Stay Salty

Having ADHD and co-occurring disorders, high sexuality was a major symptom/issue most of my adult life.  That, coupled with my mother and grandmother always asking me if I had a new man in my life (as if that was the all-important end goal) kept me on the prowl even after coming to salvation 28 years ago.  

I have always been drawn to men who were abusive to me emotionally, because you don't think you deserve more than that if you are insecure and were abused early in life.  

I met a man 7 years into my walk with Yeshua (Jesus) who swept me off my feet with darkness.  Attacks from the enemy of our souls come in beautiful packages and he was powerful and beautiful. He was not an intrinsically bad person, but he was not well mentally or emotionally. I had found out, down the road that he had been diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder and BPD, as well as CPTSD. 

It's funny, the very first day I met this man, he asked me out on a date and my immediate response to him was, "I have a feeling that's not a good idea".  Yet he was very persuasive and did not respect my answer.  He would not leave until he got me to acquiesce.

It's important to trust the Ruach Ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit) immediately when He speaks to you.  I had always second-guessed my feelings because of my deep-seated insecurities. And when someone overpowered me emotionally, I always fell for it.

He introduced me to such darkness I cannot begin to describe, including drinking alcohol and sexual fetishes, which I had never been involved with, prior. He activated heavy latent addictive tendencies in me, because he had many addictions to many substances and highly risky/dangerous activities. In addition, he was seeing many other women besides myself, I later found out.

He was an intense manipulator and manipulated my entire congregation to love him. So, many in my congregation were convinced that he was THE ONE.  Something inside me knew he was NOT the one, but I stuck with him.  

We were a lethal combination and stuck together 14 years.  I would bring him to services and to our believer's conferences. I asked my elders at my congregation what they thought of him and one, in particular, said she really liked him!  So, I kept seeing him.  

Due to my involvement with this very worldly man, my walk with Yeshua (Jesus) was horribly weak because I felt guilty and that kept me from praying and everything spiritual.  I just couldn't properly face God in that state.

My walk was lukewarm the entire time I was involved with this person. Fortunately, he finally left the area after 14 years and married a woman the same age as my daughter and had a child with her.  

I was devastated.  It took me 6 more years to get over that "betrayal".  To make myself feel better about what he did, I purposely started seeing yet another man and that lasted 10 years.  He was even more selfish and emotionally abusive to me than the one before.

The cycle of self-sabotage kept me lukewarm in my faith every day.  I just could not face my Creator acting like this and I also could not stop.  Fortunately, he, too, moved out of town and that was another painful separation.  But it also brought me to my rock bottom of self-destruction.  

Being at rock bottom is a wonderful thing, because you must change or die. I reached out to God like the prodigal son, and He welcomed me home as if I had never left.  I acknowledged that I was addicted to serial abusive relationships and had no control of them.  I also had to acknowledge that I had become a raging binge drinker, which even shocked me.  I asked God to take these addictions from me and renounced them and knew I meant it.  I was done, utterly. 

I recommitted my life to Him, and I cannot express the freedom and joy I feel. I took my foot out of the world and now BOTH feet stand on the rock of Yeshua. I have never known peace like this.  I feel utterly clean and purified and my walk is no longer lukewarm but alight with a fire I have never experienced before. This is who I was born to be and no addiction can compare to the fulfillment of a relationship with the King of Kings.  

He meets my every need, and I want for nothing.  I will serve Him all the days of my life.  He is my Father, my Lover, my Husband, my Friend, the blood in my veins and the air that I breathe.  Praise Adonai!

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.  Matthew 5:13