forgiveness

I unfollowed God because life got busy.

My Testimony Part I: The Start of my Journey to Unfollowing God

“My name is Josh Kuhs and my testimony doesn’t start out all that exciting and, in fact, it probably sounds pretty similar to many of yours. I grew up in a big family; I was one of seven kids, both of my parents worked minimum wage jobs and money was incredibly tight. Our parents struggled to give us the same quality of life as our friends but with 7 kids and no money it was at times impossible. We didn’t really hang out with our friends because we didn’t have any money to do anything so we spent a lot of time at home learning how to entertain ourselves. We had one car and my father was the only one who could use it. But as hard as things were sometimes my parents never lost sight of what was truly important, and it was their top priority in life to make sure that we realized what that was as well. I grew up in the Church. My family was a very religious family; we attended church every Sundayand prayed before every meal, my mother taught children’s Sunday school and my father taught the Adult Male Sunday school class. I remember that my mother would direct the Christmas pageant every single year and my father served as a Deacon, as well as an Elder, and also sat on the session for our church and would even preach at our church from time to time. I even remember traveling to these weird local churches in the summertime because my Dad would be asked to be a guest pastor while the other pastors would take a small vacation or break with their families. But growing up in the church for me wasn’t a negative thing and I never felt forced to attend; I genuinely loved going and it became a very important and blessed part of my life. I loved the youth events and the summer camps and I genuinely looked forward to attending them. In fact, one of the reasons that I even learned to play guitar was because of watching my dad play guitar on Sundays and I wanted to play alongside him one day. I truly respected my father and really wanted to be just like him. I was always a pretty good kid; I had stayed away from drugs and alcohol and had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to make some of the bad decisions that my friends were making because I felt like God would be so disappointed in me and I didn’t want to let God down.  So, after High School I was actually awarded a music scholarship to attend the local University and my plan was to study music and eventually become a music teacher. Well, even though I was a devout Christian as a teenager I was not a very devout student and I struggled with my grades; so, I quickly found out that college was a little bit more challenging than I’d expected.  It wasn’t because I wasn’t intelligent enough, I was just lazy and thought that I could do the bare minimum to get by. I wanted that fun college experience so I quickly rushed for a Fraternity and really enjoyed the freedoms that came with being a college student. In fact, I enjoyed those freedoms so much that the University decided to withdraw my scholarship offer after just one semester. So, Here I was as an 18 year old kid who was just kicked out of college and was working at the mall. I knew that I needed to do something with my life and I knew that I really needed some discipline and some direction so I decided to join the military. On Jan 6th 2000, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and shipped out to Paris Island to start boot camp just 2 short weeks later. During the first 8 months, I finished boot camp, attended my combat training, and completed my job school. The military seemed very structured and everyday was a very strict and outlined routine and, to be honest with you, it kind of sucked. I remember our instructors would always tell us to suck it up because life in the military won’t always be this bad, and that once we get to the Fleet everything would be different. They talked as if the Fleet was this made up magical place and to be quite honest with you we didn’t believe that it actually existed. Once I was assigned to my first unit which was located at Camp Pendleton, California, I quickly began to realize that life in the military was much different than it had been for the past 8 months. Now that I was officially a member of the Fleet Marine Force I was treated like an adult and as long as we weren’t training and as long as I showed up for work on time every morning they didn’t care what I did, I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. The great thing about Camp Pendleton is the location because it was literally 45 minutes away from San Diego, one hour away from Los Angeles, and 2 hours away from Las Vegas so there was always something to do. Now, I never lost my faith throughout this time and I always continued to believe in God, I just started to kind of unintentionally not show it as much. I was young kid who was away from home for the first time and I now I had money to spend with no bills to pay. I wanted to fit in and mesh well with everyone. I wanted to be accepted just like everyone else wants to be accepted. We all soon became like brothers and we were constantly hanging out with one another, we traveled the world together, we even went to combat together. I remember really embracing this new found freedom and exploring all of these things that I never experienced before. Here I was as a young 20 year old man with money in my pockets and I was getting to go to places like Thailand, Australia, the Philippines, and Singapore just to name a few and I was truly living life to the fullest. Before I knew it my priorities began to shift and my relationship with God began to fade away into the background. Now, I never stopped believing In God and would always consider myself a Christian but eventually overtime I just stopped talking with God and I stopped caring as much about my faith and it quickly took the back burner to other priorities in my life.  I no longer was waking up on Sunday Mornings excited to go to church, instead I was getting into bed on Sunday Mornings after being out all Saturday night. Now I’m not blaming the military for my fall from Grace; in fact, there were plenty of good men that I served with who were sincerely devout Christians and never once stopped walking in faith and never gave into the things of this world. Many of you here today are active duty military and are actively choosing to make the commitment to follow Jesus with all of your hearts. I regrettably was just not as strong as you or those men at that time in my life.  I never meant to fade or grow away from following God it just kind of happened, Life just kind of happened. I was at a place in my life where I knew who God was but I didn’t know him anymore, I had no relationship with him and I didn’t even think twice about it.  My life just kind of went on and I continued to live it the way that I wanted, little did I know that unfortunately that would eventually lead me down a road to a strand of some horrific life decisions that would ultimately put me on a path to destruction and would leave me hitting rock bottom. 

My Testimony Part II: My Journey back to God 

Now, it was about 4 years into my career when I was introduced to pornography for the first time. And because it was introduced to me by a woman I kind of thought, well it can’t be that bad then and it must be generally accepted by women, too. I remember that I started looking at this website a couple of times a week and then that quickly turned into an everyday ritual. Before I knew it I was searching for even more ways to feed my addiction and I would find myself trying to find ways to watch pornography literally any chance that I could get. I knew it was wrong but I wasn’t hurting anyone so what’s the big deal right?  I didn’t know this then but I truly feel now that pornography is a gateway drug and just like with any drug of choice once it no longer satisfies your lust for it you begin to find new ways to feed your addiction to keep it from starving.  This is exactly what happened to me. Over a period of a few years I began to find that searching the web was no longer enough for me and I graduated into having inappropriate conversations with women which I knew was wrong but once again I justified my actions to myself by saying I wasn’t hurting anyone and it was just talking, so this is completely harmless. It wasn’t long after that those inappropriate conversations that were just innocent words turned into inappropriate pictures.  I’m in no way shape or form proud of this now but back then it was a feeling of excitement and control. It was just a game to me to see if I could manipulate these women into doing what I wanted and giving me what I asked for and every time that I won this game it made me feel powerful and in control. I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that it also made me feel desired and wanted which would also feed into my unquenchable hunger for lust. Once again I knew it was wrong but I continued to justify my actions by saying this isn’t hurting anyone and its only pictures and it’s not like I am actually physically doing anything wrong. But even as exciting as it was to me it got to the point that even that was no longer enough to feed my lust. Pornography turned into conversations, conversations turned into pictures, and over the years pictures turned into actions.   I finally caved and had an affair while I was married. I remember that after it happened I felt so guilty inside and this time I couldn’t justify it at all and I hated myself for it. I fell into a deep depression and my self-esteem was completely shattered. You would think that this would be enough to get me to change my behavior but in fact it actually did just the opposite. Now I found myself needing it more and more until one affair turned into many random and meaningless affairs. No matter how terrible I felt I was continually returning to these affairs because it was only thing that would make me feel good inside, the only thing that would make me feel wanted and desired, the only thing that could satisfy and boost my ego even if it was just for a short while. My emotions were a roller coaster I hated myself for what I had become and I wanted to stop so badly but I just couldn’t. I would beat myself up about how worthless that I felt then I would turn right around and try to make myself feel better by doing the exact thing that I despised so much in the first place.  Now the thing about living a life that you are afraid of being caught is that it is completely exhausting and you will eventually be caught. The bible tells us that our sins will be shouted from the mountaintops and that is exactly what happened to me. My addiction had cost me everything — my marriage ended, my family and friends shunned me, and my children’s hearts were completely broken. I had let them down and I had betrayed their trust. I began to drink heavily to numb the pain and I contemplated suicide on a daily basis, I just wanted everything to be over with. I felt worthless and disgusting and I had finally hit rock bottom.  I remember I was laying on my bed in the spare bedroom of the house uncontrollably crying and just didn’t want to move. I started thinking about where I started out in my life and how far I had strayed from my morals and my upbringing. I thought about how ashamed my father would have been of me and how happy that I was that he wasn’t alive to see how I turned out. This is when God spoke to me. I wish I could say that there was a flash of bright light, a thunderous roar or a burning mattress or something but my miracle wasn’t that extra, God spoke directly to my heart and he said to me are you ready? I immediately hit my knees and began to pray to God for forgiveness. I prayed that he would heal me and take away my pain and that he would restore the relationships that I had destroyed. I heard God speak to me and he asked me if I was ready to return to him, if I was ready to finally give everything to him and to let him finally have complete control and I agreed. You see, I had asked God to help me change before but looking back at it I don’t feel it was sincere, it was more of me telling God that he could have control of everything except this one little thing. I never gave God complete permission to do things His way. I wasn’t prepared to give that to God and maybe it was that I was afraid of what God would actually do with it or even worse that it would mean that I would be found out so that little piece of my life I stubbornly held on to. But this time it was different; this time I was prepared for any consequence that my actions might have caused and I sincerely and literally told God that I released all control of my life, I finally spoke the words out load and said ‘God you have my permission to take it all, to change me from the inside out’. I asked God how he could let me fall so far from grace and he answered me. God gave me revelation and showed me things that I had been blind to before.  You see God didn’t allow these things to happen to me to hurt me but to help me, he knew that the only way that I was going to finally change is if I hit rock bottom. He knew that I had to be the one to finally say that I couldn’t do this on my own. God told me that this was not the life that he had planned for me and that because God is a good and loving and caring father he allowed me learn on my own and to make my own decisions and to learn some painful things for myself.  God wanted me to come back to him with a new and fresh heart, and a true understanding of what his never ending love and grace is. In reality I realized that God had control of the situation the entire time and that he was just waiting on me to stop being so blind so that I could finally realize it. Like any good parent, God let me learn things on my own and then he embraced me with un-judgmental and open arms when I apologetically returned. I realize now that just like many of you I am the epitome of the Prodigal Son.  Since then, I am proud to say that God has helped me to overcome my pornography and sex addiction and those chains no longer bind me. Over the last couple of years I have reestablished my close ties with God and can proudly say that I now once again have true personal relationship with him. God has blessed me in ways that I never dreamed possible. My relationship with my children is better than it has ever been and they too have accepted Jesus in their lives and have even been baptized. And even though after the longest time I felt as If I was ruined and incapable of unworthy of relationship, God has seen it fit to bless me with the gift of more children and another marriage to a woman that has a true heart for God. God has very strategically placed a woman in my life that has her own incredible testimony that includes so many trials and tribulations that had to be overcome, a story that involves her own reckoning with God, a partner that wants more than anything to continue to grow in God’s word together with me. I know that God wants me to share this story to as many people as possible because someone out there needs to hear it, someone out there can relate to this and needs to know that God has not abandoned them and that this is not the life that they are meant to live. God has something so much better in store for them and just like me, he is waiting so eagerly with open arms for them to return.”