I was just browsing through Google tonight, looking for resources on forgiveness when I came across your Precious Testimonies website and got to read FORGIVEN SEX CRIME OFFENDER (The Robert Swift Story).

I just wanted to tell you how much it blessed me. When I was 14 months old I was burned in a house fire and was not expected to live. I had scars on my face and hands, but was really oblivious to it until, at the age of six, I had an extensive operation done to conceal the most obvious scars. After that I began to notice how people looked at me and I began to realize how different I was.

As a kid, my family moved a lot, so not long after the operation we moved to a different town.  I was excited to go to a new town and new church - but also very hesitant because of the realization that I had come to know of my being “different.”

To make a long story short, I met a boy that began to "bully" me ... saying cruel things like "Jesus doesn't let ugly people into heaven," and moments of violence, like pushing me down flights of stairs.

Slowly I began to lose what little I already had of my self-worth.  About four months into this, I "accidentally" stumbled upon some hard-core porn sites on our computer.  Don't ask me why I didn't immediately run away screaming or turn it off.  I don't know why.  Don't ask me why I returned to it the next day...and the next. Maybe it was because I could tell the women in the pictures were not concerned about their faces (which is where most of my scars are). I think it made me feel more valuable ... realizing that there was something of worth in my body...as if I still had a chance, you know?  (I was only seven at the time...give me a little credit).

But, also, being a visual person (though I am a girl), what was once the unthinkable became not only common, but addictive ... and by the time I was eight I had spiraled down into deep sexual sin.

If you are already grossed out I'm sorry ... I'm doing my best to be vague...but its about to get worse.

From the age of seven to nine I had found "opportunities" to see X-Rated movies and view the same type of materials through magazines, doing my best to feed the unquenchable flame of lust that had been so early awakened ... all the while my family being oblivious. To say in short - they had NO clue.

My parents were/are Christians, and as a kid I grew up "cutting my teeth on the pews."  So as you can see, I did my best to conceal my "other life."  Shame was a constant overcast in my life, and I was miserable.

Then one day, I was sitting with my mother, and she began talking about how Jesus came into people’s hearts and made them beautiful on the inside.  In a sheer moment of desperation and holy conviction I told her that I didn't care if I was ugly on the outside.  I wanted Jesus to come in and make me beautiful on the inside. That's how I got saved.

I immediately felt the shame lift and (like everyone first does) started thanking Him and making promises to Him I had every intention of keeping (one being never to look at porn again).

Life was good then. When I was ten we moved.  I was a new Christian of three months, and though I was struggling to stay pure, my promises still held true. I think those three months hold the best days of my life.
 

I'm kinda' at a loss of where to go from here.  I guess it just gets real personal to me...

A couple of months after we moved I became "involved" in a sexual relationship with a family member, and as much as I hated him ... I think I hated me more. I could have told him to stop. I could have kicked or screamed, but I didn't, because in my heart I felt like he was doing me a favor. With my low self-image, I took his actions as a (very sinful) complement that he could find any form of physical pleasure in me.

The "relationship" continued for about two and a half years. The first night it happened, I felt immediate shame and guilt, especially since I also took some form of pleasure out of it, and ended up retorting back into my old "lust cycle."  No one knew except me, him, God, and of course, Satan ... and I was sure God had left a long time ago.

After showers, I still felt dirty and believing that I was "used merchandise."  I coped with my shame by shaming myself more (did that make sense?). It was two and a half years of this cycle until one night I was with my best friend, and instead of "choosing" me (which I loved/hated) he chose her to satisfy his sick desire for lust. And man, if looks could have killed that night, he would have been a dead man!  A few weeks after that he came back, but I wouldn't let him touch me and that was the end of that.

Time has passed and a decade has gone by since my first encounter with porn.  I find that the only thing in life that is constant (other than God) is change.  Can I tell you that I never struggle with temptation and (dare I say?) fall???  I could …  but that wouldn't be the truth.

What I wish - with all my heart that I could do - is save other girls from the heartaches of relationships that won’t get them anywhere!  I wish I could show them the unfailing Love of Christ that fills the holes in our hearts … that heals wounds of the past … that touches and breathes life into our very being!