Andy's Testimony

I hope that they're telling me the truth that this is a safe place, but I doubt it. And surely, if I share the mistakes I've made and the person I've been, I'm going to get fired from this church. Those were the thoughts that raced through my mind as I stood outside of my first step study meeting in March of 2015. I wanted to stay hidden so badly, but for some reason, God was pushing me to address the chaos in my life, but I would soon find out that this was how God wanted to change my life and to show me just how deep his love and grace is for me. Hey, forever family, I'm a grateful believer in Jesus Christ. I struggle with anxiety and depression, sexual addiction and grief, and my name is Andy. I was raised just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and a wonderful home is the middle child of three brothers. My parents loved us dearly and provided a stable, loving home. Now, my parents weren't perfect, but I can honestly say that they did the best they could with the tools that they had, especially considering their upbringing. Both of my parents grew up in homes with abusive alcoholic fathers and a great deal of pain and dysfunction. And while I can see now how much my parents upbringing influenced our family system, the way my parents loved my brothers and I, despite the negative examples they had growing up, blows me away, and I'm forever grateful. Mom and Dad made sure we grew up in church and I found Jesus when I was eight years old. But even though I knew Jesus and had a stable family, hurt, pain and dysfunction don't discriminate. Growing up, I remember feeling like I must somehow be a little defective. I wasn't as skinny as my older brother. I was never as cool as some of the other kids and as early as I can remember, I had this fear that I was just this uncool fat kid that people didn't really enjoy. They just tolerated. I learned that my parents seemed to love me the most when I got straight A's and behaved well. My parents also set the expectation early on that my brothers and I had to go to college

no matter what. That way we could get a college degree, get a better job than Dad did, and make more money than he did. Now I know that my parents had really good reasons for that expectation. Neither of them went to college and believed that it would set us up well to succeed in life. This expectation would shape my idea of success and how I could try and make my parents proud. I was able to do better than my brothers in school, which felt good, and I started feeling like I always had to make the great. But I found out that I couldn't always do it perfectly. And when I failed, it reinforced the belief I carried that I just wasn't enough. In fourth grade, after cheating to get A's on a semester's worth of spelling tests, I was asked to test for an academically gifted program. I went through the testing and I was admitted to the program for my fifth grade year. My parents were incredibly proud of me, but I felt like a fraud that was in way too deep to come clean. I was now seen as the really smart son, and it felt like I had no choice but to live up to that. It was also around this time that I was introduced to pornography by my uncle. It was the summer before third grade, and I had no idea how that moment would come to shape my life, but that formed the bedrock of my sexual understanding. I walked away thinking that pornography's fantasy represented real intimacy, that it's okay to consume people like this, but that it needs to be secret. I'll never forget my uncle telling me not to tell anyone. I was eight years old, and I was given something that no eight year old kid should have to hold. In fifth grade, a friend of mine started choking one morning while eating her breakfast at school. As our teacher panicked and ran out of the room, I walked over and performed the Heimlich maneuver, which saved your life.

This sparked a whirlwind of praise and recognition, finally, maybe I did have value, but things didn't go how I thought they would. The friend I saved rejected me when I asked her out. My brothers made fun of me, and the kids at school started bullying me. Even saving someone's life didn't win everyone's approval. The most incredible thing I had done in my life became the thing I never wanted to talk about because it always made me feel like there was nothing I could do to be seen as enough. So I went back to finding my identity and my performance. My seventh grade not much had changed in the lives I believed I still felt unlovable, uncool, and unwanted. I thought that maybe if I just had more friends or the right stuff or a girlfriend, then everything would be fine. and been rejected by since kindergarten were wrong about me. It was around this time that the seeds of pornography planted years earlier started to bloom. I was hanging out with a friend of mine one night in his basement when he turned on an explicit movie. It felt exciting and it seemed to sue the part of my heart that longed for intimacy and acceptance by the opposite sex. After that, I started searching around my house for anything pornographic and I found some magazines in the garage. I would go to them whenever I felt lonely or depressed. They never rejected me in a strange way they made me feel better about myself. What started as an exciting curiosity would quickly develop into a habit that I would structure my life around. Throughout the course of high school, I tried desperately to gain acceptance. Fortunately, some of the popular kids liked my sense of humor and became friends with me. Sure, some of them simply called me the fat kid instead of learning my name, but that didn't really matter to me. I had found belonging and they weren't calling me anything I wasn't already calling myself. By my final semester at high school, I had a 4.0 GPA, I was on the student council, I had been a captain on the football team and I was well liked by the right people. Plus, I had pornography to deal with my insecurities, anxiety or stress. Yet, I felt a profound sense of emptiness inside and for the next 7 months I spiraled downward. I started drinking and partying hard during this time and it

all culminated with my first sexual experience happening in a very shameful and public way. I thought I'd hit rock bottom and I started to ease up on my drinking and partying and all this reckless behavior would be forced to stop a month later when I started attending a private Christian college in Missouri that would kick me out if they caught me drinking. College was a difficult time for me. The environment at the school I attended was pretty legalistic and judgmental and I spent my time there walking the fine line of trying to live this reckless college lifestyle while trying to keep up my image as a good Christian. That way I wouldn't get kicked out. I'd already believed up to this point that it wasn't okay for me to fail but at this college I learned that if people really knew the things that I struggled with I would be completely rejected so I got really good at hiding all of my struggles in my pain. I started dating someone for the first time and I eased up on my partying and alcohol usage during my first 2 years but after we broke up I fell back hard into partying and alcohol to deal with the pain and rejection. My last 2 years of college were riddled with an escalating addiction to pornography, a growing dependence on alcohol and a long string of unhealthy relationships that led to a lot of sexual brokenness and shame. But something else happened that really surprised me. I got involved with the Baptist Student Union. I took on a role with the student leadership team there and I started to grow a lot in my relationship with God. Eventually I was asked to start leading worship there something I never thought I would do or wanted to do but I said yes because I enjoyed being able to serve as needed and it felt really good to be needed. During this time I also met two men named Kyle and Jeremy. Kyle led the Baptist Student Union and Jeremy was a local pastor and they both poured into me and saw a value in me that I never believed was there. I began to trust these men and I started sharing some of what was really going on with me. Rather than them rejecting me like I thought they would they simply loved me where I was at and walked with me through it. Their patience and their grace allowed me to start growing in my relationship with Jesus as I spent time with them but I wasn't willing to live with radical honesty. I was living a double life and I felt like I was in too deep. When I graduated college in 2013 I struggled to find a job even though I now held two degrees and graduated with honors. I ended up working at Bass Pro Shops in Branson, Missouri for close to minimum wage. I was frustrated that my plan to find

a great job, make more money than dad and get married wasn't being filled. Kyle asked me at that time if I would volunteer to lead worship at the Baptist Student Union over the next year. It seemed like Kyle was encouraging me to start pursuing ministry as a vocation and so I told him that I would volunteer until I found a real job. You see I never wanted to be a pastor or a worship leader. Full-time ministry didn't fit into the plan that I had made for my life but over the next couple months leading worship became one of the greatest joys in my life and something I found a lot of fulfillment in. And then there came this moment where I realized that from And maybe God wanted something different and better for me that I just couldn't see. I made a commitment to trust God with the plans for my life and to walk through the doors that He opened for me. If God wanted me to pursue ministry, I'd do it. I also started recognizing how much my double life was killing me. I stopped partying after I noticed myself beginning to mix alcohol and pain pills. And how if I kept on that road, I'd become the same type of man that my parents grew up with. Soon after I applied for, and I was accepted for an internship position at a church in Arkansas. And after about six months, I was hired as a part-time youth pastor for a ministry called The Landing, which is a part of something called Celebrate Recovery. That's right. I was hired into recovery. I was beyond excited to be working at a church, but my past of poor choices and struggles were weighing really heavy on me. I had stopped drinking and pursuing poor relationships, but I still clung to my first drug of choice, pornography. I felt like a giant hypocrite who didn't deserve to work at a church much less with students in a recovery ministry. And I believed that I would be fired if anyone knew my past mistakes. And it was at this time that Rodney, my new supervisor, asked me to join a step study

with Celebrate Recovery that he was leading. I wondered if I should just quit right there and get it over with. I wasn't sure if this program really was going to help me, but God was giving me an open door to step through. It's really hard to put into words how strongly God used that step study in my life when I first stepped into it at 23 years old. Rodney never once judged me for anything I said in that group. In fact, not a single person to my step study judged me for my past mistakes or failures or current struggles. You see, before starting to work through Celebrate Recovery, I never felt safe to share my struggles in a church setting because I always thought that no one would understand. But through the process of Celebrate Recovery, I started to learn that I'm not alone and someone always understands. I started to see real hope and actually found freedom from pornography for the first time in my life. But more than that, I learned all the reasons why I ran to pornography or alcohol or relationships in the first place. I found healing for the wounds that were the cause of my dysfunction. This before tells us to openly examine and confess my sins to myself, to God, and to someone I trust. And that was particularly impactful for me as I faced the guilt and shame of my past. Through the inventory process, I began to see the reality of my story. I saw how my performance drivenness and people pleasing developed as a way to survive growing up. I saw how my exposure to porn at a young age saddled me with a burden that no 8 year old should have to hold. I saw how my alcohol usage was a desperate cry for an insecure man to find belonging and escape from my shame. My choices were my choices, but they happened for good reason. God was showing me that my old strategies for life didn't have to stick around.

So I didn't just write it down. I was able to share all of my deepest secrets with my sponsor, Tim. And rather than feeling judged or condemned, God showed me such grace in such a real way whenever I finished sharing my inventory, Tim simply said, "Thanks for sharing." And he prayed with me. I learned that I can't examine all my ways and test them and return to the Lord. Step 9 helped me to offer forgiveness to those that had hurt me, but most of all, I learned how to forgive myself. I learned in such a fresh way how great God's grace is for me. My shame is not my identity. Jesus bore my burdens so I don't have to keep carrying them. He loves me no matter my past and he loves writing a new future for me. Since entering recovery, I've watched God use and change and grow me in ways that I never thought he would or could. I finished up leading my eighth step study. I get to sponsor several men and after leading the landing at Fellowship Rogers Celebrate Recovery for four years, I now serve as the ministry leader for Celebrate Recovery at Fellowship Fayetteville, which I think is one of the funniest jokes that God has ever told. I've watched God use my story to show others how gracious he truly is as he recycles my pain and my fears. always holding me in the palm of his hand. And you know, he really does desire to know me more regardless of how broken and messed up I am. On January 13th, 2018, I married my best friend Julia. We met after I got to fellowship and I started serving in the landing with her. Both of us walked through step studies before we were married. And I'm beyond grateful for the foundation that's given us in our marriage. The way we both feel safe, be invulnerable with each other. The way we're both so much more aware of our emotions and the way we both have an incredible forever family around us. December of 2020, we were blessed with the birth of our first child, our daughter, Harper. And in March of 2022, we welcomed our son Hudson into this world. I'm incredibly thankful to have the tools of celebrate recovery as I enter parenthood. And I honestly don't know how anybody made it through raising kids without recovery. I'm also so grateful that Harper and

Hudson have the opportunity to find hope and healing before Julia and I did as they grow up in celebration place in the landing. God has graciously shown me through parenting that there's still work he plans on doing in my heart and that he's not giving up on me. It's also deep into the gratitude my wife and I have for what celebrate recovery has given us. We're definitely not a perfect couple, far from it actually, but we are learning and we are forming our family around Jesus. This past January marked 10 years that I've been in celebrate recovery. And while I'm healthier than I've ever been in my life, that doesn't mean that the last 10 years have been struggle-free. You see, going through this process doesn't change the fact that I am a broken person living in a broken world. But what it does do is give me the tools to deal with my old destructive cycles so that I can live life in a new and healthy way as I lean into God and others. And I don't know what I would have done without that as new hurt and pain has happened over the past 10 years. On July 4th of 2018, my older brother was diagnosed with leukemia. My little brother was diagnosed with skin cancer about a year later. And then my father was diagnosed at 55 with an incurable degenerative disease that cost him his job and normal mobility. Then COVID happened and it forced us to shut down right after our new celebrate recovery celebrated its one-year anniversary. That same weekend we found out we were pregnant with Harper. 2020 flung me into a deep depression as I wrestled with feeling like a failure as a leader, being the only one of my siblings to make it to 30 without a cancer diagnosis, and figuring out how to be a parent for the first time. Hard is an understatement. But what's amazing is how God used what I learned in celebrate recovery and the incredible relationships that I've made here to keep me moving forward. I've walked through another four-step study since then as I've actually led them. I've kept going to OpenShare, meeting with my sponsor and serving. I even started to go counseling for myself. I've learned that no matter what my title might be, I never graduate from being a participant in this process. I may be 10 years in, but I still need this and that is a good thing because life doesn't pull punches. I'm so grateful to say that I stand here healthier than I've ever been in my life. I just celebrated a little bit over eight years of freedom from my sexual addiction. I celebrate 11 years from alcohol and two and a half years ago, I started dealing with my compulsive overeating and I've lost nearly 40 pounds. I am so thankful that God has led

me to celebrate recovery and I can honestly say that the man standing here right now is a completely different one than the guy that walked into that step study all those years ago. Celebrate recovery has completely changed my relationship with Jesus, my family, and the way that I approach life's hurts and wounds. I'm not perfect or put together, but that's okay because Jesus died for imperfect people. It's still a daily choice to surrender to him, but I know in my heart now that in his strength, freedom and healing is possible, not just for others, but for me too. If this is the first time you've stumbled across celebrate recovery or maybe you just find yourself in a tough spot in life, I want you to know that it's not a mistake that you're here. God knows your story, your wounds, your baggage, and you know what? He loves you exactly where you're at, but he also loves you far too much to leave you where you're at. Jesus desires to enter into our weaknesses because in our weaknesses his power is made perfect and I pray that you'll give him the chance for him to show you just how much he loves you. it doesn't matter where we've been what we've done or what's been done to us. Jesus desires to do away with our old lives and live a new life of freedom and hope in and through us. It simply takes us trusting him at his word and accepting the help he offers. We say often it's celebrate recovery. Don't quit before your miracle happens. If God still loves me, He still loves you. And if He can change me, He can change you too. Thanks for letting me share.