Matt
I had an impossible dream. To have a wife, raise a family, live a simple life, and just be normal, that was my hope. Sitting in prison for the third time at age thirty, that dream seemed so far out of my reach that it was impossible. Why was I such a wreck? My parents divorced when I was young. My mom worked full time with two boys to care for, so we kind of raised ourselves. Translation: I was not closely supervised. When I was thirteen, a much older teenage boy became my friend. He taught me to smoke and drink, and then he sexually abused me. It was to him that I lost my innocence. A year later, I was at a party, passed out from drinking, when a thirty year old man sexually assaulted me. This both terrified me and excited me because I felt valued by someone. He befriended me and exploited my loneliness. For over three years, he gave me alcohol and drugs in exchange for sex. I became incapable of being a normal kid. I learned to live a double life and a lie. I was a master at hiding my feelings and numbing my mind from what was done to me. I dropped out of high school, living on the streets any way I could. I turned to crime and harder drugs, anything to hide my shame and kill my pain.
I sank so low that I sold myself as a prostitute to gay men in order to support my drug habit. For a few moments, these men made me feel important, wanted, accepted, and valued. I was immersed in a life of perversion and danger. I hated myself for what I was doing, and I hated the men that used me. It was a murderous kind of hate. From time to time, I would find myself in dysfunctional relationships with women who were dancers or prostitutes, but I was so shut down, emotionally, that I really felt nothing for anyone, not even myself. I spent my twenty-first birthday in the Missouri State Penitentiary where I served four years. Even in prison, I prostituted myself for drugs. I paroled out, continued to sell myself, and turned to harder drugs to kill the pain, the shame, and the lies. I really did hate myself and the life I was living. Suicide seemed to be the only way out, but I never followed through. I was becoming a monster. Death became my fantasy. I wanted to quit drugs, but couldn't. I was hopeless, desperate to be free. Serving my third prison sentence, at the age of thirty, I began to reflect on my life and what a mess it was. It was in prison, that I first encountered the message of Christ. It was there that I asked God to change my life. Ironically, while incarcerated, I began to find peace, but I still wasn't free. I remained a very sick man who almost died of a heroin overdose after I was released. That's when I decided to go into a Christian rehab program. It was there that I learned about Committed to Freedom. I attended a Committed to Freedom retreat for men. I got honest and got to the root of all my brokenness. Until then, I never recognized the impact of the sexual abuse on my life choices. I thought what my neighbor did and what that thirty year old man did were my fault. I thought what happened was my choice. I had pushed the shame so far down that I never acknowledged it. Through all the prisons and rehab programs I was in and out of, I never once spoke of my sexual abuse. I thought addiction was my problem, but I learned that I only used drugs to cope with the real issue of abuse. It was during the Committed to Freedom retreat that I heard the truth for the first time. It wasn't my fault. I was the victim of sexual predators. I learned that it is a normal thing for a boy to experience pleasure and be excited by what was done to me. What was not normal was the context in which that pleasure occurred in. It was an incredibly freeing event, one that I can never fully explain. I learned to forgive my abusers and receive forgiveness for myself. I learned the truth of God's love for me and that he is sorry for what happened to me. Now I know that it was never God's intention for my life to go down this path. Committed to Freedom helped me to mourn the loss of my innocence. God is the one who restores life and I left that retreat celebrating a new sense of innocence - something he gave back to me. Supernaturally, I became a new man. Through Committed to Freedom, I learned it was time to move forward and put the past behind me. Yes, there are times when I still deal with memories and nightmares, but Committed to Freedom gave me the spiritual tools to deal with these feelings in a healthy way. It gave me the foundation on which to build a new life with a renewed mind. I thank God for Committed to Freedom. Today, seven years later, I have been clean, sober, sexually restored, and living my dream. I am married to a wonderful woman, raising my own son, I own a home, have a great job, and am walking out my destiny that God had in mind for me all along. I lead a weekly Bible study, am a singer and song writer, and am a worship leader at my church. Through art and music, my passion is to see others experience Christ and find the same freedom I found. None of this would have been possible without Committed to Freedom Ministries. Psalm 147:3 says, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." My broken heart has been healed. My gaping wounds have been treated.
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© Committed to Freedom 2006

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