for the chance to give you hope and endurance for the journey ahead of you that I understand so well.  But most of all, this is to let you know that you are not alone. 

                I am willing to listen to your struggles.  I want to be able to help you and talk to you if you need somebody who will understand.  You can tell me as much or as little as you'd like, and I will pray for you either way.  I've created an email address specifically for you to be able to reach out to me, and if you need to, I hope you do reach out. 

                You are loved, and you are not beyond help.

                Thank you for letting me be transparent with you.

 

Email me at opaque.no.longer@gmail.com