We want people to think certain things about us. We want them to believe we're a certain person--one way in church, and another way outside of the church. And so we never become--we never have integrity. We never live the way that we should, with people seeing both the good and the bad. It really was the biggest fear in my life. I mean, I didn't want to lose her. I didn't want to lose my daughters. Shame contributes to that feeling that "I can't talk about this issue with anyone else, because if someone knows about this behavior, they're going to know that I'm a bad person." And I came to the conclusion that I feared man more than God. And at the moment that I made that thought, that is when God reached out to me and said to me, "I will help you when and as you are willing to be honest."

I think both humility and honesty are critical. Humility--we're really striving for achieving discipleship to move from the natural man to the Saint, as King Benjamin said. He says that in that famous verse, Mosiah 3:19. If you are going to cease being the natural man and become "a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord," it is necessary to become "as a child, submissive, meek, humble." On the other hand, honesty is equally critical. The habit of pornography thrives on denial, and we need honesty if we're going to overcome it. If someone who has the challenge can be totally honest with somebody, with at least one person, and find that that person doesn't reject him--that he can open up and still he's a worthy human being--then that kind of honesty, that openness, will bring the help you need. A woman at the college stood up in front of all of the women, the female students there, and said, "We know some of you struggle with pornography and masturbation, and we're going to help you." It was a huge moment for me, that someone else in this room was probably going through the exact same thing that I was going through, and that beyond that, they were going to be there for me and that all we had to do was start the conversation with them. And then I began to think, you know, "Who could I trust? Who could I turn to? Who could I confess this to?" And I thought of one dear mentor friend of mine. He lived in the area, and so I got on the phone. It was right there that I just sort of said, "Hey, this has been my struggle. The internet, pornography, masturbation, this is--man, I'm in trouble here." We were all encouraged to write down just the stronghold that we have, anything that we struggled with. It didn't have to be pornography and masturbation. It could have been anything. And I did not want to write down "pornography." I was crying so hard, and I wrote it out, and I left. I didn't even want to stick around. One of those women came up to me, and she looked at me and she said, "Jessica, what you wrote down on that sheet was brave, and we're going to help you." And it was in those moments, just as I made that confession, that the real burden of the secret was lifted. And so, sure enough, from that point on would begin a real serious journey of dealing with it and getting sober and recovery. In all of this, I think the key issue is not to stop believing, not to give up, not to somehow think that we're beyond the pale of help or beyond the pale of repentance. That simply is not true. If we're honest about it and appropriately sorrowful and submissive about it, then that repentance is meant to be a blessing. That's the answer to relapse. That's the answer to slipping back. We know that this could recur at any time for either one of us. But I love the idea that if it did, we know where to go, we know we can talk about it with each other, and we'll be OK. We've got the promises of eternity and the help of angels. We've got help on both sides of the veil. We've got a lot of help. And only the adversary would tell anybody that they can't fight their way back, or "You've slipped again," or "Here's a relapse." We cling to the gospel and fly the flag of hope.