Truth Behind the Fantasy of Porn

by Shelley Lubben

  The next couple of days I stressed out really badly over the placement test but God got me through it and finally the day arrived. Praying and believing for a second chance at education, I walked into the military education center and valiantly took the test.

  And you know what?

  I PASSED THE TEST!

  The college counselor informed me that I was at college level for reading and writing and only in math was I at pre-algebra level. I was shocked beyond words.

  Pre-algebra? How is that possible? I wondered.

  I barely held back tears in front of the lady while she handed me a catalog of college programs to look over. Too overjoyed to read through the list, I simply chose journalism. I loved to write and I had been writing since I was a child. I thought about the book I wrote in fourth grade. I thought about the B+ in journalism I received in high school; that and Speech were the only two classes I ever received good grades in.

  A few clicks on her computer and suddenly I was officially signed up for journalism, and then she informed me about government financial assistance programs. I about fell off of my chair when she told me the government would pay for my tuition, books and even daycare. Furthermore, I learned that I could get student loans with no credit check to help support my family financially while I attended school full time!

  No credit check? I gazed at her in amazement. I thought it was too good to be true. I pinched myself and then asked if she was sure about the information that she just gave me.

  “Of course I’m sure, I’m the guidance counselor.” She smiled.

  Excited beyond words, I quickly drove home, shared my elated news with Garrett and made him take me to the military mall to buy me school supplies down to No. 2 pencils. Then I made him take me to the eye doctor to get a pair of new glasses. Oh yeah, I completely transformed from pitiful recovering alcoholic to professional college student over night!

  Nothing would stop me now, I promised myself!

  My first day at Pierce College in the fall of 1998 was so bizarre. First of all, there were no kids. Second of all, I wanted to learn. Thirdly, nobody knew my past.

  Perfect.

  I opened up my book in Spanish class and laughed at how easy it looked. I already knew Spanish pretty well so it was just a matter of figuring out the reading part. I especially loved to show off my Spanish skills in front of the other “white” folk.

  “Hola mis amigos, me llamo Shelley.” I even had the accent down. I lowered my head and smiled as I silently thanked God for the Mexican bars. Funny how a Spanish class made me thank God for a horrible time in my life. God truly was working all things together for my good like the Pastor taught me from Romans 8:28:

  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

  The class ended and I was off to English. I couldn’t believe how much I had forgotten from junior high, the last time I paid attention in school. From predicates to indirect objects, I instantly fell in love with the English language. I began to write powerful research papers, one of them titled, “The Manic Depressive Temperament and the Creative Artist.” Unlike the other young students, I wrote out of personal experience. The teacher loved it and I got an A!

  The next paper I wrote was even deeper. Due to my powerful revelation of how real God was, I wrote a paper titled, “The Proof of God’s Existence.” The class was stunned when they saw all of my intensive research, which included my own findings from a telescope I bought to observe the stars and moon every night. What an amazing time that was with God. He spoke to me profoundly during the writing of that paper and told me that someday He would use me to prove to the world Who He really was. I held tightly onto that dream.

  My next class was Math 60, the lowest college math class offered. Ugh, I thought. I absolutely loathed math down to the numbered squared root! The elderly one of the class, the only thing I could relate to was the decimals. The old hustler in me smiled when I saw the dollar signs.

  Eyebrows lifted.

  Overall, my first day in college was absolutely unequivocally the best day of my entire wasted life and I was ready for more! That is, until the homework piled up.

  The reality of research papers, math assignments and Spanish homework began to hit me while trying to recover from alcohol and take care of Tiffany and Teresa and cook dinner every night. I started to hate the eggshells I made my family walk on!

  But I persevered and at the end of the first quarter I earned a 3.73 GPA and made the Dean’s list. Amazed at myself, I called my Dad and told him I got an A in algebra. He was especially shocked since he was the one who suffered greatly while trying to make me understand math in high school. Maybe it was the fact that he was trying to teach algebra to a teenage alcoholic.

  But I digress.

  Overjoyed and on top of the world, I continued on in my quest for greatness. With God by my side and true self-love for the first time in my life, I was determined that nothing would stop me, not even my pesky family.

  The new quarter began and I finally got to take my creative writing class. I quickly slipped into a chair in the back of the room and got out my No. 2 pencil and college lined paper.

  Desperate from years of blocked creativity, I couldn’t wait to start writing. The teacher instructed us to write every day in a journal the entire quarter and explained that we should write whatever came to mind.

  That night I let it go and boy did it flow! From a horrible childhood to my horrific past in porn, the words poured out of me like a wild rushing river. With no thought of the teacher, I wrote down every exploited moment or escapade that came to my unrestricted mind. The poetic writer in me was being revived from sudden death as a child and I felt so incredibly alive. Swirling words and crashing creativity, I discovered I was a colorful potent writer!

  Now if only my family realized that I was Shakespeare! Between my extremely needy children and a nagging husband who wanted me to go to bed with him every night at 8:30, I thought I would die!

  “I’m a creative writer! I can’t possibly go to bed at 8:30. Leave me alone!” I scowled and told him to put our little one-year old monster to bed while I went back to writing. The mad scientist in me had been awakened and no one, not even blood relatives could stop me.

  It was my time to soar, I thought firmly.

  Anyway, Garrett was raised in a good family and attended Christian schools his whole life and didn’t understand me or what I was going through. He was a kind man and wonderful supporter but he couldn’t give me what I needed most: approval. I needed approval from God first and secondly, I needed approval from myself. Something I had never done in my 30 years of life.

  As I approved myself and soared into greatness, it was not without great struggle. I worked tirelessly and pushed myself beyond human levels I didn’t know existed. Up all night on cans of Diet Coke, I worked on and perfected assignments until 3:00 a.m. and then woke up again at 6:00 a.m. to feed my daughters. I became a machine. But I overdid it and fell back into depression and started having horrific nightmares again. Attributing it to stress, little did I know that my writing journal was actually a human can opener.

  Maybe quitting my anti-depressant when school started wasn’t the greatest idea, I thought. So I began to take my medication again, but not even Zoloft could stop the hand of God from extracting the demons locked deep inside of me. Horrible memories and evil attitudes, my journal would prove powerful as one of the greatest releases of human hell ever recorded.

  God was faithful in ways that I never would have imagined. Unfamiliar with His mysterious ways, I fought the hand of God and dove straight for the medication and alcohol. But God would have His way and help me beat my demons. On February 14, 1999, my fourth year into recovery and wedding anniversary, I inevitably became pregnant.

  I was livid to say the least. I hated Garrett so much that I hated him until nothing was left and then I re-hated him again. I yelled and blamed him for the pregnanc
y since he didn’t keep his end of the “withdrawal” deal. The night of our fourth wedding anniversary, Garrett and I drank too much champagne and evidently this did not affect his ability to reproduce.

  I hate him, I thought. Because of him, I am going to lose everything, I fumed.

  I did not want to be pregnant whatsoever. All I wanted was the 4.0 GPA and to succeed for the FIRST time in my life. For the rebirth of my life to be ripped away from me after all of my hard work, I loathed the air Garrett breathed.

  Then I got the bad news.

  When I woke up one sick morning and puked my brains out and took a pregnancy test and it read positive, I wrote the following cruel words to Garrett in my journal on February 28, 1999:

  Dear Garrett,

  I wonder if you know what you have truly done to me. I feel devastated, unimportant, raped, violated, guilty, broken and most of all unloved. I feel sick. I feel raped. I have never been so violated in my life. You stole something from me. You stole ME!

  I know I am worth more than the way I was treated on February 14. Someday I will be with someone who loves me but until that day I will sadly exist in your arms and hopelessly devoted to someone who doesn’t know what love is. You are not my hero anymore.

  Full of hatred toward Garrett, I became distant and even more focused on my course work. I shoved my family completely out of the way and at that point, it was all about me. If I had to suffer and be pregnant, everyone was going to suffer with me. That was my horrible attitude.

  I tried with every ounce of strength to ignore my pregnant condition and earn the 4.0 I lusted after. But unfortunately, I became too sleepy and sick to pay any attention in class. One year after I began the greatest self-discovery adventure of my life, it was completely snatched away from me. I had to drop out of college.

  I hit a new level of depression and couldn’t and wouldn’t get out of bed.

  Who cares anymore, I thought. I figured God was punishing me for past and current sins so I might as well just lay in bed while He whipped me to death.

  Then God had a talk with me one early morning.

  “Shelley,” a gentle Voice woke me up, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

  He reminded me of His past faithfulness and that He was working all things out together for my good. He asked me to trust Him and to lay down my life for my family. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Only God knew what I truly gave up in that moment.

  Months went by, but I still struggled with alcohol. I had to give up my other medications for the baby which shocked my system into even more nightmares and insanity. My body was used to Zoloft and sleeping pills but now I had to go cold turkey for the baby. Overnight I turned into a hallucinogenic lunatic wrestling demons at every turn. Alcohol fought me hard and won for part of the pregnancy. But I fought back hard too. I read every book on pregnancy I could get my hands on. I wanted to see the baby. I wanted to see the organs being formed so I could have empathy for the baby. I wanted to love the baby more than anything. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t love anything but myself in that horribly selfish moment. That was when I discovered how utterly ugly I was inside.

  I needed a supernatural miracle but none was in sight.

  Garrett was frustrated and afraid for the baby but more than that, he was afraid of me and the hell I would wreak on any family member who came within two feet of me. He prayed and tried to keep peace while I fumed in the corner and wrestled with God.

  Finally, a small breakthrough. I watched “A Baby Story” on television and became instantly addicted. The creative monster in me was immediately soothed when I saw the unique ways Moms gave birth to their babies. I wanted to be creative too and continue my artistic journey of self-discovery, so, I decided to have a home birth.

  If they can do it, I can do it too, I proudly thought.

  I called up a midwife and a whole new world opened up for me. Woman-centered care, I learned about natural herbs and how to create a womb-like environment to give beautiful powerful birth to my baby.

  God was faithful to replace my loss with something even more beautiful and creative.

  No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can know what God has in store, the song “Holy Spirit Rain Down” played over in my mind while I peacefully read through Baby books.

  I asked God and the baby to forgive me for my extreme selfishness and I re-committed myself to reading God’s Word daily. College had become an idol for me and God was faithful to remove the idol and pour into me the thing I needed most, His Word.

  Although I still struggled at times with the alcohol demon, I asked God to protect my baby and to have mercy on me and to help me deal with the mental illness. Haunted by my horrific past, I learned how to cast my cares on Jesus and trust fully in God that the memories no longer defined who I was. God’s Word defined who I was. I held closely to the comforting words in 1 Peter 2:9:

  But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

  I was chosen by God for such a time as this, I stated to myself as I rubbed my big belly while I listened with a stethoscope to my beautiful baby’s heartbeat. I was incredibly grateful to God that my baby was healthy and moving. In tears, I asked God to forgive me for the few times I got drunk during the second trimester. I utterly hated myself and would have killed myself if I weren’t pregnant. The shame and tremendous guilt I carried from drinking while pregnant should alone have killed me.

  But death couldn’t hold down what God had ordained to succeed and on November 17, 1999, surrounded by candlelight and family, I went into labor in my warm relaxing bathtub. Focused in my mind on controlled breathing and the splendid imagery of a flower opening up, I became one in mind, body and soul. After several hours of concentrated labor, with my hand tightly gripped in Garrett’s, I took a last deep breath and gave a forceful long push until I felt my baby thrust into the gentle warm water.

  Gasping for air after the powerful feeling of release, I watched my beautiful baby slowly float to the top of the water. Graceful and picturesque, it was the most beautiful moment of my entire life. The gentle sound of rippled water, my midwife lifted my newborn daughter up and gently placed her on my wet chest. Still connected to the pulsing cord of life attached to my womb, she stared into my eyes without making a sound.

  The midwife instructed me to blow on her face to stimulate her to breathe but I was too caught up in the moment. It was too incredible to grasp so Garrett bent over and gently blew on our baby’s face.

  A suspended moment in time, Abigail Lorraine Lubben took her first few exquisite breaths of life. Without a single tear or word expressed, the room was silent as our family sat in awe of the heavenly phenomenon we had witnessed. Filled with deep gratitude to God, we pondered the amazing miracle in our hearts and worshipped.

  In that incredible moment I acknowledged the true Most High God in a way I hadn’t thought possible and I literally understood in the Book of Revelation why people in heaven will cast their crowns at God when they stand before Him:

  And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

  - Revelation 4:9-11(ESV)

  At that marvelous moment I cast my crown before God and dared Him to keep doing the impossible in my life.

  XXIII

  Admit One

  Wake up Call

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Big breasted burly whiskered fat fisted Helga the German judge march
ed into my room and let me have it. She scared the hell out of me.

  I should have listened to God but since I had a hard time “hearing” Him on the subject of alcohol, He sent me Helga. At least I guessed her name was Helga. She was a mean German lady on a mission to sober me up.

  Drunk and stupefied from a night of heavy drinking, I walked over three miles to the military hospital and turned myself into 5 North, the mental health wing. I was desperate for help because I couldn’t stop drinking, even after all the amazing miracles God did in my life. I battled a fierce demon who didn’t want to let go of my life. But Helga, a divine messenger from God, gladly scared the alcohol out of me.

  She was sent by God. And God meant business.

  “How many children do you have?” she asked me in her powerful German voice.

  “Um, I have three. I also have a 5 month old. Her name’s Abigail,” I barely answered.

  “Do you breastfeed your baby?” Her eyes squinted and her lips tightened as she leaned forward with her huge hands on her hips.

  Intoxicated with alcohol and under the influence of postpartum blues, I cried out, “Yes, I breastfeed my baby. I’m so sorry. I need help for drinking.” I bawled my big red eyes out.

  Helga looked at me like I was the worst piece of living flesh on the face of the earth and yelled at me for a good five minutes.

  “What kind of mother breastfeeds her child while drinking alcohol?” she demanded to know as she pointed her finger at my face. She went on and on about the terrible ways I was damaging my baby’s health. Already drunk and severely depressed, she put the final nail in my coffin.

  Then she looked over my mental health history and saw that I had been struggling with alcohol off and on for years and she threw down my folder and slapped me in the face with the scariest words I ever heard:

  “You will no longer have custody of your children. You are an unfit mother and you do not deserve your babies. I am going to call your husband’s commander and he will discipline your husband for allowing child abuse to continue in the home.”