I struggled with how to start this post.  Let me tell you a true story.  I was once in a bad relationship. Now I didn’t know it was bad at the time because I was screwed up.  I have a breaking announcement to make. EVERYBODY IS SCREWED UP! LOL  It’s the truth. Your favorite bloggers, the  hive leader, your elders that you try to emulate…..everybody is screwed up……UNTIL you find your way and do better.  It’s that simple.  And you never stop being screwed up…..you just don’t make the same mistakes you made before.  One weekend I let this man convince me to drive to Memphis to visit him.  Long story short……I served his purpose and he disappeared quickly and completely. I woke up right then and there and made a real lifestyle change.  I decided to eliminate sex from my “relationships” until I had a REAL relationship….one that was committed and monogamous and what I wanted.

A dear friend of mine had her wake up call recently and she was telling me about it one night a couple of weeks ago while we were chatting.  You see….I knew her “when”.  As a matter of fact……back when she was that version of “screwed up” it had an effect on our friendship.  I asked her to write a guest post for my spot because I personally know that there are more women that we know who can identify and testify to the same type of screwed up.

So here it is.  Now when I asked her to write this, I ASSURED her that my readers aren’t stupid and that it’s okay to leave the comments up.  DON’T PROVE ME WRONG!

*mumbling to myself…..you get married and do some nice Black History Month posts and folks forget you’ll get stupid right back with they ass.*

So about three weeks ago, a “friend” came down to visit me. I paid for his plane ticket, I picked him up from the airport, I took a day off work to spend time with him, I drove him around the city site-seeing, even gave him money to pay for his gas and parking so he could get back home when his flight landed back in his hometown. Of that money he paid for us to go to the movies, I paid for the dinner afterwards. I also took him to see an old friend that he used to work with. The plan was that he would spend the day with his boy and I would come pick him up. I let him use my camera as he hopped out the car and up to his boy’s house. That was the last I ever saw of him. Long story short he blew me off for the last two days of the visit I had bank rolled. Okay, let’s move on because this post is not about him at all. It is about the process he initiated, not even realize that the Lord was using him to turn my life completely upside down. That, my people, is what this post is about.

Yes, that Sunday I felt betrayed, used, worthless, and disrespected. I literally stayed in the house all day. Never got up to take care of personal hygiene, get dressed or even eat. I was a pitiful sight. Good thing I don’t have company on a regular basis. The next day at work I was beside myself trying to figure out why he did what he did and why did I deserved to be blown off that way. But that night, I gave up and cried out to the Lord.
Dear God, when I am tempted to despair, help me to remember that my hope is in you. You will never abandon me or fail me. Thank you for always being with me. Amen. It was time to reconcile with my first and true love. It was going to be a humbling experience because I had not been behaving. I had strayed. I could only hope that he would be willing to give me another chance because I was ready to take it.

The next day, the Lord showed up while I was reading on how to forgive. His Holy Spirit revealed to me why I have been bound by sexuality immorality for the last 22 years of my life. Yes you saw right 22 years. I have gone from one relationship to the next, thinking the only thing I had to offer was my body and my money. Those where my tools to get a man to care about me and hopefully to, one day, fall head over heels in love with me. Yes, I actually believed that all these years. I had finally hit rock bottom and it was time the Lord released me.

While sitting in the mall food court reading my book, the Lord took me back to a day in high school. I was with my first and true love. We had been somewhere and I was sitting in the car with his cousin while he went in the house to pick something up. Still don’t know why, but his cousin ended up asking me if M and I had ever had sex. When I told him no, his response was “Well that is why he doesn’t care that deeply for you. Having sex with a girl creates a different connection”. Hmmmmm, revelation Number One. This is why I always thought I had to have sex with a guy to get him to care about me. The one person I truly cared about, my first love, never fully loved me because we never had sex. Those few words spoken to me planted a seed that grew year after year.

So I texted M. Yes we had each other’s contact information since the class reunion a few years back. We started chatting and discussing things that went on in our relationship and then another topic came up. There was another chick a year or so older than us that liked M too. Well she bought him a pair of tennis shoes. Tennis shoes that I could not afford to get him. But I saw how happy they made him. Another seed planted. I have always tried to buy a guy’s affections. Buying this, buying that, paying for this, paying for that. Thinking I could buy his affection. Just like this girl made M so happy with them damn tennis shoes. Revelation Number Two.

In just one hour, the Lord had revealed to me the source of why I continued in and out of my sexual bondage. I knew all these years that this roller coaster ride was not healthy, but I could never get off and I didn’t know why. Now I did. I finally had a reason why my relationships were so dysfunctional. I finally knew. So finally I have fully given my life over to Christ, renewed my commitment to obeying his word and his commandments. Finally released from 22 years of bondage. Able to walk in the newness of a renewed spirit. A free spirit. It is sooooo enlightening. Every day is another small demonstration that the Lord is with me, keeping me, glad that I finally cried out to him for release. I am now living the life that his Son died for. And it feels so good!!