April 25, 2025 • 44 mins
Lust is a man's problem, right? Wrong. When we see lust as an exclusively male issue, it leaves Christian women with nowhere to turn when they struggle with the same things. They suffer silently and feel like they will never be free. Jessica Harris has been there, and she has made it her mission to break the silence, banish the shame, and bring women's struggles into the light of God's grace and forgiveness. She understands that when you suffer in silence, you are building a wall of shame between yourself and God that God does not desire for you. Join us as she shows women a road map for restoration that answers the question "Is there grace left for me?" with a resounding and emphatic "Yes!"
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S1 (00:00):
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Before you listen to this podcast, let me just tell
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(00:20):
written by pastor Jack Graham. I love it because he
really does recognize the fact that biblical literacy is declining,
and that a lot of people think that the Bible
is too complicated, that it's written for pastors or for scholars.
And yet, in truth, Jesus is there from Genesis to Revelation.
And that book was written for every single one of us.
We just need a better way to know how to
study God's Word. And that's exactly what the Jesus Book
(00:42):
is all about. So when you give a gift of
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In the Market with Janet Parshall. Scroll to the bottom
of the page. Thanks so much for letting me take
a moment of your time. And now please enjoy the broadcast.
(01:28):
Hi friends, this is Janet Parshall. Thanks so much for
choosing to spend the next hour with us. Today's program
is prerecorded so our phone lines are not open. But
thanks so much for being with us and enjoy the broadcast.
S2 (01:39):
Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
S3 (01:41):
The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
S4 (01:43):
So Americans worshiping government over God.
S3 (01:45):
Extremely rare safety move by a mage 17 years.
S5 (01:49):
The Palestinians and Israelis negotiated a.
S1 (02:07):
Hi, friends. Welcome to In the Market with Janet Parshall. Okay.
If you listen to this program with any regularity, we
are not shy when it comes to tackling tough topics. Why?
Because we believe the gospel changes everything. Everything and everyone. So,
Mom and Dad, because I love you and care for you.
This is an adult conversation. We're going to talk about
some important stuff. We're going to talk about a pandemic
(02:28):
in the church. And no, it didn't come from a
laboratory in Wuhan. It comes from the human heart. But
it's a problem that needs to be addressed. And the
way in which we take care of this sin sick
problem is not with the vaccine, but with the disinfectant
of Son Sann L-i-g-h-t sunlight. And that's what we're going
to talk about lust, pornography, but particularly women. Yeah. Whoa,
(02:49):
I know, hit the brakes. You thought it was just
a man's problem, right? Listen, there's temptation. I, you know,
very rarely, I think temptation stops and goes, oh, goes wrong. Gender? No, absolutely.
This has everything to do with the condition of the
human heart. But God didn't leave us in our mess
and our distress. He sent out an SOS instead. And
that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. How
(03:10):
God rescues those who struggle in this area. I got
to tell you, I'm about to talk to a very
brave woman, because now the whole world knows that this
was her struggle, and she doesn't care that the whole
world knows her struggle. She does so because she knows
exactly what the Scripture says. She was given his comfort,
and in turn, she's turn around and comforting, comforting those
(03:32):
who struggle in the same area. Jessica Harris is a
writer and an international speaker who talks openly and honestly
about pornography addiction among Christian women in order to facilitate healing.
There's the answer to the question. She is recognized as
a leading voice on the topic of female porn years,
porn use, and addiction in the church, and she's been
(03:53):
featured on Nightline, 700 club, focus on the family and crew.
She joins us today as the author of the book quenched.
And for the record, little anecdote from my vantage point.
This book has been sitting on my desk for months.
I could not wait for the gate to be lifted,
and we could finally talk to Jessica about this subject
because it's not being discussed. And yet, there are women
now who sit in shame and in silence, thinking that
(04:15):
they are beyond the pale of cavalry, which, of course
they are not. And that goes to the subtitle of
Jessica's book, Discovering God's Abundant Grace for women Struggling with
Pornography and Sexual Shame. I will open the phone lines
later for questions, but right now, I want you to
get into the heart of Jessica's story and Mom and
Dad again understand why I said this is a conversation
for grown ups, so maybe not a good hour for
(04:36):
the little ones. You might want to podcast this and
listen at your convenience. Jessica. The warmest of welcomes. First,
an abundance of thanks. You give me an hour of
your time. I can't replace it. You gave us your
story in the book quenched, and I'm most grateful for that.
But I want to thank you also for throwing out
a lifeline to other people, women in particular, who are
struggling in this area. But, friend, I got to ask you. Wow,
it's one thing for a small circle of friends to
(04:58):
know your problem. You put it on the printed page
and it goes. Only the Lord knows where around the globe.
What compelled you to do that?
S6 (05:06):
That's a great question. Um, when I first was feeling
led to write back in. Oh, goodness. Um, 2007. Um,
I was like, well, God, what on earth would I
write about? And it was like, we are going to
share your story. And I said, absolutely not. Under no
circumstances is that what's going to happen here. And, um,
(05:27):
so I fought him hard for, for two years. I
tell people I kind of did a Jonah thing, and
I just ran the complete opposite direction of anything that
looked like sharing my story. And, uh, I finally did
anonymously online and thought, there you go. Because I did
have this fear that I didn't want to be known
as the girl who talked about porn. I didn't want
(05:48):
people to know this part of my story. I wanted
them to know anything else about me except for this. And, uh,
so I was anonymous at first, and then people started
asking me to come and speak at their youth groups or, um,
their churches. And I thought, I have a problem because
you can be an anonymous writer, but you cannot be
an anonymous speaker. And so I kind of it's.
S1 (06:10):
Tough to show up with a paper bag over your head.
So that doesn't work out very well in a public speaking.
S6 (06:14):
Right. So I had to start, um, owning my story,
kind of. And there was a really fundamental moment that
happened just a couple years after I started, where I
was at a college conference for women, um, leading a
workshop for women. And I had chosen lust as the
topic of my workshop. And when women found out that
(06:35):
the topic was lust and not dating or beauty or
the Proverbs 31 wife, you know, when they found out
we were talking about lust, the workshop completely packed out
to the point that there were women standing around the room,
sitting on the floor even. And I thought, listen, I'm
no like I am not Anybody who knows, like no
(06:55):
one knows my name. I'm not Ann Voskamp, I'm not
Beth Moore, like I am nobody in this context. And
so what are all these women doing here? And it
just it hit me that the topic is just so
not talked about. And I felt like in that moment
God was saying, you can have go if you want
that other life that you were dreaming of where you
(07:18):
get to, you know, go into the medical field or
whatever it is, you can have it, but you can
also be part of this. You can be part of
what I want to do here and with these women
and in this field. And I just thought, man, I
know what it's like to be them. And I know
what it's like to be looking for hope and for answers.
(07:39):
And I thought, I can't leave them here like, I,
I can't leave them behind. I know how to get out.
And I know what it's like to want those that
hope and that freedom and to feel like it's impossible. Possible.
And how can I just walk away and leave them there?
And so I had this, this moment that that year of, okay, God,
(08:00):
whatever you want to do with this, however you want
to use it, I'm, I'm in and I'm here now.
I've obviously doubted I think we all have those moments too,
of like, did I make the right choice when I
said I was all in? I'm not so sure anymore. Um,
so I've definitely had those moments, but it is just
so neat to see how even the conversation in the
church has changed. And that's really been my heart in
(08:22):
doing this. It's not to flaunt my story like I don't, I,
I don't do this because I think my story is like, cool.
I do it because I, I think it's important that
the church changes the conversation and starts talking to women
about this topic.
S1 (08:35):
Wow wow wow. If you had submitted a script for
approval on what you wanted to say in the first segment, uh,
this would have gotten an A plus plus plus plus.
You set this up so perfectly. And Jessica, you are
a reminder that out of the overflow of the heart,
the mouth speaks. So this is about you helping other
people who struggle, and the fact that on a college
campus it was standing room only. It's a profound reminder
(08:57):
that it's not a gender specific issue. It is a
heart issue. Individuals who will remain single can struggle with this.
Engaged people can struggle with this. Married people can struggle
with this. So this is a temptation that is there
before every single one of us. It's just not been
addressed at all about women in this area. And the
numbers say that about, well, 20% of Christian women use porn.
(09:20):
One out of five of us. This is a big issue.
We're just getting started with Jessica Harris. Bible literacy is
declining even among Christians. It's time for us to cultivate
Bible reading habits that will transform our faith. That's why
I've chosen the Jesus Book as this month's truth tool.
Discover how to apply Scripture to our everyday lives and
(09:40):
to know its power. As for your copy of the
Jesus Book, when you give a gift of any amount
to in the market, call eight 7758, that's eight 7758
or go online to in the market with Janet Parshall.
Jessica Harris is with us this entire hour. She's a
writer and international speaker, and she joins us, is the
(10:01):
author of Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for Women Struggling
with Pornography and Sexual Shame. Jessica, you write that you
grew up in a conservative Christian home, so I'm asking
only because it's part of your testimony, and I rest
in the assurance that I'm not violating your privacy or
making you uncomfortable in any way. But how does a
good Christian girl finally bump into porn? How does that happen?
S6 (10:24):
Yeah, no. Great question. Um, I so this is back
in the land of dial up internet and floppy disk,
just for context, so that everybody listening understands what we're
talking about here. Um, the internet was relatively new, I think,
at that time, or at least like not everyone had
it in their homes. It was kind of a cool
thing to have access to the internet, and I don't
(10:46):
think we really understood the dangers that lurked on the
internet at that point. and I was just researching for school. Honestly,
I just was online looking for science videos or researching
science videos, and nestled on this website with a bunch
of other educational videos was a video of hardcore pornography.
(11:08):
So that is how I found it. And then I
clicked on that video and pop up after pop up
after pop up. I just got sucked into this pop
up vortex that I couldn't seem to stop, and I
ended up on an actual porn site. And again, 13
at the time had grown up in a Christian home
(11:28):
and active in the church. But we also never talked
about sex. And so other than to say don't have it.
So in my 13 year old brain, I was like, well,
this isn't technically that, so this must be okay. This
must be fine for me to look at. I didn't
think anything of it, really. Um, just thought, okay, this
(11:50):
is how I can express and explore this realm, kind
of without breaking any of the rules. So it seemed
like a safe thing at the time. Um, when I
first found it, it was a little scary, but it
was also like, oh, this is what everyone was talking about.
How intriguing. And I kind of got into it that way.
S1 (12:09):
Yeah, yeah. But it's the Pied Piper of Hamelin. So
you look at it and you go, this is safe.
This is distance. Oh, I stumbled, I'm not really doing
anything wrong. But in the meantime, you're totally unaware in
your 13 year old mind that your brain is literally
being rewired by looking at these pictures. So when did
you know that you went from a casual observance, actually
stumbling onto this to, oh my, I'm in the spider's web.
S6 (12:33):
Right? Probably when I was 17. So about four years later,
I it was consuming my life. Every spare moment that
I had, I would get home. And again this is
dial up. So I would call my mom at work
and I would say, hey, just so you know, I'm
going to be on the computer all day. Like, don't
try to call me because you won't be able to
get through. I'm researching for school, so I'm lying to
(12:53):
her as soon as I get home from school and
figuring out when she plans to be home. So I
knew how many hours I had to be able to
watch pornography. I was reading erotica, which is written, um,
stories on school computers. So the computers at school and
I was staying up until all hours of the morning
(13:14):
trying to catch scenes on the cable TV channels that
we didn't get. We didn't get them. And back in
the day when you didn't get them, it was just static.
But sometimes scenes would slip through. And so I would
sit up all night just waiting for scenes to come through.
So I'm struggling with sleep. I'm struggling with school. I'm
struggling with grades. And I think to myself, okay, maybe
(13:35):
I need to cut back a little bit, like this
might be a little out of its box, it might
be a little excessive. And when I try to cut back,
I found out that I, I couldn't I felt helpless
to be able to do so. And then I started
looking for help. Like, how do you break free from pornography?
Or how do you stop watching pornography? And everything out
there was indicating that this was something that men struggled with,
(13:58):
but there was nothing for women. And so that's when
I thought, oh dear, what have what have I gotten
myself into? Am I the only woman in the world
who struggled with this? And I'm a Christian woman, so
obviously a lot of the resources out there for breaking
free from pornography are from a Christian point of view.
And by that point, I kind of have had more
of a moral understanding of what was wrong with pornography
(14:21):
and why it might not be the best outlet for sexuality.
But but I just thought, man, I have got myself
stuck and I have no idea how to get out.
So I was probably 17 my senior year of high school. Wow.
S1 (14:35):
Oh, that breaks my heart. The isolation that you must
have been feeling. Were you at all in any way.
Because it's garbage in. Garbage out, as our moms used
to tell us and how right she was. So were
you acting out sexually in any way? Or is it
just a relationship between you and this unknown third party
and your computer screen?
S6 (14:52):
I was not acting out, so I know that that's
a question people get a lot. Like, other than just
like my own fantasy world that I kind of lived in,
I wasn't actually sleeping with anybody. Had I been given
the opportunity? Maybe. But I wasn't exactly like the star of,
you know, the school squad or anything. Like no one was.
(15:13):
No one was asking to to spend extra time with me. And, um,
I didn't really do a lot of extra things around school,
so I didn't necessarily have the availability to be able
to act out. I'm not sure if I would have
or not, but I definitely, I guess, had a a
desire to do so. So like, I would lie to
my classmates about being sexually active, like, um, and things
(15:37):
like that, where I wanted to be cool, like I
wanted to be able to do that, but there just
wasn't the ability to do that at the time.
S1 (15:44):
Jessica. Twice. I just want to pull over to the
side of the road because I love this. Twice you
have referred to yourself in gentle, disparaging ways. I'm nobody.
I wasn't the star. And I'm sitting here smiling ear
to ear, going, yeah, well, that's not the way God
saw it. He went, Jessica, come here. And he pulled
you out and he's used you now and hear you
on a national radio platform, telling your story of how
(16:07):
God worked in, for and through you as you were
struggling in this particular area of your life. So I
just wanted to point that out for people who think
I'm a nobody, not in God's economy. You aren't. Look
at yourself through heaven's eyes. That's not how he saw Jessica,
and it's absolutely not how he saw you. So let
me go back to this idea of, you know, the
poet said, no man is an island. Well, neither is
any woman an island. And you are literally alone thinking,
(16:30):
I need resources. You begin to look and the resources
are simply not available. Then it's bad enough to say,
maybe somewhere in this internal moral compass, something's going off,
and maybe this isn't right, but you're not of the world.
You're a follower of Jesus Christ, being raised in a
Christian home, so it's, uh. Oh, I need help. I
don't see any resources. And. Oh, my word. Where do
(16:51):
I go? Where they won't take me outside and stone me?
Because I'm quite sure that's probably what my future is
at this moment. That didn't happen. So I'm going to
pick up your story as a searching, hurting 17 year
old when we get back. Jessica Harris is with us.
She's the author of Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for
women struggling with pornography and Sexual sin only because God
(17:13):
has blessed this program with a big footprint. You know what?
I know there's somebody listening right now that's going, that's
my story. That's where I'm at. Oh stick around. We
haven't even gotten to the best part yet. Jessica Harris
(17:34):
is the author of Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for
women Struggling with Pornography and Sexual Shame. So, Jessica, let
me go back to that moment where you said, I
need to dial it back. I need some help. And, uh. Oh,
there's a lot of stuff here from men, but there's
nothing here from women. This was a seminal moment in
your life, because you were literally looking at a fork
in the road, and you could have gone one of
(17:55):
two ways. One have been utter disaster, and the other
was the road toward healing. Tell me how you made
the choice and what choice you made.
S6 (18:03):
Well, it was kind of a it was a long
fork in the road. Um, I at that immediate point,
I thought, there's no way I can tell anybody. I
was in a very conservative church with a very aging staff.
And I just remember thinking, I cannot tell these pastors
and deacons wives who are, like, old enough to be
(18:24):
my grandma that I'm struggling with this. My grandfather, my
grandfather's a deacon. My grandmother teaches Sunday school. My mom
sings in the choir like I will ruin my entire
family in this church if I come forward. And I
share this. So I thought, okay, I'm going to wait
basically until I get to college. Then maybe I'll get
caught at college. Surely a college, a Christian college. They've
(18:47):
seen this before. They deal with young women all the time, obviously.
And I was going to a rather large Christian liberal
arts university. And so I head off to college and
my use actually escalated there at college. And so sure enough,
I got caught. And, um, they're at college. They actually said,
(19:07):
we know this wasn't you. Women don't have this problem.
So my my hope for freedom took a bit of
a detour because I thought, wow, I am the only
woman in the world who's done this. And there is
something fundamentally wrong with me that they've they've never seen
this before. Like, how on earth am I the first
(19:30):
person that they've seen? And they just can't believe it,
to the point that they're accusing me of giving my
password for the internet out to my guy friends and
yelling at me about how I'm not protecting my brothers
in Christ and how I need to be a better
sister in Christ, and how the brothers need help. And
I just thought, I'm the one who needs help. Um,
and I just remember feeling so swallowed by shame. That's
(19:52):
what that is, when shame just kind of crushed me.
Because up until then, it had just been a fear. Maybe.
And that was when it was like a reality for
me of, wow, I really am alone. Um, and so
I kind of, I gave up so that I wanted
freedom and I wanted out, but that that conversation created
a bit of a, like I said, a bit of
(20:13):
a detour off of the path of hope and freedom
and healing because, um, I just thought, wow, there's no
way God could love me, you know? And it was
this very much this prayer of like, I'm sorry, God,
I know you want to love me, but apparently I
am not lovable at this point. Apparently, I have messed
up too much. This is too big. And, uh, so
(20:34):
I kind of made the decision then that if I
couldn't be the good Christian girl who used to watch porn,
then I. I felt like I didn't have a choice
other than to be the porn star who used to
be a Christian. So I'm 17 years old at a
Christian college, grew up in a Christian home, and I'm going,
I don't know what else to do with my life. Like,
I feel so hopeless and I feel so lost that
the only thing left for me is to just give
(20:55):
up and go into the industry, because those people would
probably understand me. I didn't want to, but it was
just this feeling of of hopelessness. Um, and God intervened
in major ways in my life over the next year
or so, and I ended up at Bible college the
following fall, a different college. And that is when they, uh,
(21:16):
the dean's staff pulled all the female students together and said, listen,
we know some of you struggle with pornography and we
want to help you. And it was in that safe
environment of a room full of Christian women. And they're
saying that I'm not alone in a room of Christian women.
You know, it was I thought I was the only
woman in the world, Christian or not, who had gotten
(21:37):
into this. And now you're telling me in a room
full of other Christian women that I'm not alone, that
there's other women in this room who struggle too, and
that there's help. And that was the conversation where I
was able to say, this is my struggle, this is
my story. And like, how do I get out of here?
S1 (21:54):
So let me pause for a minute because, wow, there's
just so much there. First of all, the dean makes
these statements unprompted that you know of, and he calls
the women together and then makes this declaration. If the
answer to that question is yes, where do you think
that discernment came from on the part of the Dean
to say to the women, we know this is an
area that you struggle with, whereas the college you were
at before Christian and Nature was failing to recognize that
(22:17):
this is not a gender specific issue.
S6 (22:20):
Right. I think it was honestly just the the Holy Spirit. Honestly,
I think that it's probably something they had seen before.
They were a very just aware and and they wouldn't
have been the type of women who would say, we
know this wasn't you. Like, they would have opened up
the conversation and asked questions. And so I'm sure my
(22:40):
class coming through wasn't the first class that they had
seen it in, and so they knew then that it
was an issue that they needed to address, and they
came at it from the angle of strongholds. And how sometimes,
as Christians, we can have strongholds in our lives where
we're trying to live for the Lord and all these
other areas. But we're holding on to this one little
pet sin kind of, you know, like, I'm just going
to keep this. I'll do everything else, but I'm going
(23:01):
to I'm going to hold on to this little place.
And they said, that's an area where the enemy still
has a foothold in your life. And until you are
willing to tear that down and and surrender that then
God doesn't have your life and you're going to feel
like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, and you're
going to feel like you can't get anywhere in your
walk with the Lord. And I was like, that is me.
Tell me what's wrong with me. And then they said,
(23:23):
you know, some of you struggle with pornography. And I
was like, anything but that, like, I don't want to
have to I don't want to have to be the
person who has to share that this is this is
what I'm struggling with. But I did have a moment
where I was like, did they read my journal? Like,
how did they find out about me here? But. But
I was not the only one in that room who struggled. So.
S1 (23:44):
Wow. Wow. So when we come back, take us on
the road to recovery. Because it's one thing to say.
Thank you, Lord. In the midst of my struggles, you've
reminded me I'm not alone. I never was, but thank
you for reminding me that I'm definitely not alone and
that there is a way out. Walk me through that road.
Because at this point in your years of struggling in
this particular area, again, it isn't just a spiritual issue,
(24:07):
but it's also an emotional and a mental and a
physical issue because the brain literally gets rewired on this stuff.
So tell me how you found real hope and healing
in this journey. When we get back. Jessica Harris is
with us. We're talking with her about her book quenched
back after this. When we tackle tough issues on In
(24:29):
the market, do you find yourself nodding in agreement? Then
why not take the next step today and become a
partial partner? Your monthly gift will help to keep us
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of our partial partners today by calling eight 7758 or
go online to in the market with Janet Parshall. Such
(24:54):
an important conversation. What is it like as a woman
in particular, to be struggling with the issue of pornography
and sexual shame? If you're just joining us, Mom and dad,
I want to remind you this is an age appropriate conversation,
but a very important one, because women do struggle in
this area. And yes, the church is not exempt from
this at all by any stretch of the imagination. So
I want to repeat again what I said at the
(25:16):
top of the hour how much respect, unbridled admiration I
have for Jessica because she's been willing to put her
story out there, knowing that there was so much shame
and isolation, steeped in her experience at one point in time,
but now no longer. She's not unlike the woman at
the well, let me tell you about the one who's
told me everything I've ever done, and it's out there
(25:37):
declaring to the world what Jesus can do in for
and through us. She talks about it in her book quenched.
Discovering God's abundant grace for women struggling with pornography and
sexual shame. So thanks be to God. You're in a
Bible school. The dean pulls women into the room and says,
I know people in this room are struggling. You realize
you're not alone. You realize there are resources. Where does
somebody and I'm talking to people now all over the
(25:59):
country who are listening to us. Jessica, if their story
replicates yours in oh so many ways and they realize, Lord,
now I've got to start doing something now, you know,
the enemy loves to sit in your shoulder going, are
you kidding me? Do you know who you are and
what you've done? Forget about it. And yet you have
that other voice that says, now, therefore, there is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So where
(26:22):
does one begin the journey? How does one begin the journey?
And I'm guessing it's not a 50 yard dash. There's
a marathon aspect to this.
S6 (26:30):
It's definitely, definitely more of a marathon for sure. It
might even be more of like an ultra marathon.
S1 (26:35):
Um, maybe.
S6 (26:36):
Even an iron man. Got a few different levels of
intensity here. Um, I, I, I start the same place
with everybody when they. I get emails from women all
the time sharing their stories and essentially saying, where do
I go from here? What do I do next? And
my answer is almost always the same you need to
tell somebody. And that's not sometimes when I say that
(26:58):
people are like, well, that's that's shame. You know, like
I should be able to do this by myself. And no,
no shame is the one telling you to do it
by yourself. We we have it backwards here. Um, shame
is the one telling you you have to figure this
out on your own. Shame is the one telling you
that you can't tell anybody. Shame is the one that's
saying if you say something, something bad is going to
happen to you. You'll lose your marriage. You lose your job.
(27:20):
Whatever it is that you're afraid of. That's shame. That's
not grace. And Grace calls us into community. It calls
us into the light. It calls us into reconciliation with
God and with other people. So I challenge women. You
start fighting this fight by fighting the fight against shame
(27:42):
first and saying, you know what, I am going to
risk this because my freedom and walking in the light
is worth that risk. I am going to tell somebody
and I am going to to share my story with somebody.
And it's not about confession like you see in the, the,
you know, the crime shows like it's not I'm confessing,
(28:04):
I'm turning myself in, you know, giving me my punishment.
That's not why we do it. We're we're doing it
to bring things into the light and to bring grace
into the conversation. And so I try to tell women,
share your story. Don't look at it as like, confession,
because I think we have a bad image of that now.
But be open and authentic and honest with somebody about
(28:28):
this being a part of your story. And it needs
to be somebody in your community and in your space
because yes, it's nice to get it off your chest
to an online stranger. When women email me, they always
feel better because they feel safe, because I've been there
and so they know they can't say anything to me
that's going to scare me or make me judge them,
(28:49):
but I also don't know them. And so there's not
the relationship there that can help bring healing and grace.
I can affirm and I can encourage. But at the
end of the day, I'm just a voice on the
other side of the screen. And so I encourage women,
tell somebody in your face and in your space, and
if you don't have anybody, then pray for God to
(29:11):
bring someone that you can share your story with.
S1 (29:16):
Book of Proverbs you want to tell somebody, but you
want to tell the right somebody, a wise person, not
a fool. How does one and I bet there are
a whole lot of people for whom that question just
came to their mind. Wow, how do I pick the
right person to tell? Because once I tell, you know,
we've all seen the cover of the post, the Saturday
Evening Post, where Norman Rockwell's famous painting of the two
(29:36):
people start up here, and there's a whole bunch of
couples back and forth until the end. And that's the
perfect picture of gossip. So how does one do this
in such a way that you're beginning? I loved your phrase.
You're beginning to walk in the light. But if you
start by telling the wrong person, it's not going to
help you get there. So how did you choose the
right person?
S6 (29:54):
Well, I just I shared with the Dean staff who
had said, we know some of you struggle with this
and we want to help you because the rest of
that conversation was all right. Everybody in this room, regardless
of what your stronghold is, needs to write it down
on the sheet of paper and turn it in. So
I kind of had a God kind of was like, listen,
you've been looking for an opportunity to share your story
(30:15):
and like, this is literally this is it. Like, this
is I can't do any better than this. Like, this
is it. Um, and obviously not every woman's going to
have that opportunity, you know, we're not going to have
church events. I mean, you can have me come to
your church. I'll gladly do it. But we're not going
to have events where women are saying, write it down
if you're one of these women. So I really encourage women,
(30:36):
find someone who's where you want to go, because so
often women who struggle with this are trying to look
for someone who's been where they are, and so they'll
end up sharing with somebody who maybe isn't far enough
along in the road of healing, or somebody else who's
struggling just as much, and then they just don't really
help each other well, because they're both struggling. And so
(30:59):
I encourage women, look, find a woman who you want
to be like, kind of who you want to emulate,
who loves Jesus, who loves the Lord. And when you're
looking for that, hopefully you're not going to find somebody
who's a gossip or who's unkind or who has a
bitterness or who shames people. You're looking for somebody who
(31:20):
is gentle and kind and who loves Jesus, and who's
passionate about following him, and who's living the life of
freedom that you picture for yourself. If I could be free,
who would I be? Who would I want to be like?
Pick that person, find that person and share your story
with them, because they don't have to know where you've been,
(31:42):
to know how to get you where you want to go.
The women that I talk to at my college did
not have experience with online pornography, but they were able
to help me grow in so many different ways, whether
that was becoming more emotionally stable because pornography had become
a coping mechanism for me, every kind of emotion, I
(32:06):
went to it. So they were working on that. They
were working on how to have healthy relationships, how not
to be so defensive and angry with people all the time.
They were working on other things that are equally as
important as breaking free from pornography. And so there was
one woman who was my accountability partner, so to speak.
But then I had a team of women who had
(32:26):
surrounded me and were helping me to grow in who
I'm meant to be in Christ. And so you're a
woman going, I don't know who it is to share
this with. And you can always look for a counselor, too.
But find somebody who is where you want to be
and ask her to help you get there.
S1 (32:47):
So the accountability part is very crucial because you're not
doing this alone. They would hold you accountable. How do
you individually, when you're not accessible to that other person
and you're trying to break the chains? You know, it's
not unlike A Christmas Carol. The chain I bear I
made link by link and yard by yard. Marley says
to to Ebenezer Scrooge, how do you break the chains
(33:09):
that you yourself built through practice? This is where the
addiction aspect comes in. And that's why when you talked
about it being a very long marathon, this is the
difficult part of it, because addiction usually says one foot
forward and a couple of steps back, and that's the
pattern of recovery. How did you handle that in your life?
S6 (33:26):
Oh, it's very discouraging at first because you think Like,
you might have a really good day and you're like, ah,
I got this. But it's I mean, think about a
New Year's resolution, right? So January 1st we hit the
gym and we eat right, and we do all the
right things, and then we just keep going, keep going,
keep going. And by January 7th, we're like, I'm out,
I'm done. You know, where's where's the chips? Like, where's
the ice cream? I'm over it. Um, and it can
(33:48):
be the same way when you're, like, wanting to break
free from something and you just kind of gather up
the willpower to delete the stuff off your phone, or
to lock up the computer and to text your accountability partner,
and and then you kind of begin to wane in
that willpower a little bit. And I think the important
thing to remember here is that it is you are
(34:08):
battling a brain that has been rewired and a body
that has been rewired to want this. And so your
job is really to make it as inconvenient as possible.
And so I that's what I challenge women to do.
Figure out what your triggers are because there's triggers for it.
So figure out, um, if it's when I'm really emotional
(34:31):
or if it's a certain time of the month, or
if it's something that I've read or something that I've seen.
And eliminate those and just keep kind of cutting back
until you get into a place where you're not being
as tempted, because that's helpful. And I have a whole
course on that on my, on my site for any
woman who's interested, but a whole course on how to
(34:52):
work through your triggers and to put up appropriate boundaries,
to be able to help yourself because it's not your
accountability partner's job to to fix you or to rescue you.
They're just a tool in the toolkit. Um, and there
are a way to help Grace come into the conversation
and to give you perspective, but you can't blame them
for when you make the wrong choice at 3:00 in
(35:13):
the morning. It's not their fault. You're the one clicking
the links. You're the one opening the websites that it's
all on you. And so, um, making that inconvenient and
putting kind of roadblocks in the way, but also just
abiding in Christ like his. He gives us the power
to fight. He gives us His Spirit, and we are.
(35:33):
We're called to walk in that. And I think so
many times we try to do this without him and
without other people. Like we just try to do it
all by ourselves. And you'll get that New Year's resolution
thing every time. You'll just, you'll go good and then
you'll burn out.
S1 (35:46):
Yeah. Oh, wow. Such wise counsel. You know, again, the
comfort to know that in our weakness, his strength is
made manifest, that we can do all things through Christ
who strengthens us. And if he knows our struggles, and
he most assuredly does, to be able to say, God,
I don't know if I can take this next step.
The ever present God who said he would never leave
or forsake us is there, hears that prayer, and in
(36:08):
that moment provides, as he promises in His Word that
sufficient grace. Why do we sell God short, over and
over and over again? Jessica used an important word triggers.
I want to talk about that when we get back.
We're visiting with Jessica Harris, who's a writer and an
(36:29):
international speaker. She talks openly and honestly about pornography addiction
among Christian women. Why does she do this? Because she
wants you to know that you can find real forgiveness
and healing. And she writes about it in her book, quenched.
That goes right back to John four. I love the
way she weaves that story throughout the subtitle, Discovering God's
Abundant Grace for women struggling with Pornography and Sexual Shame.
(36:53):
So God designs us to be loved. That search for significance,
that God shaped void over and over and over again. Philosophers.
Theologians have talked about the fact that we are made
in his image, really seek out this love, this affirmation,
all of it, put there fingerprinted by the creator himself
so that we find our worth, our value, our significance
and unconditional love in him. He puts those little breadcrumbs
(37:17):
that will lead to him. Why? Because he's not willing
that any should perish. So how much of pornography, particularly
what you know about women in this area of struggle
versus men. How much of this for women is about companionship, loneliness, friendship,
feeling valued that they're somehow creates this sort of artificial
relationship for a person that even if for a short
(37:37):
period of time, you think you have value and worth.
Or is it used rather as a kind of brain drug?
If I can use it that way, that takes you
away from the other things in life that are making
you anxious. I asked this on behalf of the person
who doesn't struggle, but needs to have a heart like his,
and more compassionately understands this issue.
S6 (37:56):
Yeah, that's a great question. It can be both. And
I think that that's up to the the person who's struggling.
And I the way you phrase the question, I just
want to put out there too, that a lot of
times we talk about pornography and we say, oh, men
watch it because they're visually wired. And that's the only
reason that men watch porn. Um, but men can watch
(38:17):
it because they're lonely and wanting companionship, too. And so
we kind of we don't associate it as an emotional
thing with men as much, but it definitely can still
be a struggle on an emotional level for men, and
there's several great resources that come at it from that angle,
because I think for so long we just kind of said, well,
this is what men do, because that's how they are.
(38:37):
But but it's just people sin because people are broken.
And so it doesn't it. It's not like women sin
because of this and men sin because of that. It's
we're people and we are we live in a fallen world,
and that will make us either search for something to
fill a void, or it'll make us run, you know,
(38:59):
away from things and run to other things to find
some kind of comfort. So you can see both in
in women's stories, you can see them. I was just
looking for love. You can see that especially with today's
young women who are exploiting themselves, who are sending images
of themselves to to men like, I just wanted acceptance.
(39:19):
I just wanted love. I just wanted someone to To
love me for who I am. And this is how
he told me I was going to get it. So
you see that. But you also just see where it
becomes this escape. Um, whether that's hardcore pornography, which is
what I struggled with, or erotica or fantasy. It's, it's
a way of just running and and fleeing. And so
(39:43):
there can be all different things that lead people to this.
There's not a formula, you know, it's not like every
woman who comes from a broken home is, you know,
score one point. And then if she's experienced this, it's
one point, you know, and rater on a scale. And
this is how likely she is. And we just we
struggle with sin because we're we are broken and hurting people.
(40:04):
And the devil is so scheming and conniving that he
would take something as beautiful and precious as our sex drive.
That's God given and would find a way to capitalize
on that in a way to lead us astray with
with that.
S1 (40:21):
Jessica, did you ever stop in your quiet moments and
think how upsetting you are to the devil? Because here
you were raised in a Christian home. I mean, it
just makes me smile. What a good God we have.
You're raised in a Christian home, and so he can't
have you for eternity because you have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. And your name's been written in the
Lamb's Book of life. And nothing and no one can
take you out of that Lamb's book of life. So
he can't have you, but he can cripple you. So
(40:44):
he opens the door to this temptation, knowing, and I
think he's wise enough to know what our Achilles heels are.
And he finds them and he goes after them. And
that's different for every single person. He opens the door
for you. You go down this trapdoor, you get snared
for a while, but you're set free. And you must
make him mad as where he lives currently. And I
have to tell you, I think it just makes me
(41:05):
smile to think that God rescued you from the jaws
of his pernicious, evil, damaging plan and set you free
so that he would be able to use you to
talk about how. Listen, that woman at the well drew
her water in the middle of the day because she
was ashamed. She didn't want anybody in the village. They
already knew that she was sexually promiscuous, so she wasn't
going to be there. The women were gathering in the
(41:26):
morning when it was cooler, in the evening when it
was cool. She went in the middle of the day
when nobody would find her, nobody would see her, and
she would be left alone in her shame and guilt
and shame. And who meets her at the well, takes
your breath away, takes your breath away. Do you still
struggle today?
S6 (41:42):
No, no. Um, I it's been a it has been
a several years. And I think for the people out
there listening, the journey of freedom takes a long time.
It probably took me two years of intense mentorship and
accountability to finally feel like I could say no. And that,
for me, was freedom. Like, I feel like I can
(42:03):
actually say no because remember when I was 17, I
felt like I couldn't. So for me to go, wow,
I'm actually this is not my body on autopilot. This
is me making deliberate and conscious choices. And I'm aware
of that now. And I'm doing this on purpose. Or
I'm able to say, no, that felt like freedom because
then it's like, okay, now I'm back to being the
one who's making the choice. That is freedom. Right. When
(42:23):
we're able to make our own choices. So, um. But
even still, I would fall into sin when I didn't
want to anymore. And for me, a lot of my
triggers were more emotional. So when I was really discouraged
about something, it was kind of like a way to
medicate in a way and to not feel so discouraged. Um,
but it has been several years now since I've even
(42:46):
felt the temptation really to to even want to look
at it like it's not interesting to me anymore. And yes,
I got married, but I don't think that that's I
don't think that that's why I feel like, um, there's
a deeper healing that happened. And it's not just marriage
that that made it.
S1 (43:03):
Yes, exactly. I have 30s to the person who doesn't
struggle in this area, what's the most important thing you
want them to know about this problem?
S6 (43:11):
Oh my goodness. Frame the conversation in grace, please. Like
they're not sick, twisted people. We are broken, hurting people.
And we all need Jesus and we all need that
grace and that hope and that freedom.
S1 (43:24):
Could not have ended. On a more marvelous note, Jessica.
Thank you. Thank you again. I'm going to end exactly
how I started. What a brave, courageous, and obedient woman
you are. Thank you for telling your story to countless
numbers of women who, like you, thought they were all alone.
Nobody else struggled in this area, and the enemy had
captured them to the point where they thought, I am
(43:44):
beyond his forgiveness. No, you are not. Jessica reminds you
of that on a regular basis. Please, if you are struggling,
I recommend strongly the book quenched. Listen to Jessica, listen
to what she discovered, and sit next to that woman
at the well and see what she discovered as well.
The book is called Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for
(44:04):
women struggling with pornography and Sexual Shame. The gospel changes everything.
My thanks to Jessica and you, friends. We'll see you
next time.
Hi friends, thank you so much for downloading this podcast
and it is my sincere hope that you'll hear something
that will equip you, edify you, encourage you, enlighten you,
and then gently but consistently push you out into the
marketplace of ideas where you can let your light so
shine before men and go and tell them the good news.
Before you listen to this podcast, let me just tell
you about this month's truth tool. It's called The Jesus Book,
(00:20):
written by pastor Jack Graham. I love it because he
really does recognize the fact that biblical literacy is declining,
and that a lot of people think that the Bible
is too complicated, that it's written for pastors or for scholars.
And yet, in truth, Jesus is there from Genesis to Revelation.
And that book was written for every single one of us.
We just need a better way to know how to
study God's Word. And that's exactly what the Jesus Book
(00:42):
is all about. So when you give a gift of
any amount this month, I'm going to give you a
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(01:04):
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In the Market with Janet Parshall. Scroll to the bottom
of the page. Thanks so much for letting me take
a moment of your time. And now please enjoy the broadcast.
(01:28):
Hi friends, this is Janet Parshall. Thanks so much for
choosing to spend the next hour with us. Today's program
is prerecorded so our phone lines are not open. But
thanks so much for being with us and enjoy the broadcast.
S2 (01:39):
Here are some of the news headlines we're watching.
S3 (01:41):
The conference was over. The president won a pledge.
S4 (01:43):
So Americans worshiping government over God.
S3 (01:45):
Extremely rare safety move by a mage 17 years.
S5 (01:49):
The Palestinians and Israelis negotiated a.
S1 (02:07):
Hi, friends. Welcome to In the Market with Janet Parshall. Okay.
If you listen to this program with any regularity, we
are not shy when it comes to tackling tough topics. Why?
Because we believe the gospel changes everything. Everything and everyone. So,
Mom and Dad, because I love you and care for you.
This is an adult conversation. We're going to talk about
some important stuff. We're going to talk about a pandemic
(02:28):
in the church. And no, it didn't come from a
laboratory in Wuhan. It comes from the human heart. But
it's a problem that needs to be addressed. And the
way in which we take care of this sin sick
problem is not with the vaccine, but with the disinfectant
of Son Sann L-i-g-h-t sunlight. And that's what we're going
to talk about lust, pornography, but particularly women. Yeah. Whoa,
(02:49):
I know, hit the brakes. You thought it was just
a man's problem, right? Listen, there's temptation. I, you know,
very rarely, I think temptation stops and goes, oh, goes wrong. Gender? No, absolutely.
This has everything to do with the condition of the
human heart. But God didn't leave us in our mess
and our distress. He sent out an SOS instead. And
that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. How
(03:10):
God rescues those who struggle in this area. I got
to tell you, I'm about to talk to a very
brave woman, because now the whole world knows that this
was her struggle, and she doesn't care that the whole
world knows her struggle. She does so because she knows
exactly what the Scripture says. She was given his comfort,
and in turn, she's turn around and comforting, comforting those
(03:32):
who struggle in the same area. Jessica Harris is a
writer and an international speaker who talks openly and honestly
about pornography addiction among Christian women in order to facilitate healing.
There's the answer to the question. She is recognized as
a leading voice on the topic of female porn years,
porn use, and addiction in the church, and she's been
(03:53):
featured on Nightline, 700 club, focus on the family and crew.
She joins us today as the author of the book quenched.
And for the record, little anecdote from my vantage point.
This book has been sitting on my desk for months.
I could not wait for the gate to be lifted,
and we could finally talk to Jessica about this subject
because it's not being discussed. And yet, there are women
now who sit in shame and in silence, thinking that
(04:15):
they are beyond the pale of cavalry, which, of course
they are not. And that goes to the subtitle of
Jessica's book, Discovering God's Abundant Grace for women Struggling with
Pornography and Sexual Shame. I will open the phone lines
later for questions, but right now, I want you to
get into the heart of Jessica's story and Mom and
Dad again understand why I said this is a conversation
for grown ups, so maybe not a good hour for
(04:36):
the little ones. You might want to podcast this and
listen at your convenience. Jessica. The warmest of welcomes. First,
an abundance of thanks. You give me an hour of
your time. I can't replace it. You gave us your
story in the book quenched, and I'm most grateful for that.
But I want to thank you also for throwing out
a lifeline to other people, women in particular, who are
struggling in this area. But, friend, I got to ask you. Wow,
it's one thing for a small circle of friends to
(04:58):
know your problem. You put it on the printed page
and it goes. Only the Lord knows where around the globe.
What compelled you to do that?
S6 (05:06):
That's a great question. Um, when I first was feeling
led to write back in. Oh, goodness. Um, 2007. Um,
I was like, well, God, what on earth would I
write about? And it was like, we are going to
share your story. And I said, absolutely not. Under no
circumstances is that what's going to happen here. And, um,
(05:27):
so I fought him hard for, for two years. I
tell people I kind of did a Jonah thing, and
I just ran the complete opposite direction of anything that
looked like sharing my story. And, uh, I finally did
anonymously online and thought, there you go. Because I did
have this fear that I didn't want to be known
as the girl who talked about porn. I didn't want
(05:48):
people to know this part of my story. I wanted
them to know anything else about me except for this. And, uh,
so I was anonymous at first, and then people started
asking me to come and speak at their youth groups or, um,
their churches. And I thought, I have a problem because
you can be an anonymous writer, but you cannot be
an anonymous speaker. And so I kind of it's.
S1 (06:10):
Tough to show up with a paper bag over your head.
So that doesn't work out very well in a public speaking.
S6 (06:14):
Right. So I had to start, um, owning my story,
kind of. And there was a really fundamental moment that
happened just a couple years after I started, where I
was at a college conference for women, um, leading a
workshop for women. And I had chosen lust as the
topic of my workshop. And when women found out that
(06:35):
the topic was lust and not dating or beauty or
the Proverbs 31 wife, you know, when they found out
we were talking about lust, the workshop completely packed out
to the point that there were women standing around the room,
sitting on the floor even. And I thought, listen, I'm
no like I am not Anybody who knows, like no
(06:55):
one knows my name. I'm not Ann Voskamp, I'm not
Beth Moore, like I am nobody in this context. And
so what are all these women doing here? And it
just it hit me that the topic is just so
not talked about. And I felt like in that moment
God was saying, you can have go if you want
that other life that you were dreaming of where you
(07:18):
get to, you know, go into the medical field or
whatever it is, you can have it, but you can
also be part of this. You can be part of
what I want to do here and with these women
and in this field. And I just thought, man, I
know what it's like to be them. And I know
what it's like to be looking for hope and for answers.
(07:39):
And I thought, I can't leave them here like, I,
I can't leave them behind. I know how to get out.
And I know what it's like to want those that
hope and that freedom and to feel like it's impossible. Possible.
And how can I just walk away and leave them there?
And so I had this, this moment that that year of, okay, God,
(08:00):
whatever you want to do with this, however you want
to use it, I'm, I'm in and I'm here now.
I've obviously doubted I think we all have those moments too,
of like, did I make the right choice when I
said I was all in? I'm not so sure anymore. Um,
so I've definitely had those moments, but it is just
so neat to see how even the conversation in the
church has changed. And that's really been my heart in
(08:22):
doing this. It's not to flaunt my story like I don't, I,
I don't do this because I think my story is like, cool.
I do it because I, I think it's important that
the church changes the conversation and starts talking to women
about this topic.
S1 (08:35):
Wow wow wow. If you had submitted a script for
approval on what you wanted to say in the first segment, uh,
this would have gotten an A plus plus plus plus.
You set this up so perfectly. And Jessica, you are
a reminder that out of the overflow of the heart,
the mouth speaks. So this is about you helping other
people who struggle, and the fact that on a college
campus it was standing room only. It's a profound reminder
(08:57):
that it's not a gender specific issue. It is a
heart issue. Individuals who will remain single can struggle with this.
Engaged people can struggle with this. Married people can struggle
with this. So this is a temptation that is there
before every single one of us. It's just not been
addressed at all about women in this area. And the
numbers say that about, well, 20% of Christian women use porn.
(09:20):
One out of five of us. This is a big issue.
We're just getting started with Jessica Harris. Bible literacy is
declining even among Christians. It's time for us to cultivate
Bible reading habits that will transform our faith. That's why
I've chosen the Jesus Book as this month's truth tool.
Discover how to apply Scripture to our everyday lives and
(09:40):
to know its power. As for your copy of the
Jesus Book, when you give a gift of any amount
to in the market, call eight 7758, that's eight 7758
or go online to in the market with Janet Parshall.
Jessica Harris is with us this entire hour. She's a
writer and international speaker, and she joins us, is the
(10:01):
author of Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for Women Struggling
with Pornography and Sexual Shame. Jessica, you write that you
grew up in a conservative Christian home, so I'm asking
only because it's part of your testimony, and I rest
in the assurance that I'm not violating your privacy or
making you uncomfortable in any way. But how does a
good Christian girl finally bump into porn? How does that happen?
S6 (10:24):
Yeah, no. Great question. Um, I so this is back
in the land of dial up internet and floppy disk,
just for context, so that everybody listening understands what we're
talking about here. Um, the internet was relatively new, I think,
at that time, or at least like not everyone had
it in their homes. It was kind of a cool
thing to have access to the internet, and I don't
(10:46):
think we really understood the dangers that lurked on the
internet at that point. and I was just researching for school. Honestly,
I just was online looking for science videos or researching
science videos, and nestled on this website with a bunch
of other educational videos was a video of hardcore pornography.
(11:08):
So that is how I found it. And then I
clicked on that video and pop up after pop up
after pop up. I just got sucked into this pop
up vortex that I couldn't seem to stop, and I
ended up on an actual porn site. And again, 13
at the time had grown up in a Christian home
(11:28):
and active in the church. But we also never talked
about sex. And so other than to say don't have it.
So in my 13 year old brain, I was like, well,
this isn't technically that, so this must be okay. This
must be fine for me to look at. I didn't
think anything of it, really. Um, just thought, okay, this
(11:50):
is how I can express and explore this realm, kind
of without breaking any of the rules. So it seemed
like a safe thing at the time. Um, when I
first found it, it was a little scary, but it
was also like, oh, this is what everyone was talking about.
How intriguing. And I kind of got into it that way.
S1 (12:09):
Yeah, yeah. But it's the Pied Piper of Hamelin. So
you look at it and you go, this is safe.
This is distance. Oh, I stumbled, I'm not really doing
anything wrong. But in the meantime, you're totally unaware in
your 13 year old mind that your brain is literally
being rewired by looking at these pictures. So when did
you know that you went from a casual observance, actually
stumbling onto this to, oh my, I'm in the spider's web.
S6 (12:33):
Right? Probably when I was 17. So about four years later,
I it was consuming my life. Every spare moment that
I had, I would get home. And again this is
dial up. So I would call my mom at work
and I would say, hey, just so you know, I'm
going to be on the computer all day. Like, don't
try to call me because you won't be able to
get through. I'm researching for school, so I'm lying to
(12:53):
her as soon as I get home from school and
figuring out when she plans to be home. So I
knew how many hours I had to be able to
watch pornography. I was reading erotica, which is written, um,
stories on school computers. So the computers at school and
I was staying up until all hours of the morning
(13:14):
trying to catch scenes on the cable TV channels that
we didn't get. We didn't get them. And back in
the day when you didn't get them, it was just static.
But sometimes scenes would slip through. And so I would
sit up all night just waiting for scenes to come through.
So I'm struggling with sleep. I'm struggling with school. I'm
struggling with grades. And I think to myself, okay, maybe
(13:35):
I need to cut back a little bit, like this
might be a little out of its box, it might
be a little excessive. And when I try to cut back,
I found out that I, I couldn't I felt helpless
to be able to do so. And then I started
looking for help. Like, how do you break free from pornography?
Or how do you stop watching pornography? And everything out
there was indicating that this was something that men struggled with,
(13:58):
but there was nothing for women. And so that's when
I thought, oh dear, what have what have I gotten
myself into? Am I the only woman in the world
who struggled with this? And I'm a Christian woman, so
obviously a lot of the resources out there for breaking
free from pornography are from a Christian point of view.
And by that point, I kind of have had more
of a moral understanding of what was wrong with pornography
(14:21):
and why it might not be the best outlet for sexuality.
But but I just thought, man, I have got myself
stuck and I have no idea how to get out.
So I was probably 17 my senior year of high school. Wow.
S1 (14:35):
Oh, that breaks my heart. The isolation that you must
have been feeling. Were you at all in any way.
Because it's garbage in. Garbage out, as our moms used
to tell us and how right she was. So were
you acting out sexually in any way? Or is it
just a relationship between you and this unknown third party
and your computer screen?
S6 (14:52):
I was not acting out, so I know that that's
a question people get a lot. Like, other than just
like my own fantasy world that I kind of lived in,
I wasn't actually sleeping with anybody. Had I been given
the opportunity? Maybe. But I wasn't exactly like the star of,
you know, the school squad or anything. Like no one was.
(15:13):
No one was asking to to spend extra time with me. And, um,
I didn't really do a lot of extra things around school,
so I didn't necessarily have the availability to be able
to act out. I'm not sure if I would have
or not, but I definitely, I guess, had a a
desire to do so. So like, I would lie to
my classmates about being sexually active, like, um, and things
(15:37):
like that, where I wanted to be cool, like I
wanted to be able to do that, but there just
wasn't the ability to do that at the time.
S1 (15:44):
Jessica. Twice. I just want to pull over to the
side of the road because I love this. Twice you
have referred to yourself in gentle, disparaging ways. I'm nobody.
I wasn't the star. And I'm sitting here smiling ear
to ear, going, yeah, well, that's not the way God
saw it. He went, Jessica, come here. And he pulled
you out and he's used you now and hear you
on a national radio platform, telling your story of how
(16:07):
God worked in, for and through you as you were
struggling in this particular area of your life. So I
just wanted to point that out for people who think
I'm a nobody, not in God's economy. You aren't. Look
at yourself through heaven's eyes. That's not how he saw Jessica,
and it's absolutely not how he saw you. So let
me go back to this idea of, you know, the
poet said, no man is an island. Well, neither is
any woman an island. And you are literally alone thinking,
(16:30):
I need resources. You begin to look and the resources
are simply not available. Then it's bad enough to say,
maybe somewhere in this internal moral compass, something's going off,
and maybe this isn't right, but you're not of the world.
You're a follower of Jesus Christ, being raised in a
Christian home, so it's, uh. Oh, I need help. I
don't see any resources. And. Oh, my word. Where do
(16:51):
I go? Where they won't take me outside and stone me?
Because I'm quite sure that's probably what my future is
at this moment. That didn't happen. So I'm going to
pick up your story as a searching, hurting 17 year
old when we get back. Jessica Harris is with us.
She's the author of Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for
women struggling with pornography and Sexual sin only because God
(17:13):
has blessed this program with a big footprint. You know what?
I know there's somebody listening right now that's going, that's
my story. That's where I'm at. Oh stick around. We
haven't even gotten to the best part yet. Jessica Harris
(17:34):
is the author of Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for
women Struggling with Pornography and Sexual Shame. So, Jessica, let
me go back to that moment where you said, I
need to dial it back. I need some help. And, uh. Oh,
there's a lot of stuff here from men, but there's
nothing here from women. This was a seminal moment in
your life, because you were literally looking at a fork
in the road, and you could have gone one of
(17:55):
two ways. One have been utter disaster, and the other
was the road toward healing. Tell me how you made
the choice and what choice you made.
S6 (18:03):
Well, it was kind of a it was a long
fork in the road. Um, I at that immediate point,
I thought, there's no way I can tell anybody. I
was in a very conservative church with a very aging staff.
And I just remember thinking, I cannot tell these pastors
and deacons wives who are, like, old enough to be
(18:24):
my grandma that I'm struggling with this. My grandfather, my
grandfather's a deacon. My grandmother teaches Sunday school. My mom
sings in the choir like I will ruin my entire
family in this church if I come forward. And I
share this. So I thought, okay, I'm going to wait
basically until I get to college. Then maybe I'll get
caught at college. Surely a college, a Christian college. They've
(18:47):
seen this before. They deal with young women all the time, obviously.
And I was going to a rather large Christian liberal
arts university. And so I head off to college and
my use actually escalated there at college. And so sure enough,
I got caught. And, um, they're at college. They actually said,
(19:07):
we know this wasn't you. Women don't have this problem.
So my my hope for freedom took a bit of
a detour because I thought, wow, I am the only
woman in the world who's done this. And there is
something fundamentally wrong with me that they've they've never seen
this before. Like, how on earth am I the first
(19:30):
person that they've seen? And they just can't believe it,
to the point that they're accusing me of giving my
password for the internet out to my guy friends and
yelling at me about how I'm not protecting my brothers
in Christ and how I need to be a better
sister in Christ, and how the brothers need help. And
I just thought, I'm the one who needs help. Um,
and I just remember feeling so swallowed by shame. That's
(19:52):
what that is, when shame just kind of crushed me.
Because up until then, it had just been a fear. Maybe.
And that was when it was like a reality for
me of, wow, I really am alone. Um, and so
I kind of, I gave up so that I wanted
freedom and I wanted out, but that that conversation created
a bit of a, like I said, a bit of
(20:13):
a detour off of the path of hope and freedom
and healing because, um, I just thought, wow, there's no
way God could love me, you know? And it was
this very much this prayer of like, I'm sorry, God,
I know you want to love me, but apparently I
am not lovable at this point. Apparently, I have messed
up too much. This is too big. And, uh, so
(20:34):
I kind of made the decision then that if I
couldn't be the good Christian girl who used to watch porn,
then I. I felt like I didn't have a choice
other than to be the porn star who used to
be a Christian. So I'm 17 years old at a
Christian college, grew up in a Christian home, and I'm going,
I don't know what else to do with my life. Like,
I feel so hopeless and I feel so lost that
the only thing left for me is to just give
(20:55):
up and go into the industry, because those people would
probably understand me. I didn't want to, but it was
just this feeling of of hopelessness. Um, and God intervened
in major ways in my life over the next year
or so, and I ended up at Bible college the
following fall, a different college. And that is when they, uh,
(21:16):
the dean's staff pulled all the female students together and said, listen,
we know some of you struggle with pornography and we
want to help you. And it was in that safe
environment of a room full of Christian women. And they're
saying that I'm not alone in a room of Christian women.
You know, it was I thought I was the only
woman in the world, Christian or not, who had gotten
(21:37):
into this. And now you're telling me in a room
full of other Christian women that I'm not alone, that
there's other women in this room who struggle too, and
that there's help. And that was the conversation where I
was able to say, this is my struggle, this is
my story. And like, how do I get out of here?
S1 (21:54):
So let me pause for a minute because, wow, there's
just so much there. First of all, the dean makes
these statements unprompted that you know of, and he calls
the women together and then makes this declaration. If the
answer to that question is yes, where do you think
that discernment came from on the part of the Dean
to say to the women, we know this is an
area that you struggle with, whereas the college you were
at before Christian and Nature was failing to recognize that
(22:17):
this is not a gender specific issue.
S6 (22:20):
Right. I think it was honestly just the the Holy Spirit. Honestly,
I think that it's probably something they had seen before.
They were a very just aware and and they wouldn't
have been the type of women who would say, we
know this wasn't you. Like, they would have opened up
the conversation and asked questions. And so I'm sure my
(22:40):
class coming through wasn't the first class that they had
seen it in, and so they knew then that it
was an issue that they needed to address, and they
came at it from the angle of strongholds. And how sometimes,
as Christians, we can have strongholds in our lives where
we're trying to live for the Lord and all these
other areas. But we're holding on to this one little
pet sin kind of, you know, like, I'm just going
to keep this. I'll do everything else, but I'm going
(23:01):
to I'm going to hold on to this little place.
And they said, that's an area where the enemy still
has a foothold in your life. And until you are
willing to tear that down and and surrender that then
God doesn't have your life and you're going to feel
like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, and you're
going to feel like you can't get anywhere in your
walk with the Lord. And I was like, that is me.
Tell me what's wrong with me. And then they said,
(23:23):
you know, some of you struggle with pornography. And I
was like, anything but that, like, I don't want to
have to I don't want to have to be the
person who has to share that this is this is
what I'm struggling with. But I did have a moment
where I was like, did they read my journal? Like,
how did they find out about me here? But. But
I was not the only one in that room who struggled. So.
S1 (23:44):
Wow. Wow. So when we come back, take us on
the road to recovery. Because it's one thing to say.
Thank you, Lord. In the midst of my struggles, you've
reminded me I'm not alone. I never was, but thank
you for reminding me that I'm definitely not alone and
that there is a way out. Walk me through that road.
Because at this point in your years of struggling in
this particular area, again, it isn't just a spiritual issue,
(24:07):
but it's also an emotional and a mental and a
physical issue because the brain literally gets rewired on this stuff.
So tell me how you found real hope and healing
in this journey. When we get back. Jessica Harris is
with us. We're talking with her about her book quenched
back after this. When we tackle tough issues on In
(24:29):
the market, do you find yourself nodding in agreement? Then
why not take the next step today and become a
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(24:54):
an important conversation. What is it like as a woman
in particular, to be struggling with the issue of pornography
and sexual shame? If you're just joining us, Mom and dad,
I want to remind you this is an age appropriate conversation,
but a very important one, because women do struggle in
this area. And yes, the church is not exempt from
this at all by any stretch of the imagination. So
I want to repeat again what I said at the
(25:16):
top of the hour how much respect, unbridled admiration I
have for Jessica because she's been willing to put her
story out there, knowing that there was so much shame
and isolation, steeped in her experience at one point in time,
but now no longer. She's not unlike the woman at
the well, let me tell you about the one who's
told me everything I've ever done, and it's out there
(25:37):
declaring to the world what Jesus can do in for
and through us. She talks about it in her book quenched.
Discovering God's abundant grace for women struggling with pornography and
sexual shame. So thanks be to God. You're in a
Bible school. The dean pulls women into the room and says,
I know people in this room are struggling. You realize
you're not alone. You realize there are resources. Where does
somebody and I'm talking to people now all over the
(25:59):
country who are listening to us. Jessica, if their story
replicates yours in oh so many ways and they realize, Lord,
now I've got to start doing something now, you know,
the enemy loves to sit in your shoulder going, are
you kidding me? Do you know who you are and
what you've done? Forget about it. And yet you have
that other voice that says, now, therefore, there is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So where
(26:22):
does one begin the journey? How does one begin the journey?
And I'm guessing it's not a 50 yard dash. There's
a marathon aspect to this.
S6 (26:30):
It's definitely, definitely more of a marathon for sure. It
might even be more of like an ultra marathon.
S1 (26:35):
Um, maybe.
S6 (26:36):
Even an iron man. Got a few different levels of
intensity here. Um, I, I, I start the same place
with everybody when they. I get emails from women all
the time sharing their stories and essentially saying, where do
I go from here? What do I do next? And
my answer is almost always the same you need to
tell somebody. And that's not sometimes when I say that
(26:58):
people are like, well, that's that's shame. You know, like
I should be able to do this by myself. And no,
no shame is the one telling you to do it
by yourself. We we have it backwards here. Um, shame
is the one telling you you have to figure this
out on your own. Shame is the one telling you
that you can't tell anybody. Shame is the one that's
saying if you say something, something bad is going to
happen to you. You'll lose your marriage. You lose your job.
(27:20):
Whatever it is that you're afraid of. That's shame. That's
not grace. And Grace calls us into community. It calls
us into the light. It calls us into reconciliation with
God and with other people. So I challenge women. You
start fighting this fight by fighting the fight against shame
(27:42):
first and saying, you know what, I am going to
risk this because my freedom and walking in the light
is worth that risk. I am going to tell somebody
and I am going to to share my story with somebody.
And it's not about confession like you see in the, the,
you know, the crime shows like it's not I'm confessing,
(28:04):
I'm turning myself in, you know, giving me my punishment.
That's not why we do it. We're we're doing it
to bring things into the light and to bring grace
into the conversation. And so I try to tell women,
share your story. Don't look at it as like, confession,
because I think we have a bad image of that now.
But be open and authentic and honest with somebody about
(28:28):
this being a part of your story. And it needs
to be somebody in your community and in your space
because yes, it's nice to get it off your chest
to an online stranger. When women email me, they always
feel better because they feel safe, because I've been there
and so they know they can't say anything to me
that's going to scare me or make me judge them,
(28:49):
but I also don't know them. And so there's not
the relationship there that can help bring healing and grace.
I can affirm and I can encourage. But at the
end of the day, I'm just a voice on the
other side of the screen. And so I encourage women,
tell somebody in your face and in your space, and
if you don't have anybody, then pray for God to
(29:11):
bring someone that you can share your story with.
S1 (29:16):
Book of Proverbs you want to tell somebody, but you
want to tell the right somebody, a wise person, not
a fool. How does one and I bet there are
a whole lot of people for whom that question just
came to their mind. Wow, how do I pick the
right person to tell? Because once I tell, you know,
we've all seen the cover of the post, the Saturday
Evening Post, where Norman Rockwell's famous painting of the two
(29:36):
people start up here, and there's a whole bunch of
couples back and forth until the end. And that's the
perfect picture of gossip. So how does one do this
in such a way that you're beginning? I loved your phrase.
You're beginning to walk in the light. But if you
start by telling the wrong person, it's not going to
help you get there. So how did you choose the
right person?
S6 (29:54):
Well, I just I shared with the Dean staff who
had said, we know some of you struggle with this
and we want to help you because the rest of
that conversation was all right. Everybody in this room, regardless
of what your stronghold is, needs to write it down
on the sheet of paper and turn it in. So
I kind of had a God kind of was like, listen,
you've been looking for an opportunity to share your story
(30:15):
and like, this is literally this is it. Like, this
is I can't do any better than this. Like, this
is it. Um, and obviously not every woman's going to
have that opportunity, you know, we're not going to have
church events. I mean, you can have me come to
your church. I'll gladly do it. But we're not going
to have events where women are saying, write it down
if you're one of these women. So I really encourage women,
(30:36):
find someone who's where you want to go, because so
often women who struggle with this are trying to look
for someone who's been where they are, and so they'll
end up sharing with somebody who maybe isn't far enough
along in the road of healing, or somebody else who's
struggling just as much, and then they just don't really
help each other well, because they're both struggling. And so
(30:59):
I encourage women, look, find a woman who you want
to be like, kind of who you want to emulate,
who loves Jesus, who loves the Lord. And when you're
looking for that, hopefully you're not going to find somebody
who's a gossip or who's unkind or who has a
bitterness or who shames people. You're looking for somebody who
(31:20):
is gentle and kind and who loves Jesus, and who's
passionate about following him, and who's living the life of
freedom that you picture for yourself. If I could be free,
who would I be? Who would I want to be like?
Pick that person, find that person and share your story
with them, because they don't have to know where you've been,
(31:42):
to know how to get you where you want to go.
The women that I talk to at my college did
not have experience with online pornography, but they were able
to help me grow in so many different ways, whether
that was becoming more emotionally stable because pornography had become
a coping mechanism for me, every kind of emotion, I
(32:06):
went to it. So they were working on that. They
were working on how to have healthy relationships, how not
to be so defensive and angry with people all the time.
They were working on other things that are equally as
important as breaking free from pornography. And so there was
one woman who was my accountability partner, so to speak.
But then I had a team of women who had
(32:26):
surrounded me and were helping me to grow in who
I'm meant to be in Christ. And so you're a
woman going, I don't know who it is to share
this with. And you can always look for a counselor, too.
But find somebody who is where you want to be
and ask her to help you get there.
S1 (32:47):
So the accountability part is very crucial because you're not
doing this alone. They would hold you accountable. How do
you individually, when you're not accessible to that other person
and you're trying to break the chains? You know, it's
not unlike A Christmas Carol. The chain I bear I
made link by link and yard by yard. Marley says
to to Ebenezer Scrooge, how do you break the chains
(33:09):
that you yourself built through practice? This is where the
addiction aspect comes in. And that's why when you talked
about it being a very long marathon, this is the
difficult part of it, because addiction usually says one foot
forward and a couple of steps back, and that's the
pattern of recovery. How did you handle that in your life?
S6 (33:26):
Oh, it's very discouraging at first because you think Like,
you might have a really good day and you're like, ah,
I got this. But it's I mean, think about a
New Year's resolution, right? So January 1st we hit the
gym and we eat right, and we do all the
right things, and then we just keep going, keep going,
keep going. And by January 7th, we're like, I'm out,
I'm done. You know, where's where's the chips? Like, where's
the ice cream? I'm over it. Um, and it can
(33:48):
be the same way when you're, like, wanting to break
free from something and you just kind of gather up
the willpower to delete the stuff off your phone, or
to lock up the computer and to text your accountability partner,
and and then you kind of begin to wane in
that willpower a little bit. And I think the important
thing to remember here is that it is you are
(34:08):
battling a brain that has been rewired and a body
that has been rewired to want this. And so your
job is really to make it as inconvenient as possible.
And so I that's what I challenge women to do.
Figure out what your triggers are because there's triggers for it.
So figure out, um, if it's when I'm really emotional
(34:31):
or if it's a certain time of the month, or
if it's something that I've read or something that I've seen.
And eliminate those and just keep kind of cutting back
until you get into a place where you're not being
as tempted, because that's helpful. And I have a whole
course on that on my, on my site for any
woman who's interested, but a whole course on how to
(34:52):
work through your triggers and to put up appropriate boundaries,
to be able to help yourself because it's not your
accountability partner's job to to fix you or to rescue you.
They're just a tool in the toolkit. Um, and there
are a way to help Grace come into the conversation
and to give you perspective, but you can't blame them
for when you make the wrong choice at 3:00 in
(35:13):
the morning. It's not their fault. You're the one clicking
the links. You're the one opening the websites that it's
all on you. And so, um, making that inconvenient and
putting kind of roadblocks in the way, but also just
abiding in Christ like his. He gives us the power
to fight. He gives us His Spirit, and we are.
(35:33):
We're called to walk in that. And I think so
many times we try to do this without him and
without other people. Like we just try to do it
all by ourselves. And you'll get that New Year's resolution
thing every time. You'll just, you'll go good and then
you'll burn out.
S1 (35:46):
Yeah. Oh, wow. Such wise counsel. You know, again, the
comfort to know that in our weakness, his strength is
made manifest, that we can do all things through Christ
who strengthens us. And if he knows our struggles, and
he most assuredly does, to be able to say, God,
I don't know if I can take this next step.
The ever present God who said he would never leave
or forsake us is there, hears that prayer, and in
(36:08):
that moment provides, as he promises in His Word that
sufficient grace. Why do we sell God short, over and
over and over again? Jessica used an important word triggers.
I want to talk about that when we get back.
We're visiting with Jessica Harris, who's a writer and an
(36:29):
international speaker. She talks openly and honestly about pornography addiction
among Christian women. Why does she do this? Because she
wants you to know that you can find real forgiveness
and healing. And she writes about it in her book, quenched.
That goes right back to John four. I love the
way she weaves that story throughout the subtitle, Discovering God's
Abundant Grace for women struggling with Pornography and Sexual Shame.
(36:53):
So God designs us to be loved. That search for significance,
that God shaped void over and over and over again. Philosophers.
Theologians have talked about the fact that we are made
in his image, really seek out this love, this affirmation,
all of it, put there fingerprinted by the creator himself
so that we find our worth, our value, our significance
and unconditional love in him. He puts those little breadcrumbs
(37:17):
that will lead to him. Why? Because he's not willing
that any should perish. So how much of pornography, particularly
what you know about women in this area of struggle
versus men. How much of this for women is about companionship, loneliness, friendship,
feeling valued that they're somehow creates this sort of artificial
relationship for a person that even if for a short
(37:37):
period of time, you think you have value and worth.
Or is it used rather as a kind of brain drug?
If I can use it that way, that takes you
away from the other things in life that are making
you anxious. I asked this on behalf of the person
who doesn't struggle, but needs to have a heart like his,
and more compassionately understands this issue.
S6 (37:56):
Yeah, that's a great question. It can be both. And
I think that that's up to the the person who's struggling.
And I the way you phrase the question, I just
want to put out there too, that a lot of
times we talk about pornography and we say, oh, men
watch it because they're visually wired. And that's the only
reason that men watch porn. Um, but men can watch
(38:17):
it because they're lonely and wanting companionship, too. And so
we kind of we don't associate it as an emotional
thing with men as much, but it definitely can still
be a struggle on an emotional level for men, and
there's several great resources that come at it from that angle,
because I think for so long we just kind of said, well,
this is what men do, because that's how they are.
(38:37):
But but it's just people sin because people are broken.
And so it doesn't it. It's not like women sin
because of this and men sin because of that. It's
we're people and we are we live in a fallen world,
and that will make us either search for something to
fill a void, or it'll make us run, you know,
(38:59):
away from things and run to other things to find
some kind of comfort. So you can see both in
in women's stories, you can see them. I was just
looking for love. You can see that especially with today's
young women who are exploiting themselves, who are sending images
of themselves to to men like, I just wanted acceptance.
(39:19):
I just wanted love. I just wanted someone to To
love me for who I am. And this is how
he told me I was going to get it. So
you see that. But you also just see where it
becomes this escape. Um, whether that's hardcore pornography, which is
what I struggled with, or erotica or fantasy. It's, it's
a way of just running and and fleeing. And so
(39:43):
there can be all different things that lead people to this.
There's not a formula, you know, it's not like every
woman who comes from a broken home is, you know,
score one point. And then if she's experienced this, it's
one point, you know, and rater on a scale. And
this is how likely she is. And we just we
struggle with sin because we're we are broken and hurting people.
(40:04):
And the devil is so scheming and conniving that he
would take something as beautiful and precious as our sex drive.
That's God given and would find a way to capitalize
on that in a way to lead us astray with
with that.
S1 (40:21):
Jessica, did you ever stop in your quiet moments and
think how upsetting you are to the devil? Because here
you were raised in a Christian home. I mean, it
just makes me smile. What a good God we have.
You're raised in a Christian home, and so he can't
have you for eternity because you have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. And your name's been written in the
Lamb's Book of life. And nothing and no one can
take you out of that Lamb's book of life. So
he can't have you, but he can cripple you. So
(40:44):
he opens the door to this temptation, knowing, and I
think he's wise enough to know what our Achilles heels are.
And he finds them and he goes after them. And
that's different for every single person. He opens the door
for you. You go down this trapdoor, you get snared
for a while, but you're set free. And you must
make him mad as where he lives currently. And I
have to tell you, I think it just makes me
(41:05):
smile to think that God rescued you from the jaws
of his pernicious, evil, damaging plan and set you free
so that he would be able to use you to
talk about how. Listen, that woman at the well drew
her water in the middle of the day because she
was ashamed. She didn't want anybody in the village. They
already knew that she was sexually promiscuous, so she wasn't
going to be there. The women were gathering in the
(41:26):
morning when it was cooler, in the evening when it
was cool. She went in the middle of the day
when nobody would find her, nobody would see her, and
she would be left alone in her shame and guilt
and shame. And who meets her at the well, takes
your breath away, takes your breath away. Do you still
struggle today?
S6 (41:42):
No, no. Um, I it's been a it has been
a several years. And I think for the people out
there listening, the journey of freedom takes a long time.
It probably took me two years of intense mentorship and
accountability to finally feel like I could say no. And that,
for me, was freedom. Like, I feel like I can
(42:03):
actually say no because remember when I was 17, I
felt like I couldn't. So for me to go, wow,
I'm actually this is not my body on autopilot. This
is me making deliberate and conscious choices. And I'm aware
of that now. And I'm doing this on purpose. Or
I'm able to say, no, that felt like freedom because
then it's like, okay, now I'm back to being the
one who's making the choice. That is freedom. Right. When
(42:23):
we're able to make our own choices. So, um. But
even still, I would fall into sin when I didn't
want to anymore. And for me, a lot of my
triggers were more emotional. So when I was really discouraged
about something, it was kind of like a way to
medicate in a way and to not feel so discouraged. Um,
but it has been several years now since I've even
(42:46):
felt the temptation really to to even want to look
at it like it's not interesting to me anymore. And yes,
I got married, but I don't think that that's I
don't think that that's why I feel like, um, there's
a deeper healing that happened. And it's not just marriage
that that made it.
S1 (43:03):
Yes, exactly. I have 30s to the person who doesn't
struggle in this area, what's the most important thing you
want them to know about this problem?
S6 (43:11):
Oh my goodness. Frame the conversation in grace, please. Like
they're not sick, twisted people. We are broken, hurting people.
And we all need Jesus and we all need that
grace and that hope and that freedom.
S1 (43:24):
Could not have ended. On a more marvelous note, Jessica.
Thank you. Thank you again. I'm going to end exactly
how I started. What a brave, courageous, and obedient woman
you are. Thank you for telling your story to countless
numbers of women who, like you, thought they were all alone.
Nobody else struggled in this area, and the enemy had
captured them to the point where they thought, I am
(43:44):
beyond his forgiveness. No, you are not. Jessica reminds you
of that on a regular basis. Please, if you are struggling,
I recommend strongly the book quenched. Listen to Jessica, listen
to what she discovered, and sit next to that woman
at the well and see what she discovered as well.
The book is called Quenched Discovering God's Abundant Grace for
(44:04):
women struggling with pornography and Sexual Shame. The gospel changes everything.
My thanks to Jessica and you, friends. We'll see you
next time.
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