Each year Covenant Eyes awards thousands of scholarship dollars to students who demonstrate integrity. The essays below were written by one of the 2015 scholarship winners.
Please explain how you use Covenant Eyes, and how it has impacted your life.
In 2010, I found myself at the end of my rope. I had been struggling with pornography and sexual addiction for eleven years. Six of those years I had been married, and now I had a son and a brand new baby. This addiction had ruined my life. I remember the weekend that I first spoke it out loud to a female friend, and realized that she too struggled, and so began my journey towards healing and freedom.
I was first introduced to Covenant Eyes through the ministry that I was volunteering for that helped women like myself who struggled with pornography addiction. I decided to commit to accountability by downloading and using the services. I cannot tell you the number of times that Covenant Eyes has helped me in my weakest moments when the thoughts would cross my mind to act out sexually. I also cannot tell you the number of times the filtering service stopped me from accidentally stumbling on something that would have been a trigger for me.
Now my oldest son is 12, and I have two other children ages seven and three. My oldest son is beginning to use the Internet to do searches for school projects. I am so grateful and thankful to have Covenant Eyes in place to keep my family safe. We will continue to use these services for life, and we are grateful what a blessing it has been for our family.
Part of the Covenant Eyes mission is to equip men and women to live lives of integrity, to assist people in their commitment to set no worthless thing before their eyes. In your academic, social, and spiritual pursuits, describe how you strive to demonstrate a life of integrity.
Since the day I first broke the silence of my eleven-year addiction to pornography and sexual addiction, I knew God would use my story to touch others. After I put the tools in place to jumpstart my recovery, including the wonderful services and tools from Covenant Eyes, I began a long journey of having God do the deep character work on my life that needed to be done. Years of abuse and emotional abandonment needed to be dealt with and my heart needed to be healed by God.
Since my journey began, God has used the story of my addiction and healing to help connect with others who strive to be free of the grip sexual addiction has on their life. I began to intern with a ministry that helped women specifically with sexual addiction, and I started a ministry at my church called The Pool based on John 5 to help others like myself.
In 2013, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It rocked my family to our core. I didn’t understand why, after suffering with such trauma in my early years and overcoming a sexual addiction, I would now have to suffer with fighting cancer. My battle with breast cancer took a full two years to fight–with a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, a full hysterectomy, and reconstruction surgeries. Today, in 2015, I am living proof that God isn’t finished with me yet.
In 2014, I enrolled at Liberty University to pursue a degree in Crisis and Trauma Counseling. Since sexual addiction and trauma are often related, I knew this would equip me, along with the anointing of God, to help people in their darkest hour. I am set to graduate in the Summer of 2016, and I hope to continue on in Fall of 2016 in the master’s program at Liberty to work towards receiving my professional licensure to practice counseling in this area.
I learned a long time ago that I had to learn to be humble and surrendered to live a life of freedom and integrity. Addiction taught me humility, but I wasn’t fully surrendered. Cancer caused me to surrender, as I no longer had control of my life in any area. It was in that struggle that the greatest gift I could receive was given to me. Life–but not just my physical life–a new life in Christ.
I strive in my academic pursuits to do the very best I can do to absorb all the information I am learning in this Christian environment what it means to do this difficult but rewarding work of crisis and trauma counseling, to be committed and applied to my studies. In my social life, I now surround myself with friends who are challenging me in all areas of my life, so that I can walk in purity and accountability. Spiritually, I seek to know my Lord and Savior deeper as I walk with Him surrendered to His will for my life. I have learned that this walk is always in the moment, matching my steps with His. Anytime I try to run ahead and not follow the direction of Jesus Christ, that is the place where I am most vulnerable to failure.
Addiction did many things to my life. It caused me to believe lies about God and myself. It isolated me from community with others and weighed me down with fear and shame. I had lost my identity and didn’t know who I was apart from the addiction which surrounded me like a vice. I remember praying a prayer shortly after I began my recovery. I asked God to help me never to forget the pit from which He pulled me out of, and little did I know how closely He would have me work to that pit. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Part of living a life of integrity is being in a state of wholeness, and it is only through Christ that we can be whole. I only find this wholeness through absolute surrender to His will for my life. And this journey is ongoing until He comes again one day for His redeemed bride.
“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.”–Philippians 3:13-16
Are you or someone you know in college? Check out the Covenant Eyes Scholarship and pass along the information to a student you know or apply for the scholarship today.
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