On a cold winter night in 1994, in the grip of a decades-long addiction to porn and illicit sex, I began my typical ritual of acting out sexually. I sat in a familiar parking lot of a XXX bookstore, unusually troubled by the routine I was about to perform even though I had carried it out too many times to count. I had a beautiful wife at home, but she was the last thing on my mind.
Less than a block from the porn shop sat a century old cathedral. Without warning, an impulse to set foot in that house of worship overwhelmed me. I walked toward the edifice, hiked the tall steps, and opened the monolithic oak doors. I sat in the back row of pews, he silence was terrifying. In that space, I reconnected with something I had lost–my true self. The part of me that wanted more than compulsion, shame, and despair.
That evening was the beginning of the end. Only a few months later, my wife caught me in a lie, and my double life was completely exposed. Read more
Sources
- Michael John Cusick in Huffington Post
- Image: Covenant Eyes
Michael John Cusick is an ordained minister and is the author of Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle (Thomas Nelson, Inc.).