My 16th year. That’s when life started throwing some unfair punches. On the outside, life was fairly good. I went to a “Christian” school, had a “Christian” family...we were a crazy but fun bunch. I went to church several times a week, had a " Christian" boyfriend (who is now my hero of a husband!), made good grades, played basketball every minute I could, and loved Jesus with my whole heart. Life was decent and fairly uncomplicated up til then. By this time, my dad had seen success in the business world for sure. We were not lacking in anything from a material stance, and had plenty to share. Sure, we had issues. Don’t we all?! We’d experienced heartache and trauma over the years, but we were all still intact…still a family….so it couldn’t be that bad, right? The truth is, I was broken and hurting. If I would have known that pain and hurt would be there some 14 years later, I would have dug myself a grave, quite honestly. I felt dark and it seemed to only get darker. Life moved at a fast pace, but so did hurt. Busy just made life bearable....I became a pro at busy.
Here's where it started: Computers were a new thing to our house. I remember the AOL lady that greeted me when I logged into my email account. Albeit ancient now, it was the coolest thing back then. Our family had a couple computers and we could use them anytime we needed. I was probably pretty naive to the trash that one could really find on the internet. Little by little, I started to see mannerisms in my dad that seemed weird. Habits seemed out of the ordinary and something in my spirit
*knew* what was going on. My hacker amazingly talented IT boyfriend
confirmed my suspicions. Even though my heart already *knew,* the
confirmation of it somehow made it a reality. This was a reality I didn’t
really want to face. It’s like my family was imploding right before my eyes.
What do I do? What do I say? Do I just keep quiet? How could I tell my mom?
What in the world does a girl do? When you openly let sin in your life, it
knows no boundaries. It is a slow fade. Untamed, it will consume your
everything. I knew the issues were beyond a porn addiction.Things started making sense. Behaviors made sense. "Work trips" made sense. Late night surfing "made sense." It was all linked back to this one thing. The one thing that no one knew...but me.
Prior to all of this, I was a Daddy’s Girl no doubt and everyone knew it. I loved our time together. I loved his crazy, spontaneous self. We had LOADS of fun together and tons of memories to prove it! Our bond was tight. However, after this the tides were turning. I tried to pretend I didn’t know. I tried to act “normal.” I tried to not get bitter…that didn’t last. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t talk to him. Our relationship as we knew it was different. My heart was hard. I could feel it getting harder. What started out as sadness grew into anger…deep rooted anger. 16 passed, 17 passed, I was now 18. I was an emotional roller coaster on the inside and "Put Together Krista" on the outside. Only Zac knew. God love that man. There are not many 16 year old boys that could love their emotional girlfriends through that trash. He did just that. I look back at that time and think, he was such a life line to me. Without his support in that time, I would have checked myself into some kind of institution. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. Needless to say, I love him something fierce. He is a gift of God’s grace to me.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. 2 years had been long enough. It was time to ask
the hard questions. I remember the restaurant. I remember the booth. I could
point it out to this day. Everything on that day
is engraved in my mind.
