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So, several years ago I went traipsing through the alt right, the manosphere, and the red pills. During that internet journey I met a lot of quirky characters, some downright vile as in genuinely hostile, racist, misogynist, and let’s just add blasphemous to the mix. Vile, I tell ya. Not all mind you, but some of them.

I met some people like Dalrock, Vox Day, Milo Yiannopoulos, Tomassi, and Roosh. And by “met,” I mean they mostly spit fiery darts at me in their comment sections and tried to get rid of me as fast as possible.

So back then I was bitter, jaded, cynical, kind of sarcastic like, oh yeah Lord, so let’s see you fix this total train wreck! I’d lost something, hope perhaps, trust, safety. I didn’t believe God answered prayers anymore. It’s a bit amusing too, because Roosh was well, gleefully promiscuous and Milo was a flaming homosexual. I’m not giving away any secrets, these men have publicly written about their own stories extensively. My point being, traipsing around in the annals of wounded and hostile male sexuality is not my usual forte. I totally know why I did it, I needed to understand the wounding and to find a way to empathize, but I had no idea what the Lord was really doing within me.

He was restoring my faith, repairing my hope, rebuilding my trust, and making me very brave, by dropping me into a den of rabid wolves. Ha! I just love it. That’s the Lord I know. He writes such good stories, you don’t even see Him coming. It all makes sense today, but it sure had me scratching my head at the time.

This is actually my story within their story, as in never mind what all those guys were doing, the Holy Spirit was busy doing a great work in me, which brings me to what I really want to say. Your story is never all about you, you impact other people, people you don’t even know. The Lord often uses your life, your struggles to do something in the lives of others, even when you don’t realize it. There is always a sub-plot going on, a tale woven within a tale. God is sovereign, there are no two bit players, no insignificant characters in His love story. Remember that. You matter.

So eventually the Lord really pressed it on my heart to pray for some of these guys, which I did so faithlessly, so reluctantly, like huge eyeroll here because I was absolutely certain it was a pointless waste of time. I said I was “faithless,” but you know, obedience when you aren’t feeling it, aren’t believing it, aren’t trusting in it, IS still faith.

I got interested in Milo’s story because of my work with adult survivors of sexual abuse which led me to realize that nearly every homosexual I knew had been sexually abused as a child and groomed into a lifestyle. You can get yourself into a whole lot of trouble saying that, but dang it, it’s the truth. Something just crushed my spirit when I realized it, when I sensed what it must be like to adopt your abuse as your entire identity. Milo like so many, insisted that he wasn’t a “victim” of a much older priest, that it was consensual, that homosexuality was just his identity. And when young girls are abused by men they often do something very similar, “it’s my fault, I’m the root cause, it’s the result of my very identity.” Victims of abuse will often cover up the sins of pedophiles, even twist their own psyches to provide spiritual and emotional cover for perpetrators.

Never say never. God is in the business of changing things, of restoring what is stolen, of healing what is broken. And He answers prayers. Here we are after 8 years of “faithless” prayers when I didn’t have a hope in the world that things would ever change. Dalrock went and decided to close down his blog. Vox Day shut down his alpha game blog. Roosh gave up his whole lifestyle, deleted his porn, and is now an orthodox Christian. Milo who actually married a man, is now rethinking or “re-hearting” his homosexuality and rediscovering his faith.

And I have been given a new hope, a restored faith, a healed heart. More grace, more compassion, more trust, more intimacy with the Lord.

Milo and Roosh hold a special place with me because sometimes when you pray for someone your heart for them softens, and when we “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn,” we build a kind of spiritual relationship. I’m really proud of them, proud of who they are becoming in Christ, and so grateful for how the Lord used them so beautifully to bless me.

They are still probably a train wreck as we all are, but they are now a train wreck in the hand of the Great Potter and He changes everything.

Today when I feel tempted to despair, when I feel hopeless, when that cynic in me starts to roll her eyes and to whisper, yeah Lord, so let’s see you fix this total train wreck, I just imagine Him saying, Okay beloved, hold my beer.