My oldest daughter drew this portrait (of my wife) last year. Even though it is a horrible depection of my beautiful wife, it is so precious to me and a reminder that God has a plan for me – a life full of recovery from sexual addiction.
My life in the addiction and my recovery may seem “ugly” to outsiders, but to me, it is such a precious gift, one that I don’t ever want to let go or throw away. God has given me the vision to turn the ugliness of my addiction into the beauty of recovery. One of the beauties is the relationship I now have with God. In my addiction, I was completely lost, but now I am found. It wasn’t pretty, but God cleaned me up pretty well. Another one of these beauties is my relationship with my wife and daugthers. Before entering recovery, I had very little to do with my wife and child (one at the time). Now, they are so important to me, I don’t ever want to spend another day in the addiction and away from them. Finally, one other beautiful thing is the Castimonia Men’s Sexual Purity Support & Recovery group God started through me in 2010. It is amazing to see how such much hope and recovery could come from so much addiction and ugliness. Especially in the early days, I just had to keep reminding myself that no matter how ugly things got in that first year of recovery, that God has a plan for me.