I once was broken, and now I've been made whole.

NONFICTION.

I know that I put "Creative Nonfiction" as a genre, but since there is no genre button that simply says "Nonfiction", this is how I chose to convey the true genre of this story.

I haven't been able to tap into my creative juices lately, so when I read this prompt, I realized that maybe nonfiction was the way to go here.

Obviously, the "character struggling" is me, but, in order to fully understand this story, you need a little surrounding storyline, so here it is.

I had planned on simply alluding to my issue, and explaining everything around it, to hopefully be able to salvage a little bit of my pride, but now the words with which to do so just aren't there.

Maybe because pride is part of the issue and I need to humble myself before God and man? Or maybe because I just need to say something? Because I need somebody else to know about it other than my journal? Because the Bible says to confess your sins and repent of them in order to be forgiven? Maybe because confess might mean to talk about it more than just on my knees before God alone? Maybe I'm even doing this in the hope that my story might help someone else who reads this and might be struggling with the same thing or something similar? I don't know. Maybe all of these reasons, maybe only some.

What I do know is that I need to talk about it. I feel bad that it is easier for me to admit something like this online, where if people judge me for it, I can't see it. It is easier for me to do this, than to tell the two closest friends I've ever had. The girls that I claim to have no secrets from (Well, I didn't. Until now, anyway.). Maybe it's because they're so important to me. Because I love them so much. Because the thought of them knowing about this and then treating me differently or thinking of me in a different light is almost too much to bear.

I know in my head that they would never do such a thing. They're not those kind of girls. But the fear of even the smallest possibility of it is enough to strike me dumb. I've had two perfect opportunities lately to pour out my soul to them in this respect.

And I have... about other matters. But in those conversations, when my mind circled back to this issue, I just... clammed up. I know now that it was fear that kept me silent. I can be bold about some things, but I sure am a coward when it comes to this.

OK, I've stalled long enough. If you've read this far, then you deserve to know what this "issue" is...

A few months ago, my google searches began wandering into... dangerous territory. I started researching things about... well... sex.

At first I had rules. I wouldn't look at anything explicit and I wouldn't read about or look at or spend time on anything that went against God's design for sex. Education had been my only intent.

But, over time, those rules began to fall away, and one day I found myself watching porn.

That was also around the time when I felt farther away from God. The wall between us that my actions had built was palpable and I knew that I was no longer as close to Him as I once was. I began to feel as if I was praying to the ceiling rather than to all-knowing, all-powerful, God Almighty.

Predictably, but no less unfortunately, this distance that I felt, tricked me into thinking that now whatever I did wouldn't matter so much. What harm could it actually do? I had already wrecked my relationship with God, so how much more damage could a little more sin do?

Before long, porn became boring. Everything I watched left me feeling unsatisfied and discomfited.

Then I moved into territory that I had sworn to myself I'd never trespass.

Masturbation.

A first I just did it late at night. Then I began to do it more often and eventually there came times when I would do it three, four, five, six times or more in an evening.

That was when the wall seemed seemed unbreachable.

I went two and a half weeks without praying at all. I felt guilty, dirty. A soiled dove. I was ashamed to come into the presence of God Almighty in prayer, and knew that every word I uttered would make me a hypocrite.

I had already tried "Letting go and letting God" more than once, and had failed every time. I wasn't addicted to masturbation by any means. No. I kept doing it because I wanted to do it. Those times where I came to the cross and laid my bad habits at Jesus's feet, I was truly sincere in intending to leave them there. But I always circled back to the sin.

You see, at the root of the problem, I was giving my fleshly desires and wants priority over what my Sovereign Lord intends for me and His desires for my life. And the sad part is that I didn't acknowledge that until two nights ago.

On Thursday night, [StarGirl], [AppleJack] and I did our weekly Bible Study, and we were studying about King David and how, after he had sinned with Bathsheba, his relationship with God was broken by that sin, and it wasn't restored until he repented of his sin and began walking in God's way again. That spoke to me.

That night, when I got home and was laying in bed, I got on my knees before God and I echoed David's sentiments. I looked in the topical index in the back of my Bible and found scriptures about how Jesus was the propitiation for our sin.

Ephesians 2:1-3 says "And you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest."

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells a parable of two men. One is a Pharisee, and he goes to church, thanking God that he is not like the tax collectors and sinners, and thanks Him that He had made him a "good" man. The other man was a tax collector, and he went to church, "even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'" at the end of this parable, Jesus said "I tell you, this man went to his house justified, rather than the other one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." I followed the tax collector's example. I went before God in His presence in prayer, and I repented of what I had done. I made the conscious decision to never masturbate or search dirty things online again.

Romans 3:23-26 says: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in God's merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished; for the demonstration, that is, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Once I came to Him, and repented with a humble and contrite attitude, He was just and faithful to forgive.

Hebrews 9:11-14 talks about how Christ's sacrifice on the cross was the one and only atonement for all who would believe. His propitiation was to cleanse our conscience from dead works so that we can serve the Living God.

I do regret what I did. I regret that I now have that in my history until the day I die.

I used to bemoan the fact that I've grown up a "church kid". Specifically because I thought I would never experience that "Come to Jesus moment" that nonbelievers have when they surrender to Him. I felt that I had been done an injustice. Silly, I know. No, more than that, ludicrous.

There is almost no greater blessing than to have grown up in a Bible believing church. There is almost no greater blessing than innocence.

It is a strange feeling now, to know that whenever I read the parts of the Bible and see where it mentions "the sexually immoral" and "those who once lived according to the flesh", I can now replace those phrases with my own name.

It's humbling.

But I know that through all of this, God's love for me never changed. It hurt Him just as much as it hurt me to have that wall between us, and I'm sure that we're both overjoyed that it's been taken down once more.

I trust Him. He will never leave me, nor forsake me, no matter what I do, or where I go. I have faith in that, and looking back over these last weeks, I see that He was still there, coaxing me back into a right standing with Him. Something somebody said or did. Something that was said when I heard a snippet of a sermon. Even a theme in a TV show I watched. He was using all of it to guide me back towards Himself. And I am beyond overjoyed to be back in His presence with no guilt or shame. With Him, I need no mask, because He would see through it anyway. With Him, I need not be ashamed, because He loves me and has forgiven me. With Him, I can pour out my heart and soul like to no other. Because He is the one who gave me my heart, and my soul.

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." -1 John 4:10

"But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." 1 John 1:9