²² Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 NIV

Around the beginning of the “Me Too” movement, my husband and I were watching the news. When I heard a woman’s testimony, I turned to my husband and said, “This is going to erupt. There has to be thousands of woman mistreated in the workplace.”

I was. At 18 years old, I found a job in the parts-department at a car-shop. I eagerly jumped in to my work, full force. I reorganized everything and was great at getting the mechanics what they needed. However, I found out the owner hired me as a joke. He expected me to fail, but the opposite happened. While at first, the mechanics had not been happy due to my lack of experience, they soon began to boast about how great I was doing.

One day, the owner came into the parts room and locked the door.

He blatantly told me if I didn’t have sex with him, he would fire me. My response was, “No worries, I quit.” I never told anyone and over the next 7 years, it kept happening.

Its hard to describe how painful this experience was, to discover that my work was meaningless in my boss’ eyes. At that time, I did not know the Lord, and I was looking for value in my job and approval from my boss.

At another job at a Chrysler store, in a truck trailer on the car lot, my manager came on to me, saying, “I know that when a woman says no, she means yes.” I fought him and began to scream. While he gave up before anything more happened, I was humiliated.

Once again, I was silent.

Similar occurrences continued to happen all through my life, so now when I see people speaking out through the “Me Too” movement I think, “you go girl” and “you go boy.”

All that said, before becoming a Christian, I had no idea what love was. However, I did learn about lust. Lust is selfishness. I learned what it means to be overcome with desire. Lust is when you take a good desire, and twist it until you are consumed by your cravings, until you are gratified. Before Christ, life was a nightmare.

I once heard this statement and it stuck, “When a person’s body is more important than his or her soul, God help us.”

After I found God, I learned I was precious to him. That I was valuable. He brought healing to my brokenness. He let me forgive the men who only saw value in my body.

God help us. Help us to see people the way you see them. Let us be more consumed by your fire to win souls, than to satisfy our fleshly desire. Help us to look to you, and guard our eye gate, so we would not be mastered by anything.