Texts for Lane | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Texts for Lane | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kay Newman
08/16/17
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Psalm 32:3-4 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me: my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

Lane lay stretched across his bed, books strewn about, and his countenance at an all-time low. Concentrating on books and lessons was the farthest thing from his mind and the anxieties he felt were choking his very life from him. His phone was screaming with repeated texts from Alexa, a girl he hardly knew except for the one night they slept together at a friend’s house. Lane’s throat was dry, his heart pounding as he anticipated the news Alexa potentially held for him. Was it better to dread it or know for sure? His emotions were raging inside.

Lane found his concentration wildly fractured, so he turned his attention to his laptop for relief of tormenting thoughts. As he opened his screen, there were the images of girls and women that caused his passions to fume and burn with wild intensity. He slammed the top down, causing a loud sound that did nothing to interrupt the dread and grief he anticipated as he rehearsed what he would say to his mother and father of his plight. Nausea was building and paralyzing fear mounting as he made the decision to end the suspense.

Alexa answered the phone suddenly and with a frantic melody her soft voice began, “Hi Lane. Thanks for calling me back. I know we hardly know each other, but I was wondering if you would go with me to my junior prom?” Lane’s answer caught in his throat as he released all the strangulating emotions with one long sigh. Then, remembering how he had been forceful and calculated with her at his friend’s house, he searched for words of regret and hoped he hadn’t sounded condescending with his reply. He knew his life had to change, and he had to walk away from the memory of what he had done to such a sweet girl.

The agony of his sinful behavior pounded in his head and although he was “off the hook” in the visible, it was the invisible that was wrenching his inner man to an astute awareness of his secret life. The words from Jeremiah 17:9 rang from his memory, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Lane reasoned that others may find this secret life of no consequence, but it was never going to be his story again. He had learned that the light of Christ dispels darkness and this darkness had to be his past, not his future. He knelt alongside his bed and with bitter, sorrowful tears, Lane cried out to Jesus for forgiveness.

The night was long and hard as he opened himself to his father, asking him to spare his mom the details and bathe it with tender care for her mother heart. The two of them agreed to an accountability system between them to guard against the enemy’s calculated plan to kill, steal, and destroy Lane’s spiritual life. Together they downloaded protective hardware and apps to safeguard him for those moments of temptation and a beautiful mountain scene screensaver was found that read, “ Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23.

Father and son kneeled together as Lane’s father prayed, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” Amen.

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