There was the chatter of people in the background, medical people in the emergency room shuttling back and forth to take care of various others’ medical crises. One of those “various others” was me. The date was September 28, 2012. I was in a room off to the side of a corridor, my vital signs being monitored, my mother and sister there with me. The previous evening and earlier that morning—shortly before 1 AM, actually—I had vomited blood. This had never happened to me before, and I was scared. Why did it happen? As it turned out, I had gastric reflux. It had been aggravated by almost three months’ worth of heavy drinking only broken up by brief periods of sobriety.
It wasn’t that I was lost. I had been saved since 1995. But throughout much of my time as a Christian I had a hard time separating my image of God from that of my earthly father when I was growing up. And when I got in trouble, first in 1991 and then in 1999 after a period of prolonged backsliding caused, in part, by my flawed view of God, it was for sexual crimes. As a boy I had been shamed for my natural curiosity about girls. As a teen I was sexually harassed by an older, stronger high school senior. Add to that my unpopularity with females and exposure to pornography and there was a perfect storm of perversion and more shame.
Being on the sex offender registry only added more to the reminders of my failures. Just like Dad throwing mistakes back up in my face after everything was supposedly okay, I thought God was doing this with me, exacerbated by unforeseen additional consequences I learned of in the late spring of 2012, a full three years after I had gotten out of prison. I had been out all that time, not on any probation or parole and had not reoffended, yet I was being classified as a predator and being made to wear an ankle monitor for the rest of my life. In 2019 that was ruled unconstitutional—and it was, so I no longer wear it—but in my deep depression and hopelessness I did not process it that way. Instead I took it as a sign that no matter how sorry I was for the crimes I had committed and the resulting harm they caused, God would never forgive me. I really started to believe that I was damned, and I behaved accordingly, watching porn and holding grudges and drinking just to be able to function.
I had times when I rallied, sobering up for brief periods of time. I can look back and see where God was trying to show me that the consequences I was facing were not a reflection of how He felt about me. At the time, though, it was very difficult or even impossible even to see this, much less believe it. In the AA meetings I had been going to, a couple of people had found out about my past and were hassling me about it. I was so angry and so hurt I left not only to protect myself but also to protect them. In my hopeless state it would have been easy for me to “redline” and take these folks out. Thank God that did not happen! I was guided to Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered 12-step program. Through the unconditional love I was shown by the people in that program, God literally saved my life. In September of 2012, however, new to the program and still battling, I could not see this yet. It was this hospitalization for vomiting blood and the subsequent seizures from alcohol withdrawal, and my having survived all this, that really got me to start reevaluating how God felt about me.
The recovery from those psychological scars of the past did not come all at once, though. I still had doubts about God. It has taken two deliverance sessions and twelve more years of growth in Christ to realize that I have been forgiven, I am saved, and God loves me more than I am capable of loving myself. The journey to this point has, at times, been hellish.
In the past, I have laid awake at night believing that I had lost my salvation or that I had never been saved to begin with. Terrifying visions filled my mind. Me being chained, unable to move, immersed in liquid fire, always choking and drowning in lava forever and ever. Me eternally confined in a completely dark space too small to even move around in, feeling like I am being crushed and suffocated, burning within invisible flames hotter than the sun. Me reliving over and over again every mistake, every broken heart, every insult, every failure, every unpleasant thing I ever experienced in life while forever engulfed in fire that I could never get away from, without even a tormentor for company. It was too much to handle sober, so I also drank to kill these awful fears.
Even when these fears were not so intense there was that deep gloom of hopelessness hanging over me. I would see people laughing and enjoying life, both in and out of church, but inside of me there was a black hole of despair. I would laugh on the outside, but it was all staged. When I wasn’t numb on the inside I was so far beneath even an average mood that I could never get up to this average, much less reach real joy, only hitting varying stages of depression and sorrow. After all, I would think, God Himself has cast me off, has written me off. No amount of encouragement, no amount of success, no amount of fun would ever mean anything again. Without the approval of the Almighty, the pleasures of the world were only emotional and spiritual morphine to make me comfortable in my last days before eternal death.
Today it is different. The enemy of my soul has not stopped shooting his fiery darts of despair at me. His demons of hopelessness and fear have not ceased their attacks. People are still mean-spirited sometimes. However, now I recognize this for what it is: Spiritual warfare. I am loved by God. I am saved by Jesus Christ. I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Walking in this light has helped me to rise above the stigma of being an RSO and the hopelessness that once could have killed me. Yet for all that my heart is stirred within me, not only with love for God but also love for those who are fighting this same battle.
Shame is a deadly poison. It is fueled by unforgiveness, one of the most dangerous of all states. There is unforgiveness from others towards someone who has perpetrated various wrongs, either real or imaginary. Then there is unforgiveness towards self, which feeds shame like a hungry beast. This self-loathing is reinforced by the loathing of others. A special shame is reserved for those who commit sexual crimes. Please understand, I am absolutely against coddling criminals. Offenders, including those who commit sex crimes, must be held accountable. The flip side of this is that most people eventually get out of prison. Implicit in this return to society is another chance to do the right thing. But when that chance is yanked away over and over again by onerous laws and vicious people, hope itself is in danger of being choked out. It’s even worse when those who are overcome by such hopelessness think that God Himself feels the same way about them as their haters do.
Until or unless the sex offender registry and the residency restrictions are abolished, we have to live with them. Human nature being what it is, a lot of folks are going to be inordinately hateful towards sex offenders even if they themselves have the morals of an alley cat. But not everyone will be against you. There are Christians who have not forgotten where they came from and who will eagerly love you with the love of God. And certainly, if you are born again, God is not against you.
If hope were transfusable like blood I would donate it to those who are in the grips of hopelessness like I was. Obviously that cannot be done, but I can remind you of the One who embodies hope: Jesus Christ. He will forgive you if you are lost, even if you committed the most grievous and heinous of sex crimes. As a Christian you will come to pray for those you harmed instead of preying on them. You will pray for their families, your family, and anyone else who was hurt by your crime(s). If you can forgive yourself and let God love you, then you won’t have to go through the agony that I endured to get to where I am at today. God will send people to you who will care about you and be there for you. The enemy will send his people and his lies, but don’t give in to them. Stand on the hope that is found in Christ alone.
1 Peter 1:3-5: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Isaiah 61:1-3: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all those who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”
Proverbs 4:18: But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
1 John 4:17-19: Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.
Romans 8:14-17: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Ephesians 2:4-7: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Psalm 23:1-6: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
No matter how deep your despair, even if you feel like you’ve gone too far from God, cry out to Him. I am a living witness that His love far exceeds the limits of the greatest human vision. He will forgive what people will not. And God will make a way for you out of no way. When life is like an endless iron wall without any features on it, God will open a door for you to step into hope beyond anything this world has to offer. He will do it for RSO’s just like He will for anyone else.
As I close, I leave you with three powerful worship songs that have infused me with some of this great hope we have in Jesus Christ:
- “Worthy is the Lamb”: by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
- “The Center of My Joy”: by Richard Smallwood
- “Who Am I”: by Casting Crowns