Love Broke Through

by: dennis

edited: author’s sister

twelve of twelve. the final post of this series. what a ride. what a journey. but this is only the beginning of a new season in my life. God has done a tremendous work in my heart. I am so excited to see how God leads me and what else He has in store for me. it only gets better from here on out.

in last week’s post, I came to the point where I quit porn after everything about God clicked for me. now I’m in a place of willing submission to God. my sins confessed before Him. but still living in suspense and stress about confessing to someone and telling someone about my debt. no one knew at this point.

during the month of February, I’m enjoying the peace that I have with God about being fully committed to Him like never before. but that didn’t take the stress away. I had to tell someone.

end of february rolls by. I’m starting to get nosebleeds. my family is starting to get concerned. I am feeling the stress get heavier day by day.

then one weekend. I had a couple of conversations with my friend over the course of a couple of days.

day one. we meet up at chick-fil-a. we talk for a bit. then comes a point where I tell her about my situation. that it’s bad, really bad. I tell her that I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life. that I’m in a poor financial situation. that I have racked up a bunch of debt. her first thought is that it’s from school. but then I tell her that the debt comes from sinning. she then takes a guess and thinks it’s gambling. I said it’s not that either. I see on her face that she freaked out a bit.

on my drive home, I realized that I really didn’t like how freaked out she got by not knowing what caused the debt and what my past was. I knew that I wanted to tell her as soon as I could. I couldn’t have her freaking out like that.

the second thing that happened after that first conversation. the burden of wanting to tell someone that I was in a lot of debt was finally lifted. I was in disbelief that I had actually told someone, had told another living being. six months of carrying this burden was over. what a relief to my soul.

so the next day, we meet up at the park. after we talk a bit, I tell her that I’m ready to tell her what my sin is that is part of my past. I start off with telling her a verse that I had been carrying in my wallet for around four years or so.

she asks me what I think this chapter that this verse is found in is about. I understood this to be about prostitutes and in my case it was applicable since I had been watching pornography and I had been to strip clubs. so this chapter was applicable to me in a real way. there were a couple of other verses that I found that spoke of my life.

this spoke to my situation of accumulating debt because of pornography, and seeing how the money I spent went to girls living in other countries.

this was relevant considering how I was attending my congregation during this entire time. I was facing my own rock bottom and destruction of my life in the midst of believers.

back to verse 20, this showed me how I was seeking to fulfill my desire to be with a woman in a sinful way. but this verse came in a form of a question from a father who is warning his son that the immoral woman will not lead to satisfaction or bring life.

throughout our walk in the park, I tell her about how I’ve been addicted to pornography since I was a kid. how I’ve been to strip clubs on my road trips. how angry I was and how much pain I was in. but now God has changed my heart and my anger has gone away along with my desire for porn. I can no longer go back. I’m not the same man anymore.

after outlining my story and my situation, she simply says “God loves you” with such a strong emphasis that the moment I heard her say this, it just struck my heart to the core and I simply believed in my heart it was true. I had believed that God loved me in a very abstract way up to this point. but this moved it from my head to my heart. she also said that “you are worthy of God’s love,” and these two phrases combined snapped me out of the cloud that I was living in right into reality. this became one of my before-and-after moments in my life. this is the moment that is being described by the name of my site, love broke through. it is an absolutely incredible thing to have my heart fully believe something along with your mind, instead of understanding God only with my mind. but here it was, it truly reached my heart at this moment and praise God it has remained that way since then. I no longer wish to be back in the clouds. reality is so much better. life has not been the same since. God is truly after the heart.

a couple of weeks after this is when I made my confession to my family that was long overdue. this is mentioned in post four.

God alone can transform, renew, and mold your heart into something new. He alone can cleanse you. He alone has the power to save. He alone can break the strongholds. He is ready to change your life today.

it has been quite the journey writing this series. some posts harder than others, but it has brought healing and a greater understanding of my past. I hope it has been encouraging to see how God can work in people’s lives and see what kind of God we have.

a new series awaits starting next week. I will be going over the fifth chapter of Proverbs. hope to see you there.

be blessed. and trust in Him.

shalom.