Category: Learning the Hard Way

I became a Christian at 21, which unfortunately left me with a good few years prior to that to really mess up my life. I started drinking in high school, and by college was a full-on alcoholic. It was a mechanism for fitting in, something I had never been able to do well while being myself. It was during one drunken night that I lost my virginity to a classmate. I remember very little about it. I hated myself for it. Although I was not a Christian, I knew the right way was Jesus; I just didn’t want to live my life for Him – yet. I figured I’d live as I liked, and in a few years would be baptized, marry a good Christian guy and start my real life. This period, in my mind, was a “fun” detour.

After I lost my virginity, I felt worthless. What good Christian guy would want me now? I thought. I decided I couldn’t be a Christian after that, and spent the next year and a half sleeping with whoever I felt like, drinking excessively several nights a week (during which time, I nearly died from alcohol poisoning). Those days are a black mark in my life – the kind that overwhelm me with regret when I think of them, even though they led me later to some great things in my life.

When I was 21, I decided I couldn’t live this way anymore. I had recently moved to a new town to start a new job, and it seemed easy to make the switch to the right life at that time (I know it doesn’t sound genuine, but as anyone who has lived as I did will attest, it is very hard to live a new way when you are surrounded by people who believe you are a certain kind of person). I became baptized, traveled a bit once my job ended, hooked up with YWAM (Youth With a Mission) in Australia, came back home to Canada, and became a Young Life leader. I had surrounded myself with Christians – how could I possibly fail?

I met this guy at church – what better place to meet a good Christian guy? He was also a YL leader, and we had a couple of mutual friends. We became friends too, and after 3 months began dating. I loved him. He was everything I was not – even-tempered, stable, strong. We dated for two and a half years before we started down the slippery slope of physical intimacy. We didn’t exactly cross the line, but we definitely walked it. We eventually did cross it and began a sexual relationship at about the three year mark. He was so upset. I was not really upset, surprisingly. See, I have the ability to rationalize just about anything. And in my mind, I knew that we would be together – it was a given for both of us. We had been talking about marriage for a long time, and had even decided on wedding details (including the pastor who we’d like to marry us) and the post-wedding plans (where we would live, etc.) And so it was okay, I told myself. We “laid down together” so I figured that in God’s eyes we were married and we would follow it up and be married in man’s eyes in a year or two. Sigh. I know how wrong this is. I even knew it at the time.

After one more year, I was so frustrated that I still had no ring, that I broke up with him. I regretted it almost immediately and asked to reconcile. He said he didn’t know if we could. So we tried to patch things up and went on dates and well, kept sleeping together. I was scared to initiate that conversation about getting back together officially, because the result would be so final. I could not cope with the idea of really being finished. Another year later, and I was pregnant. As soon as I told him, a fortress was built around him, and there was no chance to make amends. He did not want to marry me because of that, and could not be sure that my intentions were genuine and not colored by the little life inside of me. I kept on hoping, despite his very clear words, that we would work it out. We slept together all through the pregnancy. I fooled myself into thinking we were still close and had a chance. The things he said confused me. One day he’d say he liked his life just the way it was (as a single guy), and the next, he’d take me for a walk through his neighborhood to show me the house that he thought we would both love. He wouldn’t hold my hand in public, but he’d wrap his arms around me at night. I even planned a last-chance getaway for myself, to enjoy being babyless for the last time before I became a mother, and he invited himself along. I really thought deep down that he would eventually see I wanted him for myself, and not just as the father of my child. Then my sweet boy was born, and my world was crushed. Eight days after he was born, he started dating someone else.

Three years have passed since then. Three years of raising my son alone, of detesting this man that I am now forever tied to. He is not the man I thought he was, but I am not the woman I thought I was either. The result of my actions is that I have to do a two-man job alone. I am forced into a position of having to be consistently responsible (no more globe-trotting for this girl), to watch this man I loved more than any other love someone else and begin a family with her, and to live in fear of trying again. My “ex” has fallen away from his faith in all of this – believing (I think) that he is unworthy of grace. Of course all of us are.

There are many lessons I’ve learned from this, but I think the most important is simply to live the life. To do it the way God intends, and that if you have to rationalize what you’re doing, or feel the need to justify it, you’re likely not doing it right.

Kuya Kevin’s Comments:

Your story illustrates many important points. Here’s the first one that struck me: sometimes one sin can lead to other sins, taking our lives down a destructive path.

There’s something else I’d like to point out from your story: the longer we are in a relationship, the greater the temptation to become sexually intimate. This is another reason to avoid spending months or years in a relationship when there is no clear commitment. Allow me to share something from a man’s perspective: if it has been over six months and he’s still not talking about marriage, it’s a very bad sign. It’s also not a good sign if he talks about it but never follows through with a ring and a vow.

Something tells me you are a great mom to your son—keep up the good work! I can’t imagine the trials of being a single mom. I’m glad you are involved with a good church that can help you raise him (this was something we discussed in a private email).

It also seems that you’ve forgiven the father of your child (or at least you’re working on it). This is very important for you to heal and move on.
Maybe one day you’ll meet a man who is worthy of your trust. And maybe you’ll allow him to earn your trust. Be patient—we never know just what God has in store for us.

Thanks so much for sharing such personal details of your life. I pray that many young women will read your story. I pray they’ll think twice before becoming sexually active outside of the protective boundaries of marriage.

This testimony and others like it are available in Learning the Hard Way: True Stories of Heartbreak, Healing, and Hope.

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A young woman’s story of hurt and healing:

“Any man would be so fortunate to have you in his life. If I were a man, I would pursue you relentlessly.”

This is exactly why I love my best friend. She never fails to make me feel extraordinary. Her words may come across as prejudiced as a result of our twelve-year friendship—but really; no one can fault her for pointing out the truth as she sees it. She could very well be right. Any man would be fortunate to have me in his life. Sadly, I never believed any of it three years ago.

It was the first term of my sophomore year in Graduate School when I first met “John.” We were classmates in two subjects, but I never really noticed him. He was no more than a face behind the name off a class list. And I was just too darn blasé to make any conscious effort to mingle. To me, that time, he was just another student who belonged in a social circle so different from mine – which meant zero chance for any interaction outside class.

Or at least that’s what I thought before “John” refuted this with an unexpected text message a couple of weeks into the term. That lone text message proved to be a very effective conversation starter. Not too long after the initial exchange of messages, I found myself a new friend.

And “John” was the perfect guy friend. He seemed like this rare mixture of an indulgent father, a doting mother, an overprotective brother, a gallant gentleman, and a trusty confidant. He looked after me, pampered me a bit too much, and he made me laugh like no one ever had. In a span of a month, he had become my male best friend.

But as much as I want to maintain that our friendship was purely platonic, I am quite certain it never was. For months, we both willingly trod along that dangerously fine line between friendship and a romantic attraction. Eventually, we broke that cardinal rule of a guy/girl friendship – we crossed the line. Instead of a happily-ever-after ending, the opposite happened. Everything just went loco from that point on.

It was the quintessential case of M.U. (not mutual understanding but malabong usapan). We went out on dates, shared the most intimate details of our lives with one another, talked about our future together, and even dared to utter the word “love”. All these without one very important detail: a commitment.

I was not happy with our arrangement. Just like any other woman, I wanted the assurance of a committed relationship. But I settled, nonetheless. I settled for what he could give me. I justified his inability to commit to somehow comfort myself. I had to content myself with assumptions to pacify the questions in my head.

I am a smart person. I have an IQ level worthy of MENSA. But those days, my sense of logic was bordering on idiotic.

“Maybe he just had deep-rooted issues which he had to resolve first on his own…”
“Maybe he just needed time to recover from his last relationship…”
“Maybe he would eventually come around and realize he wants me to belong to him in every way…”

I completely abandoned all reason and willed myself to believe those words. I clung tightly to each tiny flicker of hope those thoughts offered me. For as long as I could, I ignored all the glaring red flags which screamed: Get Out. Fast.

As if those were not enough, I compromised my standards, my values, and my self-respect. I stripped myself off of what little self-worth I had and stooped down to his level. Never mind that he was a 30 year old bum who still lived off his parents’ money, or had a year-long affair with a married woman and even cohabitated with his past girlfriends, or the fact that we never really shared the same beliefs, intelligence level, and social status. Never mind that he was far from the ideal man I have always had in my mind or that never in a million years will my family ever approve of him. I gladly overlooked those and thought to myself that I was just so darn fortunate to have a man, any man, take interest in me.

So for months, I did everything and anything to please him. I changed my lifestyle to suit his. I adjusted my schedule to accommodate him. I blatantly lied to my parents, cut my classes, and ditched my closest friends just to spend time with him. In a way, I changed myself to be this one person he would commit to and want in his life.

Still, he did not.

Finally, the whole non-commitment issue took its toll on me. It hit me. He didn’t really love. If he did, he would have not made me feel tired, restless, and unsettled by keeping me suspended in mid-air and always second guessing our status. So I ended it.

The next four months were barely manageable. I was beyond hurt. I was angry, bitter, and cynical. And as if fate was bent on torturing me some more, his best friend told me the single most upsetting news — “John” had gotten someone pregnant (the girl in his life before me. the one I didn’t know about) and married her. Hearing that piece of news, it felt as if someone sliced up my old wounds and poured acid over them. It didn’t just sting, it felt numb. I despised him for my pain but I hated myself even more. I thought it was my fault why he didn’t choose me. Maybe I was too difficult to love or maybe not pretty, smart, and nice enough for him. I figured, I simply was not good enough for him. In a snap, I was reduced to my old self – the self-hating, insecure, and pitiful me.

Here’s the thing you have to understand about me: I had a miserable childhood. I was a fat, dark, ugly kid who had to live with perfect strangers calling me nasty names and classmates ostracizing me. But what really left me emotionally broken was hearing harsh words from my family which reinforced other people’s perception of me. I grew up having little faith in who I was, what I was capable of, and what I had to offer. I have always thought I was never good enough for anyone.

The damage to my self-esteem was just so severe that I never truly loved myself. I may have undergone my own version of the evolution and turned my social world around (from being the object of ridicule, I became the antagonizing, mean girl) but emotionally, I was stuck in the past. I was still an empty shell.

Then “John” came. I started hoping that he was that person who will excise the demons of my past and prove to me that I was worthy of anyone’s love. But what happened was the exact opposite. He reaffirmed my insecurities a million times over and that left me utterly shattered.
Months passed and after every last bit of hatred and bitternes subsided, one thing became clear to me – I did this to myself. Yes, he was not entirely blameless for what transpired but I have to admit, I was a willing victim. I gave him that much power to cause me pain. I allowed him to do that much damage to me. I opened up myself too quickly and laid my heart on the line. That was my mistake.

Pulling myself together was a long and tedious process. I never thought I would be able to go through it virtually unscathed but I did – with a lot of help from another newfound friend: HIM. He showed me that behind every tear, pain, and disappointment lies some of the most priceless lessons in life. Yes, I believe that pain is an imperative part of the learning process. He allows this not because He is some sadist who finds pleasure in seeing us crushed with grief. Rather, He lets us experience pain to mold us into the people He intended us to be.

Coming to terms with my flawed self was another thing. I struggled to be vigilant about fighting the demons of my past. I have lived 24 years loathing myself, I thought it was too late to learn how to love myself. But then again, He proved me wrong. This much I know now – He deliberately created us with imperfections because that’s where our real beauty lies. It’s because of these imperfections that we all learn to lean on Him – we ask for His grace, we draw strength from Him, and we realize that we need Him. It is because we are greatly flawed that we are deeply loved by Him.

So going back to what my best friend said: she was right. Any guy would be so fortunate to have me in his life. After all, I am worth a lot. Much, much more than what I initially allowed myself to have. His great love is the ultimate affirmation of that.

Kuya Kevin’s Comments:

Based on the quality of your writing, I believe you are a very intelligent young woman. I’ve read your story many times since you first submitted it.

First and foremost, I want to say I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to you during your childhood. This part of your story weighed heavily on my heart.

Next, I want to thank you for sharing this testimony. I know that you’ve done this in order to minister to other hurting people.

Your story brings out a very important point: when we are hurt in those vulnerable childhood years, it can have long-lasting consequences. It can negatively affect our ability to make wise relationship decisions. Now that you are more aware of this vulnerability, please be extra careful in your future relationship choices.

I’m happy to hear that you have met Jesus. He is the ultimate Healer! Keep following Him and you will not be disappointed.

God Bless You,
Kuya Kevin

This is one of the stories you can find in Learning the Hard Way: True Stories of Heartbreak, Healing, and Hope.