Chapter 9

Vulnerability Breeds Vulnerability

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Pornography is a tricky thing that not many women want to talk about. In fact, most people assume that women don’t struggle with pornography and have zero desire to look at it. I’m here to tell you differently. Those assumptions are false. Pornography may be more heavily viewed by men, but women also view pornography and are drawn into its evil traps on a daily basis. When I was growing up, pornography was something you were forced to seek out if you wanted it. You had to rent a movie, buy a magazine, or go to an establishment, but today it’s very different. Today it’s almost like pornography finds us.

The first time I remember seeing porn was when I was a child, around the third grade. We were visiting some friends of my parents, and I found a magazine in the bathroom. First of all, who keeps a Playboy magazine in the bathroom when you have children in your home? Whatever. I found it, I saw it, and it made me feel different on the inside. I could tell instinctively, even as a young kid, that I was looking at something I wasn’t supposed to be seeing, yet I was feeling something I’d never felt before, and I didn’t understand why.

The next time I remember seeing porn was during college. I was dating a guy who suggested we watch it together, and at the time I didn’t see any reason for saying no. The warning flag of conscience I’d felt so strongly as a nine-year-old didn’t wave so furiously at me anymore. Pretty soon, watching porn with him became normal to me. But one day, when I was over at his place and he was away at work, I found myself watching alone. And in that moment, I was struck with knowing it was wrong. I could tell it had some sort of hold on me.

Over the next few years, I didn’t struggle with this desire too much, and after I started following Jesus and got married, it was basically nonexistent. I do recall one time trying to watch a scandalous movie on TV. But it was airing on one of those channels we didn’t subscribe to (probably Cinemax, or as I’ve heard it called before, “Skin”-emax), so it was barely audible or visible through the static. I don’t know why I wasted thirty minutes of my night listening to the grossness of what was happening behind all that fuzziness. But I have a feeling it’s because this temptation was tapping into a desire that had been stirred up in me at a young age. And unless I fought it—fuzzy TV or not—I would find a way to gratify it.

But there was also a more recent time—more recent than I’d like to admit—when I felt that old familiar allure again. It wasn’t that I was necessarily wanting to look at porn; I just wanted the feeling that viewing it would produce in me.

All the variables were right for me to seek out some sort of comfort. Aaron was out of town, all the kids were in bed, I was teaching at church the next morning (yes, you read that right!), and my stress level was rather high. I would like to say I have no idea why I reached for my computer, but I know exactly why I reached for my computer. I’m a wretched sinner who, left to myself, will believe the lies of my heart—if I can just have that, I will finally be happy—that tell me something other than God will be more satisfying to my soul. It is so strong sometimes. And because Satan knows my past, knows my struggles, knows what will bring me down, well . . .

To search for pornography at our house, you have to know how to beat the system. You can’t just type in “naked” and get what you want, because we’ve installed safeguards all over our computers. In fact, as I was writing this chapter, I was looking up a statistic on women and porn, and my computer basically wouldn’t let me. I was restricted from that content. It was doing its job well today!

Praise God, right? We’re raising children in a time of history when pornography can be accessed so easily, sometimes by complete accident. Two of our kids have accidently stumbled upon a picture on the Internet that I would describe as soft porn, and our other two kids were shown porn by another kid at the beauty salon. I was in the other room, and this still happened to my babies. I was right there while another kid showed them a video on his mom’s phone. Porn has its way of finding you, and it always aspires to devour you—which is why we’ve put up these safety nets in our house—on all our computers and devices. So when I tell you I was needing to beat the system, you see what I’m talking about.

But I was lonely. And tired. And stressed and everything.

And I started searching.

But which words could I possibly type into the search engine that wouldn’t be flagged and emailed to Aaron, who sees all the searches from our computers? (And don’t worry, a couple of his close friends see all his searches as well.) Which words would be generic enough to sound reasonable but still take me to the websites I wanted to reach? I was basically a thesaurus that night, looking for words that were kind of bad, but not too bad.

I felt weird doing this. I knew it was so wrong. Yet something inside me craved those salacious images, more than I desired doing what was right. My flesh was determined to win this battle, and I had become its willing, though conflicted, accomplice. At one moment, I was hoping Aaron wouldn’t just randomly call to see how I was doing, wouldn’t prevent me from probing deeper for what I wanted, but then I was half hoping he would call so I’d be forced to stop, snap myself back to what I knew was right. At one moment, I was nervously hoping my kids wouldn’t wake up and need me for something, but then I was half begging that one of them would call out and interrupt this insane searching.

I know it’s gross. I’m embarrassed about it. But that’s what I was doing. (Are you sin-shocked yet?) That’s what the battle was like in my heart that night. Ever fought one of those battles yourself? If not to gratify your flesh with porn, with something else?

Thankfully (yippee to the safeguards!), I never found the right synonym to help me carry out my wishes. But when nothing had worked, I then began to be flooded with guilt. I mean, I hadn’t technically succeeded at failing, but I’d tried really hard to do it, desperate to relieve my stress, fear, and loneliness by running back to the place I went all those years ago to manage these kinds of emotions without needing to involve God. My flesh had wanted what it wanted so badly. And I had been close to going all the way over the cliff in search of it. So very close.

I lay in bed and cried myself to sleep, overcome with guilt and shame for what had gone down during those thirty minutes. The war for my affections had been raging that night, a moment where I realized how far I would go to meet my own needs. It was eye-opening for me and utterly terrifying at the same time.

By the next morning, I was no better. If possible, I was even more broken over my sin, and so mad at myself. How did this happen? I’m a pastor’s wife. People invite me and trust me to speak to the women at their churches. I love Jesus with all of my heart. I have four kids. I’m happily married. I have a great sex life. It didn’t make sense.

Except it makes perfect sense. I am a desolate sinner, in need of so much grace and mercy. I sin every single day in all kinds of ways: jealousy, pride, anger, take your pick. But this one was different for me—not the normal, everyday sin I’m used to battling. It was a ghost from my past that I thought was gone forever, and yet it had come bellowing at me the night before. I wish my ghost from the past was that I gossiped too much, or wanted money too much, but instead my ghost is sexual sin, such an intimate thing. And having been haunted by it again, my head went on a roller coaster of emotions. I felt so defeated and crushed. Because if I would do that, then what else would I do when Aaron was out of town? Did I still love God? Was I giving in to all of my earthly desires? I know it sounds drastic and a bit overkill. But when you struggle with something in your past and you give it over to God and it shows up again, you get scared. Scared of the way that this sin could grab a hold of you and take you down. If you don’t get scared, then you should.

Are you with me?

Do you know what I’m talking about?

Actually, if I know anything right now, I know as you read my story, you are thinking of your own past sin struggle that sometimes creeps back into your world when you least expect it. It’s that one thing you hate that you used to do or think about, and you pray to God you never have to deal with it again. It could be an affair you had, the way you lied and cheated your way to the top, the binge eating you used to do, the way you used to vomit every day to keep the figure you worked so hard for, or the words you used to tear everyone down around you. Whatever it is, I get it.

And God gets it. In fact, He talks about this exact struggle in the Bible. Paul said to one of the New Testament churches, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17). Our flesh and the Spirit inside of us are waging a war for our souls. Some days this war is visible to the outside world. You might choose to flirt with a man at work, knowing good and well you have a husband and three kids at home. Some days this war is over internal things that aren’t as obvious to those around you, like choosing to bite your tongue when you’re angry, instead of lashing out at everyone around you.

We all struggle. And we will always struggle for as long as we’re here on the earth, even as God continually works within us to show us the incredible blessings and benefits of surrendering to Him in obedience. Because of Jesus, we can win these battles, one at a time, day after day.

But part of winning is letting others in on our struggle.

And the sooner, the better.

That’s why the next morning, I found my friend Annie at church and gave her the “we need to talk right now” look. We tucked away into a classroom, and I spilled it all. It was overflowing from me, and I needed to get it out. I needed to share this sin and struggle I had endured last night. I needed the words to be in the air so that someone else could be there with me. The fear of keeping it all to myself was too great. If no one knew, then it could happen again. If no one knew, it would happen again.

So I replayed the events of the previous night to Annie, just as I’ve shared them with you, except with tears streaming down my face. Was it embarrassing? Of course it was. Not many people talk about it, which makes it even harder to say out loud. I felt like a fraud, a fake, as if God could never use me again—certainly not as a teacher to other women that morning! (I know, drastic, but it’s how I was feeling.)

But my sweet friend Annie never faltered when I was telling her this. Her eyes never looked at me with sin-shocked disgust. She never portrayed that she was repulsed by me and my actions from the night before. She only looked at me with the eyes of a friend who knows that Jesus is bigger than my struggle.

She spoke truth over me that morning, easing the shame I was feeling. She reminded me that I was a daughter of the King, and that nothing I’d done could take that away. She repeated to me the exact truths I would soon be teaching the women at our church that morning—that my identity was not based on anything I had done or hadn’t done, but on everything that Jesus had done for me. She reminded me of a verse I’ve already shared with you, but it’s one of my favorites so I don’t mind repeating it: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1)—meaning, the struggle that you’re walking through, the sin that keeps creeping up, Jesus died for that. It’s not a surprise to Him. It didn’t get left off the list of sins that He bore on the cross. It was there. That sin was taken care of. We still fight like crazy not to submit to it again, but we have complete confidence that when we fall, when our flesh wins, we are forgiven—“no condemnation.” We are still valuable to the work of God. Our sins don’t define us; only the blood of Jesus does.

Annie told me all of those things that morning, before we prayed together and celebrated what Christ had done for all of us. Then I stood before the women of my church that day and taught them with a confidence that was stronger because of the love that my friend Annie showed me when I opened up to her about my sin and my struggle. She listened to me, she validated my confession, she encouraged me to repent, and then I walked out of that room confident in the forgiveness that God offers me. She was never once shocked by my sin. Disheartened and broken, for sure. But not shocked.

Thank God I’d been willing to be vulnerable.

Something beautiful happens when we’re vulnerable.

In disclosing my struggle to my friend that day, I was so extremely vulnerable before her. It wasn’t the first time I had shared hard things with her, or that she had shared hard things with me. We have a history together of being able to do that, so I was fairly confident how she would react. I knew she would be a safe place for me to land.

But becoming vulnerable with friends in many cases can be downright scary and intimidating, to say the least. What if you open up and it goes bad? What if you invite someone into your pain and they don’t carry it with the tenderness and dignity that you think it deserves? The risk and fear of exposure is always there.

Plus, it’s exhausting. How much is too much? What do they really want to know? When your neighbor asks, “How was your morning?” do they really want to know that you spilled an entire carafe of coffee on your new rug? Or that your dog ate a hundred-dollar bill? Or that one of your kids peed in the bed the night before? Or that you wish you were on a Caribbean island with no kids at all? (All of those things may or may not have happened to me before!) Do they want to hear that? Nope, they don’t. So we say, “I’m fine, thank you.”

When you meet with your girlfriends, and they share about a woman at the office who just left her husband for another man, do you dare open up and tell them your daydreams involving yourself and the waiter from your favorite coffee shop? When someone says they missed you at church or some other event, do you tell them the truth—that you were having one of your anxiety attacks and couldn’t seem to make yourself leave the house?

You see, we are scared of opening up. What will they think? What will they do with this information they’ve learned about us? So we convince ourselves they wouldn’t understand. We convince ourselves they’d be weirded out by our struggles. Or we convince ourselves that nobody really cares enough to want to hear about it anyway, even if we were willing to say it.

But being vulnerable is not (as we sometimes think) the same as being helpless, defenseless, and weak. Vulnerability within a relationship is what keeps you close. Being vulnerable with someone says to them that you value them, that you welcome them into your life. All the parts. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Yet of all the positive, redemptive things I could say about the value of being open and honest with others, here’s the biggest one I’ve learned over the years . . .

Vulnerability leads to vulnerability.

When you’re vulnerable with your friends, you give them permission to be vulnerable with you. When you make the awkward first move and share your true feelings, you set the tone for the relationship.

Of course there will be times when this goes bad and feels weird, but finding friends that you can be vulnerable with is worth every ounce of fear you might endure. It’s also worth every amount of trial and error. If you open up to a friend and it goes worse than you expected, then maybe this isn’t the kind of friend you need to be in a close relationship with. Maybe they aren’t quite ready to carry this weight, or maybe they’ve just never experienced vulnerability between friends before and, therefore, they don’t know how to handle it.

But being vulnerable with someone has a way of breaking down walls. It has a way of bringing people together. Do you ever wonder how you can spend one week with someone on a life-altering trip and become better friends with them than with someone you’ve known for ten years? It’s because you allowed them into your world. You shared your fears, hopes, dreams, and maybe so much more together. You were vulnerable with them. And now they’re friends for life.

I have girlfriends to whom I can tell anything—and I do mean anything—and they will listen, direct me to truth, and fight with me to the end. Amy and I have been friends for over twenty-five years and have walked through lots of life together. Maris, Laura, Kim, Annie, and I have all been brought together through our husbands’ making music together. Amanda, Tiffany, and I met in an intensive discipleship class at church and became fast friends. Noelle and I met and bonded over adoption. She’s heard me at some of my weakest parenting moments, and I’ve been let into some of her lowest moments as well.

These ladies get me. They know me. I can send them a message that says I’m struggling with something, and they won’t text/call/email me back with a cute little saying about picking myself up by my big-girl panties or something like that. Nope, not at all. These girls speak truth to me. They tell me who I am and Whose I am. They remind me of the hope we share in the gospel. They remind me I’m in relationship with a Savior who has never left me and never will.

I can be vulnerable with these friends because I trust they love me. I know they have my best in mind, and I know they are tethered well to the truth of God’s Word. They aren’t going to feed me any nonsense about being a better person or whatnot. They’re going to love me and feed me truths from the Scripture. That’s it. Our individual vulnerability has led to our collective vulnerability—and to friendships that are healthy, supportive, challenging (in a good way), and real.

Now, this didn’t happen overnight for us. You can’t expect friendships like these to do that, where women are vulnerable and open with each other. These kinds of friendships are developed through seasons: seasons of togetherness, seasons of sorrow, seasons of rejoicing, seasons of pain. Instead of going through those seasons by ourselves—alone and guarded—we’ve gone through them with our stories out in the open, with our struggles a common topic of conversation.

I think many women have been hurt in friendships before, and that’s what keeps us from opening up. Maybe you did open up that one time to a friend, somebody you thought you could trust. But lo and behold, she wasn’t trustworthy and your heart was damaged. Your vulnerability was used against you in the end. I’m not saying it can’t happen.

I’m wondering, though, if you could try again . . . if you could give your friendships another chance . . . because when you’re real with people, you provide them a great opportunity to love you and point you to the truth. But when you’re fake with people, hiding your junk and putting on a perceived look of perfection, you rob those around you of the honor of showing you love and pointing you to Jesus.

Wouldn’t you love being that kind of friend for other people? Maybe your own fear of vulnerability is what’s keeping you from it.

If there are two words I’ve heard more than any others when people describe me or talk about my podcast, The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey, it’s that I’m (1) authentic and (2) vulnerable. What I suspect people feel when they’re listening to the show is that they are getting the real me, and that I’m willing to expose myself to them in an accurate way.

I sure hope this is true of me. But I need you to know, this did not happen all at once. Since you are this far along in the book, you’ve seen all the insecurities, self-doubt, uncertainty, and lack of self-confidence I’ve walked through. I lived so many years trying to be something I wasn’t. Trying to earn people’s approval. Trying to look like a “good Christian girl” during times when I don’t know if I even was a Christian, and even in times when I was.

In fact, being a new believer was the time in my life when I was the most scared to death of what people would think of me, if they only knew the real me. I was never vulnerable and authentic with anyone. The perceived cost was too great to me. What they might possibly think about me was too much for my weary soul to bear. My identity—in my mind, at least—was still too tied up in what other people were saying or thinking about me. And whenever that happens, when that’s the way you see yourself, you protect yourself at all costs.

The problem was, I couldn’t keep it up. The persona of having everything together became too heavy to carry. But what I found was—when I was able to be the real me, with all my failures and successes—I became more free in Christ. I was able to point people to Jesus and show them all the ways He had forgiven me. I found in being vulnerable that I was bringing glory to God by showing all the ways that I needed Him.

And what’s even cooler than that (if I can even imagine such a thing) is that by being willing to open up with others about the parts of my life that are hard, God used my vulnerability to make space for others to open up as well. Then the goodness of God just started to multiply all around me, with God getting more and more glory through more and more people.

And this same incredible experience is available to you . . . to everybody.

Recently, I was interviewing a woman on my podcast who is currently in those hard parenting ages with her kids, two of which have special needs—making it doubly hard, triply hard. I thanked her for opening up and sharing with my listeners and me about her struggles, her pain, her successes, her failures, because I assured her she was allowing room for someone else to open up about their own struggles as well. When we bring ourselves fully to the table, it says to others that they are welcome as well. God uses the stories of His people to change the world. It’s true. Your story can change the world, but you first must be willing to share it.

Now, when I talk about being vulnerable, I’m not saying it’s always some huge revelation you need to unload on somebody, dredging up another wretched skeleton from your closet. There are times and places for that, sure, and that’s definitely a big part of what I mean. We can’t keep that stuff locked away or else it will tear us up from the inside, spawning all kinds of other sins and struggles and, worse, restricting our freedom to glorify God through what His grace has done within us. But in order to experience maximum freedom, vulnerability simply needs to become our lifestyle—being vulnerable about the day-to-day. When my friends hear that I’m having a hard time loving my husband or kids today (yes, we all know this actually happens in life!), they see I’m a real person, just like them, and pretty soon we’re all coming clean on our everyday struggles and areas of weakness and times when we don’t always make the best decisions.

It’s why we as moms are drawn to blogs entitled, “I’m Not Making My Kids’ Lunches This Year,” or “Five Ways to Screw Up Christmas for Your Kids,” or “The Day I Forgot to Feed My Kids Dinner.” All of those articles scream to the reader, “I’M A NORMAL MOM AND MESS UP ALL THE TIME TOO,” and we love that. We love seeing the realness in someone’s life.

You might be one who’s scared to show people your realness. You’re perceived as someone who always has it together, who’s never missed a school party, who’s never late to work, and who always makes her bed. What happens, though, when you feel as though you aren’t meeting these crazy expectations you’ve set for yourself? What happens when you fear that someone might find out you don’t, in fact, have it all together? You are scared of anyone knowing the truth because you feel comfortable in this perceived perfection life you’re living.

Well, here’s my tip of the week for you. If I was putting the best spin on this whole “perceived perfection” thing, I’d say it’s what you do to avoid letting other people down. Because you never let people down. Because you’re “perfect.” (Which we all know is impossible because no one’s ever been perfect besides Jesus, even though many women are trying their hardest to be Jesus 2.0, and it’s not working.) But I guarantee, you will let people down less often when they expect you to make mistakes than when you’re maintaining the illusion of being practically flawless. You’ll have a much easier time giving people grace, and you’ll learn that nothing in life is better than receiving grace.

When I finally began to be vulnerable with my friends about my past, the difference was both life-changing and life-giving. As they confirmed the work God had done and was doing in my life, I began to feel more freedom to be me. “If they only knew” became “they know it all.” And you know what? That’s the best place to live in the whole world.

By opening up with Annie about the struggle I’d had with porn that night, it made Satan need to work a whole lot harder trying to find an opening to exploit in my heart like that again. And when Annie has opened up to me about struggles in her own life, she’s been able to see new patterns of victory develop as well. But the next struggle is always right around the corner, and we’ll need each other’s help in fighting that one too. By staying authentic, by being vulnerable, by being free from putting on an act, we can pick ourselves up from our mistakes, talk about them, and move on with new confidence and strength—because of Jesus.

We need to fight for each other. Believe in each other. Listen to each other. Pray for each other. When we become women who own our stories and become vulnerable about our lives, Jesus’ grace and mercy take center stage. And when Jesus is at the center instead of our perfectly polished selves, we can stand before Him, our husbands, our children, and our girlfriends, let out all of our junk, and know He will get the glory, not us.

Being vulnerable—sharing our need for a Savior—points people to Jesus and not ourselves. And He’s who they need to be looking at, not us!