DISCLAIMER: This blog post is nearly 2800 words long. I spent nearly four hours writing late last night, and it is extremely close to my heart. The first few paragraphs may drag on, but keep reading, things get more interesting. Don't feel compelled to read it all in one sitting.
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Sometimes
I wonder when the turning point in my life will be. I ask myself when I will
finally find the motivation to change my ways and look for a greater path. When
will I put down my phone? When will I regain the childlike innocence I once
possessed and should have held onto more dearly? When will I forget how
precious the good old days were and begin living my life now? I cope using
counterfactual reasoning, the feature of our brains my psych professor defines
as “mentally reshaping the events of our past to help us cope with what
happened.” I should’ve been a better
brother. I should’ve forgiven Ryan Vargas. I should’ve loved my sisters when
they didn’t have a good man loving them. If I had done these things, would
my life be different? Would Ryan have taken his finger off the trigger? Would
my sisters have been confident in their identity? What could I have done to help my friends in their
distress?
Could I have made a difference?
I
feel like my job has always been to make a difference, and I’ve been failing at
it for about eleven years now. Story time: I don’t remember the specifics.
Rebecca and I were out on our back patio riding scooters, perhaps 2007, when
she was two and I was seven. It sounds silly but I had been seething, maybe
unconsciously, about Becky taking over the role of “cutie” in our family. I was
used to being doted over by my sisters, mom’s friends and pretty much everyone.
Rebecca had stolen my limelight. She made some innocent comment that day when
we were out scootering, I think she was copying me somehow, and I turned and
gave her the meanest glare my face has ever, past or present, delivered to
another human being. I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know if little
Becky even knew what happened, but I remember her wide eyes to this day. It shocked
her. She was two years old. Because I still remember this, I have the feeling
that I never let go of it. Either I’m still mad at Rebecca all these years
later or I still feel bad for what I did, so in order to kill two birds with
one stone, I’m going to take them both out right now. As I write this, I’m
praying for the healing and anointing of the Holy Spirit to descend upon me as
I say these words aloud: I choose to forgive Rebecca Andersen for removing me
from my pedestal and becoming the newest member of the family for everyone to
dote over. I forgive myself for giving my sweet sister, Rebecca, an evil glare
in an attempt to blow out her flame of innocence that so many people found
inspiring and adorable. I choose to forgive myself for the resentment I adopted
aimed at Rebecca and I let go of any holds that the enemy still has on me
today, tempting me to look down on Rebecca for her continued innocence.
Back
to my main point: Making a difference. I didn’t become aware of this objective until
the first game of my eleven-year-old season on the baseball diamond, 2012. I learned
a new word that day. I remember it vividly. The field we were on, the weather, I
even remember the kid’s name that said it to this day. “She wanted to go out,”
my teammate started. “But I couldn’t find my sweatshirt, so I was just like, f***
it.” My head whipped around and I looked at the laughing twelve-year-old. I had
no idea what that word meant. Following that incident, I don’t remember if I googled
the word without a parent’s consent or if I asked a friend or sibling what it
was, but somehow I found out that it was the worst of all words, maybe even
worse than God’s name in vain. It was only then that I realized I was dabbling
in something dark; the baseball world. To this point while writing this, I’m sure
I have heard more swear words and negative put-downs than I could have ever
imagined existed.
I
have uttered three swear words on the diamond in my eight year career, and only
one of them was heard by a teammate. The first bad word I ever said was during
practice, freshman year 2016. It had been a long week and our coach was hitting
us fly balls in the outfield. One of the very first ones hit the ground and
took a bad hop, skipping past me quickly. “D***.” No one heard it except God
and myself. That same practice, not much later (it was a rough day), me and two
teammates were standing in the outfield as our coach hit balls to the other
players. “He's about to f*** it up,” one teammate said, laughing. I looked
to right field and whispered under my breath, almost prayerfully, “Don’t f***
it up, man.” Suddenly I became aware and I looked around to see if anyone had
heard it. My teammates were oblivious, so I was safe from them, but I became downcast
and realized what had happened to me and the monster I was evolving into. I
stayed ultra-alert the rest of the season, at least until summer ball, game
one. I had pitched the game of my life against Walla Walla and we had a 1-0 lead
going into the seventh and final inning. I gave up a leadoff triple and the
lead and my coach pulled me. Walking back to the dugout I uttered one more
profound profanity. “S***.” Unfortunately a teammate heard it this time and my Mr.
Goody Two-Shoes Catholic reputation went out the window in a blink. I decided
that day that no one else was ever going to hear me swear again, and with the
exception of my father (keep reading), I have stayed committed to that promise.
I
think its made an impact on my teammates. Several of them apologize when they
swear in my presence. Others defend me from negative words that may be headed
my direction. My brothers protect me, not because they don’t think I can handle
it, but because they care about me in a special way and admire my struggle
against the grain. So, again, I am going to use definitive words and say now,
aloud, my intentions for moving this mountain in my life. I choose to forgive
myself for not being diligent and for succumbing to the devil’s temptations. I
accept the fact that those days in which I sinned and abused the gift of
language are over and helped me become the person I am today. I forgive my
teammates, past and present, for exposing me to the darkness of the world and
attempting to suck me into it with them.
My
third mountain I would like to address is going to make me very uncomfortable.
It’s one of the most vile ways satan has pierced my innocence, and it’s the
thing about me that I work on the most to get out of my life: lust.
My
battles with lust began probably around 13 or 14. At first, it was just an
article in the newspaper or a letter to Dear Abby that I probably should’ve
avoided, but around 15 years old is when I began to notice there might actually
be a problem. My eyes would linger a little too long in the sexualized Sunday
ads. There were billboards in town showcasing women in basically underwear. I
started noticing female joggers. And then I found Google. The search engine
from hell. I knew it was wrong for me to think these things and hold these
glances, but I wasn’t proactive and I didn’t have someone to turn to that I
felt comfortable with. My mom probably would have answered my questions, but
she’s always been so holy and I didn’t want to disappoint her with my dirty
questions about sex and these emotions I was just starting to feel. I didn’t
receive “the talk” until I was sixteen, and believe me, I was fully aware of
how things worked by then. What I didn’t overhear from my teammates, the Body Book
told me, and what I couldn’t figure out, Google solved. Ultimately, when I was
sixteen I went to a fair in Lynden, WA with my brother-in-law’s 72-year old farmer
dad, and he told me EVERYTHING I might need to know about anatomy and what goes
where. He taught me all the lingo and effectively doused my curiosity: all by
just pointing out body parts on a female cow. Gross.
Those
two years were rough as I tried to discover who I was in the eyes of God and
why he would ever want a tainted son like me. I remember crying out, banging my
fists on my bed as I wallowed in my lusts, looking at what I had become and the
people I had let down. I had read self-help books, the entire New Testament, been
to confession a thousand times. Lust still owned me. It wasn’t like I was
indulging in hardcore porn or watching naked people, fortunately for me it
never escalated to that. But those more dangerous things were always lurking at
the door, just waiting for me to open it. I was just lustful enough to get by, to
satisfy my sexual appetite, but never enough to be that bad. At least I’m not
watching porn, I’d tell myself. At
least I’m not masturbating. I could be a lot worse.
I
became a man the day I turned sixteen. I decided I wasn’t going to go on with
lust controlling my life and eating at my soul. I was set free at the driving wheel
and I sure wasn’t going to stay in bondage to this dreadful, degrading sin. I
began attending morning Mass every day and receiving the Lord in his fullness. I
met a friend at Mass, too, a girl my age who was going through her own
struggles at the time. We both needed a friend. A holy friend. We went every
single day for a year, often talking for long periods of time afterwards about
our faith. I noticed my lustful thoughts began decreasing dramatically at this
time. They were still tugging at me, but the burden felt bearable, because now
the Lord was taking a tiny bit of it every single morning. The ultimate turning
point in my life was going on a retreat last summer, right when I turned
seventeen. I discovered two things there: first, two young men who I feel absolutely
comfortable telling anything to, and second, an authentic identity in Christ I
never knew existed. I was challenged to peel my masks off and expose my true
self to others, and I dove in, no holds barred. I told those young men all of
my struggles, desires, hopes and dreams. I told them how hard it is for me
knowing I will never have a wife to come home to, kids to wrestle with, or
sleepless nights to enjoy. I’ll never get to walk my daughter down the aisle,
watch my son pitch, or know what it feels like to commit your life to someone. Instead
I will be baptizing others’ children, marrying off my friends to their soul
mates, and retiring to bed early with a precise schedule outlined for the next
day.
I
went a short time wondering if my struggles with lust were the reasons I really
wanted to be a priest. Perhaps I don’t
deserve a wife, if I can only look at women as objects. Sometimes I’d think,
because of what I’d done, that I deserved to live my life single and joyless.
What
I discovered is that no one should live like that. The only reason God calls us
to a vocation is because he knows it’s best for us. He wants us to be happy
serving Him, not punished for our past mistakes, living a boring life in
solitude. I now believe that the priesthood is my true calling, and that with
faith, discernment, and a lot of outside help we can get there.
The
writing in the last few paragraphs may have left you shocked. Many people were
not aware of my struggles with this sin, but in the end, that’s all it is. It’s
sin. Is it gross? Yes. Perverted? Most definitely. It’s also just sin. It’s not
special, it’s not jaw-dropping, heck, it’s hardly even worth talking about, but
I felt that it was something I needed to put out in the open for the wellbeing of
my soul. It may have made you uncomfortable as you read it, it may have lowered
your opinion of me, but I embrace that. I would rather you have an accurate low
opinion than an inflated high one. I’m not trying to say I beat lust or that I
have some one-size-fits-all approach. Lust is a daily struggle. The word “struggle”
or “battle” implies that there are both wins and losses, and with sexual sin that is true as well. The takeaway
I’ve ultimately drawn out of my struggle is that the Lord is much better of a
fighter than I am, and so I'm going to invoke his holy name in rebuking the power of this sin over my life. Lord, I ask for forgiveness for letting lust captivate my thoughts and letting my passions take precedence over you in my life. I forgive myself for the actions I've committed in agreement with lust and I ask forgiveness for failing to do what is right. I choose to forgive my father and other leading examples in my life who have not shown me what it means to be a pure man.
My
final mountain I am trying to move is my dad. I am not going to degrade him and
I am not going to tell you stories about the things he’s done to me and my family,
because that’s not my place. My father filed for divorce from my mom and moved
out in November 2017. What he didn’t see in her, I have no idea, but he took
off and that’s when all the mayhem started. Me and Rebecca were forced by court
of law to go back and forth from our house to his, every other weekend and one
night a week. We both absolutely hated it and tried anything we could to get
out of it. He said he wanted the best for us, but Becky had panic attacks every
time and my grades starting suffering from the loss of study time. There is a lot
more story to tell but it’s not mine to relate, so I will just say this: in the
last six months I have discovered my truest friends and most honest allies. I
have found the people who actually care for our safety as well as the people who
couldn’t care less. I’ve discovered that satan will go after the people you
love most when you feel helpless and absolutely desperate. And you know what
else I’ve discovered?
The
Lord doesn’t want us to walk alone. He is strategic and he will take care of
his children no matter the cost. He might not blow your enemies out of the water
right away, but you can be sure he’s comin’. He doesn’t take lightly that his
precious children are getting manipulated and lied to by the enemy. He will
fight for us, and he will win.
Everything
I have written here is just building up to the fact that we need each other. I,
Jacob Andersen, cannot move mountains. I can’t convert my whole team, I can’t
do away with my lusts at the snap of a finger. I’m just not strong enough. To succeed I will need each of you,
tugging on the rope of virtue in the same direction as me. I might be in a
rough spot right now, struggling in seemingly every way possible, but we, you
and I, need to remember that it’s not about how we fall. It’s about how we get
back up. And the only way we can get back up is with the assistance of our
Lord, who feels our pain and desperation and wants nothing but the best for us.
He
willingly accepted holes in his hands because he knew that, someday, Jacob
Andersen was going to find himself in need of saving in a deep, dark hole of
his own. He accepted a piercing to his side, close to his heart because he knew
the tears I would cry in my bedroom and he wanted to be as close to me as
possible. He accepted a crowning of thorns, degrading himself in return for the
lustful glances I would degrade women with. Don’t you see? My mountains matter
to him. I fall and fail and lose in every sense of the word, and still he
cares. My mountains matter, and he’ll help me climb them.
Love
people.
Jacob
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