AMAZING STORY
Robert Reschar: Defeating Sexual Sin
By Jeremy Callahan
The 700 Club
CBN.com
–"I’d already messed up, I’d already hooked up with a guy and it was very much like a drug. I kept going back to it. I just--I couldn’t go on anymore. I wanted to find the least painless way possible of just ending it, hoping that I would just fall asleep and not wake up.”
Robert Reschar’s struggle began when he was a child and he was sexually abused by a family member.
“You’re young, you know, you’re kind of naïve. I remember being very fearful knowing it was wrong, knowing I probably should say something. I felt paralyzed to really do anything about it.”
He grew up going to church and knew about God, but he was torn by his feelings.
“I felt tormented most of my high school years. It was during that time definitely that I started having an attraction for men. A lot of times, you know, I would sit in church and just inwardly—just feeling there’s no hope for me. You almost feel like you’re two different people because you have to put on a front in a way, but inside you have this struggle going on.”
Eventually, the abuse stopped, but Robert’s struggle continued . During his senior year, he made regular visits to an adult superstore .
“I was in a booth watching a video. You hear the door handle open and someone comes in. A guy made advances toward me. It was basically anything goes in that—in that setting. There was a side of that was appealing, that people would desire to be with you. That pretty much opened the door for me.
Over the next few years, Robert had hundreds of anonymous sexual encounters with men and women. Along the way, he met a young girl at church, and they married.
“Maybe if I get married and I start, you know, having sexual relations with my wife, this other stuff is going to kind of dissipate and go away. Initially we were close. I’m still having this struggle inside. I’m finding out very quickly it’s not going away.”
After six months of marriage, he again had sex with other men . Robert broke down and told his wife.
“She was ticked. She was—she was upset. I didn’t have any concept of how to stop doing—
obviously, I could physically quit going to this place, but the things going on inside of me, I couldn’t stop that. You feel the separation between you and God.”
The couple met with a counselor for months, but Robert continued the anonymous homosexual encounters. His wife gave him one last chance, but Robert failed again.
“I was tired of dealing with it. I was tired of all the ups and downs. I was tired of hurting her. I was going to have to tell her and I just got to the place, I was like, I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore. I wanted to find the least painless way possible of just ending it. I had –a full bottle of pain killers, prescription pain killers. And I was on antidepressants at the time. So I just, I downed both of those bottles, hoping that I would just fall asleep and not wake up.”
His wife heard him crying as he got in bed. She asked him what was wrong.
“I told her what I had did, I messed around with a guy, I hooked up with him, and then I just took two bottles of pills. She just broke down crying and just yelling at me, “What were you thinking?!”
Robert was rushed to the emergency room and treated. He survived his suicide attempt, but shortly after that, his wife filed for divorce. She offered to take him to Pure Life Ministries, a Christian recovery center for sexual addiction.
“It was exactly what I needed. It helped me to think more Godly, more Biblically in how I handled things. I had examples—people that were actually living it out. That was big for me to see people that had come out of sexual sin themselves and they’re walking it out and they’re—they’re living the Christian life.”
One night, he attended a chapel service that changed his life.
“I just felt the presence of God. And felt like the Lord was wanting to –wanting me to surrender to him. I’d pretty much lost everything at that point. For the first time in my life, I wanted his will for my life, and I just remember just bowing my head and just saying yes to him over and over and over. I have peace now. I didn’t have peace before. It’s lasting peace. When I would go after those other things, there was always a let down.”
Robert completed the program and is now a fulltime counselor, helping others with sexual addiction.
“It’s very rewarding to see God do something in someone else’s life like he’s done for me. And know that they’re going to get the freedom, the hope, the joy that comes with that transformation that happens. I’m 9 ½ years out of this. There’s something real and substantial in my life. I know he’s not going to reject me. I know that I can come to him. It’s about me living for Jesus.”
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