Drawing from the Wrong Well

Hey friend. I’ve been meaning to share this testimony for years and this is it.

I got saved at a very young age but had no clue about the importance of having a relationship with the One who thought I was to die for.

My dad left when I was 13. He’s departure caused havoc in my soul but God is making me whole as he is continuously healing my soul one fabric at a time. His departure made me stumble into a well of relationship idolization, looking for true satisfaction in the wrong places.

I have recently had a similar encounter as that of the Samaritan woman by the well with Jesus. He approached me while I had been continuously blindly drawing from the wrong well in an attempt to quench the thirst of my deeply rooted insecurities that prematurely sprouted after my dad left. The love of Jesus pursued me even when I was messing up and for that I will be forever grateful.

Young lady out there or dude, if you think my story might be similar to yours, read on!  I have a testimony to share with you.

Sweet 16! Or is it? At this age, I met a “sweet”, young handsome man over WhatsApp through my cousin. This happened in July 2013. Very charming man. He was the captain of the rugby team at his school. Let’s call him K.

He pursued me. He gave me attention. He told me I was beautiful and went crazy over my body shape. He told me I was intelligent. These are words I hardly heard flowing from my dad’s mouth even when he was still around.

But this is where the cookie crumbles. K had a long-term girlfriend! Poor girl seemed to be head over heels in love with the guy. Nonetheless, K continued sliding into my dm’s.

I wasn’t interested in him at the time because my gaze was on someone else I myself was madly in love with. I never really questioned why he would intentionally pursue me on the side while he was in a serious relationship. My mind couldn’t reconcile the fact that the “knight in shining armor” who was whispering sweet nothings into my ear was selfish. Let me rephrase that, the guy who was whispering sweet nothings into my ear was a cheater.

K and I stopped talking in December 2013 only to reunite mid 2014. By the time, he had already broken up with the girl. In June 2014, we hit the ground running and entered a long distance relationship.

In 2013, I made a vow to God to have sex after marriage. Few weeks down the line in our relationship, the topic of sex sprung up. I made it clear to him that I’m celibate but he wouldn’t budge. He made it clear that he wanted to have sex. There and then, I saw a red flag. “You can leave now. Staying here will lead you to compromise your godly values!” a quiet voice said.

“But he loves me, he loves my body, he says I’m beautiful, he says I’m intelligent. He affirms me like no one ever has before”, I responded.

K became an idol. I couldn’t live without him. I worshipped the ground he walked on. I never looked at any man the way I looked at him. He was my “god”.

Fast forward to January 2015. Clear instructions would drop into my spirit from God to end the relationship before the month of June. I never took it seriously. Instead, I stopped pursuing God, stopped reading the Word and went on with my life. Recipe for disaster I tell you!

Months went by with the same instruction dropping into my spirit but I would still shove it under the rug.

Finally, the month of June came. We were going to physically meet, spend time together and fulfill the “fantasies” we shared over the phone. One of those fantasies was having premarital sex.

The last thing on my mind were STIs, pregnancy and sexual soul ties. I had been burning with lust and I figured this is it. I was like to myself, “Well, K is basically my future husband. Having sex now isn’t really a sin because we will eventually get married”, or so I thought.

Allow me to tell you that God works in mysterious ways. It might seem insignificant to you but to me, what God did next was incredible!

My menstrual cycle was consistent throughout the year only to delay in the period were I had planned to sleep with K. When I told him over the phone that, “Babe, I can’t wait to see you in 2 days (Tuesday) but unfortunately I only got my period now so we can’t have sex”. I could sense the disappointment in him. I accused him of only dating me because he wanted to take my virginity. He denied it (obviously!).

Tuesday came and we met at his dad’s place. We engaged in unprotected oral sex because I felt like I owed him since I couldn’t give him what he wanted. Let me put it this way, I wanted to appease this “god” even at the cost of putting my soul in danger of a sexual soul tie. I felt that there was no way he could give me so much “love” and attention for free. So I risked contracting STI’s to please him, to make him stay in my life, to indirectly let him play my dad’s role of affirming me.

Few days down the line, the paw-paw hit the fan. The number of calls and texts from K dropped drastically. The attention he gave me decreased exponentially. One time as I spoke to him over the phone, I got a word of knowledge that he was cheating on me. I asked him about it. He paused for a few seconds and said, “No baby, I’m not cheating on you” but I could sense that something was not right (took me a century to realize that).

A week later, I saw a girl all over his Facebook wall. I texted her and she said that she was K’s girlfriend. I was beside myself. My greatest fear came to fruition. Dear friend, I cannot even begin to explain the amount of pain his selfishness put me through. It took me about 4 years to heal and get over him.

The break-up occurred close to my grade 12 final exams. I remember preparing for them with a shattered heart. My textbooks were drenched with tears every night. He was already in varsity, had a scholarship and life just went on for him. On the other hand, I had fall 20 times and get up 21 times just to secure a place in university and get funding. All this with a broken heart.

The Lord is good. I spent that exam period getting close to Him like never before. I prayed like my life depended on it. I dusted myself up and continued walking. The Lord welcomed me with open arms. It felt like that season of my life was a re-enactment of the parable of the prodigal son.

Here’s the truth I think certain people tend to shy away from after a messy breakup. You don’t just fall out of love with the person who cheated on you over night. I still was very much in love with K even months after I found out that he cheated because I had made him my god, my daily bread, my vine. He was the “water” I thought would continually quench the thirst of my deeply rooted insecurities. But poof! He was gone. Just like that! I was sure then that my life would forever be characterized by men I’m deeply in love with walking away leaving me with a broken heart. Let’s give this phenomenon a word, “rejection”.

Looking through the lens of my ex boyfriend’s betrayal, his “You’re so beautiful” looked like “You’re so ugly. I was doing you a favor by dating you”. His “I love you” looked like “I ‘lust’ you. I just want to get into your pants”. His, “You’re intelligent” looked like, “You’re not that smart. You’re nothing like the Einsteins I bump into daily in varsity”.

To cut a long story short, the year 2016 arrived and my future looked promising (well it still does). I had performed exceptionally well in my final exams, got a place in university in a distant town and a full bursary! All glory to the most high God! A chance to start over again! A clean slate right? Well, not really.

I kept on struggling with a flu that kept re-emerging frequently which was quite odd. In June 2016, I had a panic attack in the library because I was quite convinced that I was HIV positive. In the previous year I had engaged in unprotected oral sex and so that opened a wide window to STIs. It was too late to even take a prophylaxis because the deed occurred almost a year ago. The only way I could finally get closure was doing an HIV test at the university’s clinic.

I couldn’t handle knowing my status so I chose to move on with my life and “endure” the anxiety caused by uncertainty of my HIV status.

A month later, in a geography lecture, we were discussing demographics and the topic of how HIV rapidly spreads came up! There and then, I made a decision to go test at the clinic. It was the hardest decision to make but I had to do it in order to avoid going insane.

The day of my clinic visit arrived and I was beside myself. I had prayed the entire time that I’m not HIV positive. Because I struggle with anxiety, I spent the whole night googling people who tested HIV positive after one unprotected oral sexual encounter.

As I walked into the clinic, it felt like my heart was about to jump out of my chest. I received some counselling before the and I was literally trying to mentally prepare myself for a positive result. The nurse proceeded to prick my finger and push out some blood onto the test material. A few minutes later, the test results were ready and she wrote them on a paper. The “few minutes” felt like a decade!

As I looked at the paper, my test results were negative and to this day I am thankful to God. I’ve heard stories of people who contracted HIV after a single sexual encounter. I could have been part of that statistic. I felt like I was given a second chance in life. I give God all the glory, praise and honor.

My ex-boyfriend, K tried his luck months and years after we broke up to worm his way back into my life. I had to stand firm and appreciate the 2nd chance God had given me. At times, it was hard resisting his calls and text messages but I eventually got to a point where I blocked him on social media platforms altogether.

Today, I still walk in celibacy as a way to worship God. I call celibacy “worship” unto God because the Bible says that we should offer our bodies as living sacrifices unto the Lord for this is our spiritual act of worship. It is worship because it shows complete surrender in the face of temptation.

Temptations are inevitable. The Son of Man Himself who was fully God and fully man was tempted in the wilderness. This is why it’s important to bring challenges like “daddy issues” and every broken part of your soul at the feet of Jesus because the enemy roars like a lion looking for someone to devour. When we are honest about our shortcomings to the Lord, praying over them frequently, that is an act of being sober [well balanced and self-disciplined], being alert and cautious at all times.

After I broke up with my ex, my well of “satisfaction” ran dry in an instant. The water meant to hydrate the parts my dad left dry when he abandoned me instantly evaporated right before my very eyes. My soul became a desert.

But here’s the thing, throughout the relationship with my ex, I was a desert! There was no water (for my dry soul) to begin with, I was seeing an illusion. And that my friends is how the devil works! Through deceit and tricks. He alters your perspective about something bad, makes it look good and entices you with it.

Nothing and no one can take the place of Jesus in your life. Only He can grant you water that will quench your deeply rooted thirst. The water (the Word) that will heal the broken parts of your soul comes from Him. Not a relationship.

Don’t get me wrong! There’s nothing wrong with having relationships. Idolizing creation over the Creator is where the problem lies. The moment a person in your relationship puts you in a position to choose them over God’s precepts, then something is definitely wrong.

The Lord has made Himself evident as Yahweh Rapha in my life. My dad is still out of the picture but the Lord is still healing the father wound in my soul in various ways even through his Word. I’m not bitter anymore about it. I just realized that my father is a broken individual bleeding on others but even God can restore Him and heal the broken parts of His soul.

Jesus delivered me from a sexual soul-tie with my ex. He’s renewing my mind daily by affirming me and reminding me of whose and who I am. He has helped me forgive my ex. The Lord has given me peace about the situation.

If you’re going through a break up, surrender the broken pieces of your soul to Him. By His stripes, you are healed. If you’re struggling to change destructive thinking and behavioral patterns, surrender your mind to him for renewal by meditating on His word. Transformation comes through the renewal of your mind. And if you have daddy issues, He is Abba Father. He loves you with an everlasting love. That’s why He sent His Son to die for you. You’re precious, you’re fearfully and wonderfully made. You’re God’s masterpiece. Your name is written in the palms of His hands.

And most importantly, if you want to give your life to Christ, the Bible says that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

God bless!