Sharing the Love of Christ Around the World

It began a few days after Christmas 2022. Lua Basnayake, a hardworking mom and online teacher, started having a hard time concentrating on anything but work. “I thought it’ll just go away. I can deal with it, I’ll find an answer,” explained Lua. “So much confusion. I would sit to get my taxes done, and I couldn’t spend 10 seconds focusing on it, not even 10. I’d get up and walk away and then try to do something else, say read my Bible, or write something,” she said.

Since she wasn’t having any pain, Lua decided not to see a doctor. In fact, she didn’t tell anyone. “I didn’t discuss this with my husband. I didn’t tell my children about it. I was trying to deal with it myself,” Lua recalled. “I didn’t think anyone would understand because I couldn’t understand it either. And the doctor would just put me on some medications.”

As time went on, the confusion grew worse. Getting through the day got even harder, leaving Lua feeling overwhelmed. “I was getting frustrated with stuff that is incomplete. I had to get so much done and things were piling up and piling up because I kept putting it off,” Lua explained. “Now you’re confused because you don’t know where to begin all over again. That mental block, it’s not allowing you to proceed. I didn’t pray about it, but I vented to the Lord. And I said, ‘What is this? Just take it away,’” she said. “It must be biological changes. Maybe I need to get some nutrients from my food. I haven’t been eating a balanced diet. I still thought, you know, it’s just gonna get better with time.”

By the end of two months, Lua was exhausted. “I felt defeated,” Lua confessed. “It was shameful for me, honestly, because when you have your standards up there and you fall short of your own, there is shame in you. I did feel like giving up many times. I would just stop everything and watch T.V. and that’s how I spent my days,” she continued. “Cause that’s the only thing that can get my mind off of the things I have to do.”

Then on February 13, 2023, Lua was watching The 700 Club when she heard Gordon give a word of knowledge. She noticed right away he was talking about her.

“There is somebody who is suffering from mental confusion,” said Gordon. “This is how you will know it is you. You cannot stay focused on one thing enough to actually solve the problem. Your attention keeps drifting, and you find it very hard to stay on one thing, to stay on task with your mind to focus your attention on one thing. God is healing you. He is giving you a sound mind. Receive that right now.”

“I knew that was me,” Lua said. “Everything that he said was correct. And I knew that the Lord was speaking to him about me. Nobody knew…it was just me and the Lord. I felt like something was taken off of me. Like the veil was lifted, kind of clarity.”

Lua says the results were immediate!

“I did my taxes and I got it done in a day. Then moved on to reading the Bible,” she said. “I was able to sit there and do it and not get up from the chair like every 10 seconds. I talked to God about it and I was praising Him and thanking Him.”

With a clear mind, Lua was soon back to studying God’s word with her husband, Rohitha, and their children. Inspired by the experience, she and Rohitha joined The 700 Club.

“The Lord reminds us that, no, you’re not in control of everything,” she said. “You don’t know everything. So for me, that was a lesson I learned…a humbling lesson that I can take anything to the Lord. The little things matter to Him. The big things matter to Him. We don’t have to do anything on our own. He’ll take care of us when we are close to Him,” Lua concluded.

HIGH HOPES 

Jon and Robin Hitt married in their early 20’s and waited a few years to have a family. For some unknown reason, Robin wasn’t able to conceive. Both were checked by a doctor, and in time they tried infertility treatments – but still they had no baby for years. Though Jon was open to the idea of adoption, Robin was not. She had always hoped to have Jon’s children, and doubted she could love another child as her own.  

Eventually, after ten years of unfulfilled hopes, and feeling shamed by infertility, Robin changed her mind on a mission trip. As a registered nurse, she went to the Dominican Republic to serve in a medical clinic, and a little boy there stole her heart. “Our eyes met, and he smiled the biggest white-toothed smile I’d ever seen. I said to him, ‘I could take you home in a New-York minute and love you until the day I die.’ And then I knew. No matter what our obstacles were, I wanted to be a parent. I knew I could love another’s child, and it would be easy to do so.” Soon they started the process.  

“Adoptive parents are an army,” Robin says. “Currently, there are roughly 100 million Americans who have adoption in their immediate family, whether this includes adopting, placing, or being adopted.” In the early 90’s, the Hitts were thrilled to adopt a little girl. “We were so enchanted with this little life. I stared at her in her crib for lengthy periods because I didn’t want to miss one bit of her life.” Three years later, they adopted another baby. “I felt full to the brim – so completely content. I couldn’t imagine being any happier ever again.”  

With high hopes for a tight-knit family, Robin says their early years with the girls went very well. “We took trips together, read every day together, prayed together, and talked about the world around us.” When the girls reached junior high age, though, some issues started to emerge. “We noticed the usual angst associated with puberty. They were testy, sometimes a bit willful, and sometimes downright cantankerous. There was jealousy. Rivalry increased, as did sour attitudes toward each other. While this bothered me, I chalked it up to normal teenage development,” Robin explains.

One of the girls really tested her. “She was relentless in exerting her will, and I didn’t understand why. She would ask to go places she knew I wouldn’t want her to go.” After the girls had graduated from college, one of them entered a relationship with a young man that became a major problem for the family. “His manipulative and controlling behavior met the profile of an abuser. To date, this is the hardest thing our family has ever gone through in that it threatened our very existence and, we felt, her life.” When the Hitts intervened to save her, their actions were very unappreciated and the relationship with their daughter remained tenuous. Today, their relationships with their grown girls are very strong.     

THE DIFFERENCES

Years later, when Robin diligently studied adoption issues, she realized what had been going on in those earlier, troubled times. It all begins at birth with something called a “primal wound,” she says. “While in the womb, the child learns the birth mother’s tastes, smell, voice, and essence. When born, this child expects to meet this mother. Instead they are handed off to someone they’re unfamiliar with and the voice, the smell, and the taste are all different from that they experienced in the womb. The child is grieving but has no way of expressing it. The brain knows something happened and doesn’t have a way of telling anyone,” she says.  

Robin also learned that mistrust and hurt typically aren’t expressed by children until years later. “As young children, they are often obedient – the perfect children. But something happens as they near puberty. They frequently become argumentative and oppositional.” While admitting that many teens display this kind of behavior, there’s a different cause in adopted children. She explains that it comes from a deep sense of shame and the belief that they don’t belong or aren’t worthy of love; they see life through a lens of rejection. “They poke, prod, and push parents in ways that test their parents’ love because that’s exactly what they want to know. ‘Will you leave me too?’ Intellectually, the adoptees understand the difficult circumstances of their birth mom, but emotionally, they are unable to justify the reason they weren’t raised by them. It always gets back to the emotional belief that somehow their intrinsic worth is at stake. To know that we are at war with their lack of understanding of their intrinsic worth is first and foremost,” she emphasizes.   

Robin adds that adopted children who are under 40 years old today have some additional challenges. The first, she believes, is that American society decades ago had a “God-conscience,” a more commonly-accepted agreement on and adherence to Godly priniciples of right and wrong. Another factor, she says, is the rampant social media of our day, which fosters comparison in children.  

STRATEGIES FOR ADOPTIVE PARENTS    

Robin offers great hope and help for adoptive parents, those considering adoption, and even grandparents and other relatives of adopted kids, to better understand the dynamics at play. Some specific strategies she suggests for parents are:

•    Find community with other adoptive families. You need to be able to relate to and support each other, both parents and children. 

•    Practice self-compassion. Robin says 99% of adoptive parents feel like failures. She says they need to be kind to themselves and remind themselves of all their good parenting.

•    Get therapy for both children and parents with an adoption-savvy counselor. There are intricacies of the adoption dynamic and reactive attachment disorder (RAD) that both need to understand. 

•    Read good books on adoption, and view adoption-themed movies. Robin provides a list of resources in her book.  

Purchase Robin Hitt's book, "Open-Eyed Adoption," and find more resources on her website: robinhitt.com.
     

12-year-old Allen was playing with his friends when he accidentally ran into a branch that struck his right eye. “It poked my eye and it hurt so bad,” Allen told CBN. “I went home and checked it in the mirror but I couldn’t see anything. I got scared so I didn’t tell my parents ‘cause I thought they might get mad at me.” 
 
But Allen’s mom, Susan, noticed right away that his eye was bloodshot. “He wouldn’t tell me what happened,” Susan recalled. “His playmates said that he had sore eyes. So, I put some herbal medicine on his eye and gave him safety glasses to wear."

Then Allen’s eyesight started to get worse. “We were reading his schoolwork together, but he couldn’t read. He started to cry,” said Susan, her own eyes now filled with tears. “I can’t see anything. Then he finally told me what happened.” 
 
“I was scared because I thought that I might go blind,” said Allen. “I couldn’t read, make a kite or play outside. One time I even stepped on a broken piece of glass with my bare feet because I couldn’t see well.”
 
“I felt so sorry for my son. Kids would call him one-eye,” I thought said Susan. “We didn’t even have money to take him to the eye doctor.” 
 
Allen’s father earns eight dollars a day as a laborer. It took a month for them to save enough to finally get his eye checked. That’s when a doctor diagnosed him with a traumatic cataract. The specialist said he urgently needed surgery that would cost seventeen hundred dollars. “I felt weak when he said that,” Susan said. “I thought, ‘Is there any hope for my son to get this surgery?’” 
 
One day while Operation Blessing was delivering food to the community during the pandemic, we met Allen and arranged for him to receive free surgery to repair the traumatic cataract in his eye. “When I opened my eyes after the surgery I could see clearly! I am so happy because I can help my mom now. Instead of fear I now feel joy!” said the grateful boy. 

“God used Operation Blessing to bless us! We are so grateful to you, because of you, our lives that were once dark are now bright!” added Susan.
 

GETTING STUCK

“When today’s children see porn online, they do not see the common nudity of yesteryear. Instead, they witness hardcore, demeaning, humiliating, and often violent videos that create a lasting impact,” shares Sam. Some of the dangers of prolonged pornography exposure include: the belief that promiscuity is the natural state; the belief that marriage is sexually confining; the abandonment of the hope of sexual monogamy; and the lack of attention to family and child raising.

Porn is a struggle for many men, boys, girls, and women. It can be a means of escape especially true when dealing with fear, anxiety, neglect, or abandonment in childhood. Some of the people you would not expect to struggle with this sin include those who serve the most in the church. Many of these individuals don’t feel safe revealing their struggles with porn, therefore they don’t ask for help and are afraid they’ll be rejected if they do. 

STAYING STUCK

Compulsive porn users are typically exposed early in life. Another reason this addiction has such a stronghold on an individual is because they have experienced some type of trauma early in life (divorce, violence, sexual abuse). Repetitive use of porn creates a habit that becomes engrained physically and mentally within the brain. In fact, there are several reasons people remember their first exposure to sexually explicit material: (1) Imagery can turn on neurological responses. Nowadays boys and girls are exposed to hardcore online porn. The neurochemicals released make it hard to look away; and (2) Repetitive use of porn physically changes the neurocircuitry of the brain which creates pathways that crave the neurochemical rewards of sexual excitement.

ROLE OF THE CHURCH

People fighting porn on their own usually fail. Sam says, “Many Christians have a deep desire to live an abundant and holy Christian life but aren’t open and honest about their sin for fear of rejection.” This is where the Church needs to step up and make people realize they are not alone by becoming an ally to those seeking freedom. In the company of allies or a support group, allow those battling porn an opportunity to open up and discuss their struggles so they can find healing and one day be able to help others with the same struggles.

Confronting pornography in the church is difficult for many pastors. Church leaders often get negative feedback from their congregants (both male and female) when discussing this topic. Pastors cannot meet with each person individually that might be struggling with pornography, but they can equip the body with tools and resources to help individuals overcome their addictions. A great resource for men is the Sampson Society. This group keeps men accountable which is a key part of the recovery process. SheRecovery is a great resource for women. Pastors and leaders can also help people in their church by: suggesting software (Covenant Eyes) or educational recommendations to combat porn, training their leaders on a course of study, or hosting a recovery/discipleship ministry that deals with many different issues. The Victory app by Covenant Eyes is free and provides a library of courses to help people live in freedom.

Church leaders can also struggle with porn. In fact, a 2016 Barna research study reveals that “57 percent of pastors and 64 percent of youth pastors said they struggle with porn currently or have in the past.” Often times if those in church leadership are discovered to be struggling with porn they are removed from their position and sometimes even ousted from the church. Those with a truly repentant heart can be corrected and restored instead of the Church abandoning the individual in their struggle. 

ABOUT SAM

Sam is the Director of Life Change Education for Covenant Eyes. He is passionate about helping people live life free from pornography. He worked as a journalist for eighteen years prior to joining Covenant Eyes. He has edited seventeen books on the impact of pornography and is a speaker for parenting, men’s, and leader’s events. 

At 10, Sam was exposed to porn. His brother and a friend were looking at a magazine which piqued Sam’s curiosity. “And though I grew up in a Christian home I didn’t step away,” says Sam. The early exposure, fueled by a violent and controlling hypocritical Christian father, sent him spiraling into a pornography addiction that he did not understand or conquer until after he married. Sam recalls a time when he was working with his dad to coil a rope. He was not able to do it as his dad was instructing him. His dad would hit him on his head, back or face and call him “dummy” or “idiot.”

The act of coiling the rope was one thing among many that would cause him to seek pornography in his teens and adult life. With therapy, over time he became more aware of social, emotional, and environmental triggers (SEE Triggers) that made him tempted to view porn. He says, “With the support of men, good reading, a lot of understanding and growing, I began a pathway, a journey – that did not come overnight but came with that kind of support – to live in freedom.” He continues to stay accountable by meeting once a week with a small group of men through the Sampson Society.

For more information about Sam Black's ministry, please visit: covenanteyes.com and TheHealingChurch.com.

To get your copy of Sam's latest book, "The Healing Church," please visit: The Healing Church.