Today an innocent question got me doing a lot of thinking. The younger sister of an old friend asked me, “May I ask why you married him?” She wasn’t talking about my current (and wonderful) husband. She meant the mistake that I made years ago. (Let’s refer to him as“X”)

That is a question that I have asked myself over and over. Why did I marry him? There are many difficult answers to this question.

I married him because he needed me.

I married him because I wanted the family that I never had.

I married him because I thought that I could help him change.

I married him because I had already slept with him.

The first three reasons are internal reasons. My childhood was rough, so I was looking for internal needs to be satisfied. I told myself that he could fill those needs.

The last reason is external. All my life, I was told that good, Christian girls only slept with one man….their husband. So in order to be a good Christian girl, I married the one man that I had slept with. I knew that I had done things a bit backwards, but I thought that was the only way to rectify my mistake. You see, because I needed my internal needs to be satisfied, I gave in to the external pressure. He made me feel loved. He made me feel wanted. So I did it. And once I did it, there was no going back because I knew that I was already damaged goods. “They” (every Christian in my life) had convinced me of that.

Once people started guessing that I was sleeping with X, they started judging and ostracizing me. The Christian non-profit group where I volunteered told me that my services were no longer needed. I was no longer put on the church nursery schedule. People who used to greet me on Sunday mornings disappeared. And when I finally stopped going to church, no one called. Had they called, maybe things would have been different. Had they told me that they still loved me even though I made a bad choice, maybe I wouldn’t have married him. Had they reminded me of God’s grace and mercy, maybe I would have ran to them the first time X hit me. But they didn’t and X made sure that I realized that he was the only person who “truly loved me” and that he was the only person who would “ever want me”. They told me I was worthless.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am NOT blaming anyone for my choice. I made the choices that I made and I bear the responsibility for them. But I am angry. Angry because the one place that should have been Jesus in skin for me wasn’t. I am angry for all the other girls out there who “they” have made feel like damaged goods.

I can understand firsthand why people sometimes view Christians as judgmental and uncaring. I can also understand how easy it is for people to turn away from Christ because of how His followers sometimes act.

What I can’t understand is why it is so hard for some Christians to offer the same grace, love and forgiveness that Christ offered to them.

I pray that someday, God will allow me show love to someone who is like I was…someone whose actions may be unlovable, but who just desperately needs to be loved…a girl who needs to be loved on, understood and offered grace. What I would give to wrap my arms around that girl and tell her that she is precious. That she is valued. That she is loved, not just by God, but also by me. That she doesn’t have to make the same mistakes that I did.  That she is NOT unforgivable.