: pornography and sex and learning to be a white rose, part 1

Part of the curriculum for my eighth grade religion class was watching a movie called Sex Has a Price Tag. The boys watched it in one room and the girls in another, because words like sex and porn and masturbation made our little faces turn red and pink and white all over. I don’t remember much of the movie, except it confirmed what I heard my whole life—sex is bad. After the movie, a female teacher talked to the girls about loving their bodies and a male teacher talked to the boys about being addicted to porn (since women weren’t supposed to struggle with porn and men weren’t supposed to struggle with their bodies). 

Porn was a man’s issue. Body image was a women’s issue. And sex was bad.

When I was in high school, a woman spoke to us in an assembly about how she and her husband were both virgins when they got married. She compared their relationship to a white rose and then talked about a soldier who died in battle protecting a handwritten letter from his wife. I’m not totally sure how it all made sense together, but it was a compelling speech and I remember thinking, I want to be a white rose when I get married. I want to be sexually acceptable to my husband. I want to protect the handwritten letter God gave me.

As I listened to her speak, flashbacks from a past of sexual abuse began to surface and I realized I was not a white rose—not because of something I did, but because of something that was done to me. I was tainted. I was ashamed. 

Everyone deals with shame and sexual temptation differently, but I turned to pornography. I didn’t trust any real human being, but I deeply desired intimacy and acceptance. Pornography was a cheap and temporary fix, and I bought into the lie that it was satisfying for over three years.

I felt trapped. Nobody could know.
Porn was a man’s issue. 
No man would want me.
I was used goods.
God wouldn’t want me.
I ruined the gift he gave me.

I carried the weight of these lies and a distorted view of sex with me throughout high school and into college. I was confused and lonely and trapped in shame. This is where Jesus met me, and while I did not know it at the time, meeting him meant being healed by him. Meeting him meant being crucified with him. Meeting him meant being raised to life by him. Meeting him meant my past would not drive my future. Meeting him meant I mattered to someone. Meeting him meant I was a white rose, after all.

: this is not the time to hide from reality

It's difficult to exist in a shattered world, especially when the reality of our brokenness comes crashing in like a wave on the shore, sinking our feet deeper into the sand until the tides finally turn and we have a minute to catch our breath again. Sometimes I think it would be easier to run away and hide in an obscure town in Costa Rica where there isn't a television or news station or social media to tell me how messed up humanity is. It would be easier to hide, but it would not be right because this is the world God gave himself for. He did not hide. He did not run.

He entered into our suffering and offered healing.
He entered into our violence and offered peace.
He entered into our desperation and offered hope. 

It would've been easier for God to turn his face and leave us to our own devices but because he so deeply loved the world, he gave himself to us in Jesus Christ. In love, he threw himself in the way of our brokenness so that we might know him. In the same way, it would be easier for us to turn our faces from the rest of humanity's suffering. It would be easier to shy away from the reality that my real, actual brothers and sisters are being slaughtered for the cause of Jesus Christ.

Hiding from reality does not make it any less real, though, and it certainly does not help spread the Gospel. And that is what we're all here for, isn't it? To advance the Kingdom of God by making disciples in every nation? To ignore suffering is to ignore the ultimate purpose for which you exist. Your life is not meant to be spent on comfort, security, and happiness while your brothers and sisters are being persecuted. Your life is not to be wasted on the American dream while the rest of the world is dying of hopelessness and despair.

Enter into the suffering and offer healing through Jesus.
Enter into the violence and offer the peace of Christ.
Enter into the desperation and offer hope through the Gospel.

"For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. And not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Now in this hope we were saved, yet hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience. In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings. And He who searches the hearts knows the Spirit’s mind-set, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose. For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; and those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified."

: choosing Gregory House over Jesus

Sometimes I’d rather watch House on Netflix than spend time with God.

There, I said it.

It’s not that I love Gregory House more than Jesus, it’s just that it’s easier to watch House solve fictional medical crises on my computer screen than it is to let God heal my non-fictional self.

To make things stranger, nothing bad is happening. In fact, almost everything in my life is good right now. Maybe too good, too much, too fast. For the last month I’ve watched favor fall like quail from the sky (Exodus 16, real story), three feet deep, and I don’t know what to do with it all so I hide in my room and watch House. Sometimes I hide in silence with a bottle of cider and ginger tea bags on my face because I heard they make zits disappear. But I never get zits unless I’m stressed, which only happens when I’m avoiding the Lord.

It’s a vicious cycle, really.

My therapist and I talk a lot about my inability to be delighted in. If you gave me a present right now, for example, I’d think of ten things I need to give back to you in order to relieve any sense of guilt I’d have for receiving your present in the first place. All of this is rooted in an overwhelming amount of self-centeredness and pride, though, because I’ve convinced myself that out of the seven billion people on planet earth, I, Savannah Ellis, am the only one who should not be delighted in.

And in some sense, I’m right. None of us are delightful apart from the cross.

However, because of Jesus’ sacrifice, the Father has called me worthy of delight, love, and acceptance. He has given me the right to sit at his table (Revelation 3). To continue living as a rejected orphan when the all-powerful Father has called me by name is foolish. To continue avoiding his presence when it is the very thing I was designed for is absurd. To settle for Netflix when the King of glory waits for me to fix my attention on him is laughable.

Today, I will wait for him. Not because it is easier, but because he is worth it.
Today, I will choose Jesus over Gregory House.
Sounds hilarious, doesn't it?

: living on the outskirts of grace

Jesus isn't the first person I run to when I'm confused, ashamed, guilty or sad. I try out movies, spontaneous road trips, dinner with friends, and music about Jesus, but not Jesus himself. I'm always afraid he'll tell me to do something I don't like because he's often told me to do things I don't like. I didn't like giving up my scholarship to graduate school on the off chance of getting a job in Brooklyn, for example, because I wanted to be the smart girl who had a Master's degree and an impressive knowledge of theology at such a young age. I didn't want to come out about my history of sexual abuse, pornography addiction, and virgin lips on the internet because girls aren't supposed to have dealt with that sort of thing and I wanted to be a Super Christian. I still don't like repenting, asking for forgiveness, and depending on him for money, guidance, and support, but there's a rip current in my heart that always brings be back to trusting and obeying him.

He's the safest person to come to, yet he's the person I avoid the most.

I think it's because I don't trust that he'll love me unless I do everything I can to make it easier for him. One of these days, something in me believes he's bound to get fed up with all my foolishness and throw me to the wolves. It's like I'm living on the edge of potential destruction, walking on eggshells to make it simpler for him to guide, protect, and delight in me. And when I mess up, my instinct is to run away and buy into the lie that if I feel guilty enough my sin won't matter as much and his wrath will be alleviated.

I am living on the outskirts of grace. I dabble my toes in the shallow end of the pool even though there are oceans of it available to me. Getting in the water means letting go of control and giving myself over to the tide, though. It means binding myself to a God whose purposes supersede my own. It means trusting and obeying and choosing him first.

I don't know if I'll ever be the type to dance my way through a parted sea, but I am trying to take steps in that direction. I am moving forward. Learning to run after him. Learning to lean into his promises. Learning to trust his character. Learning to obey his voice, even when it tells me to go in this direction (then that direction and every other direction in between).

I guess I'm learning to love him when I don't feel like it. And I don't feel like it much of the time, but his rip current is rumbling under my feet, beckoning me to deeper waters. So, with fear-mingled anticipation, I am choosing to move from the outskirts to the overflow of his grace.

You can come, too, even if you're afraid.
I'm so afraid I cry pretty much every day, even during the funny parts.
But move forward we must, and more forward we will.

: i'm moving!

The plan was to go to California in August, get my master’s degree in theology, find an awesome job, secure my identity, and conquer the world. I wasn’t doing cartwheels about moving to the West Coast, but every sign seemed to point in the direction of grad school and I was okay with it because I desperately wanted a plan. Everything about the move felt fine. No warning signs, no red flags.

When I found out my dad was travelling to New York City on business last month, I bought a ticket to tag along as a last hurrah before going back to school. I called it my “final irresponsible decision before becoming an adult.” I’ve been to the city a dozen times and knew exactly which restaurants I wanted to try and shows I wanted to see. It was a decision that impulsive 23-year-olds can make sometimes, and it was a fun trip.

On a surface level, that’s all it really was … a fun trip.

Something deeper and more difficult to explain was happening inside, though. I felt connected to the city, as if it had grown to make room for me. Or maybe I had grown to make room for it. Either way, there was a needle and thread weaving the heart of New York to the heart in my chest and I was bound to pay attention to it. As I boarded my plane at the end of the week, I sensed a whisper echoing in the crevices of my skull: Let go of your plans and move to New York instead.

It was an early flight and I was tired.

Plus, if God didn’t want me to go to school, I wouldn’t have been accepted, right? What could possibly sound more like the will of God than studying the character of God for two more years? Why would He lead me in one direction and change everything last minute? It didn’t make sense.

The whisper came again: Let go of your plans and move to New York instead.

You know those times when you know that you know that you know He spoke to you? Well, this was it, and it was Him, and He changed everything while I was sitting in 27B. I got off the plane and told my parents over breakfast, certain they would pass out and die right then and there because my plans were changing once again. They didn’t die, though. They actually laughed, cried, and told me to follow the voice of God.

So I’m moving to New York. I applied for nine million jobs and when I get one, I’ll pack my bags and go. My heart is full of anticipation mingled with fear, but I am so deeply confident that I’ve slipped into the pocket of God’s will for the next step of my life I could cry. And I do cry all the time, because letting go of control isn’t as easy as releasing a balloon into the sky, but I’m told it’s far more rewarding. Best of all, nobody thinks I’m crazy except the occasional person who thinks I’m crazy. My life doesn’t have to make sense to anyone, though, not even me, so long as I’m following Jesus.

Here’s to the wildly unpredictable God whose purposes are greater than mine.
May my plans forever grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.