The Whole 9 Yards

I’ve had this lingering thought in my head for a while now. This is about a story I was told ten years ago. It’s only now that I’ve pieced it all together. I was probably so busy in my own little world that I didn’t give myself the time to truly think about why this specific story didn’t sit right with me.

Back in my early highschool days, I joined this religious group called Youth For Christ “YFC”. Honestly, I felt out of place. I wasn’t really into the fellowship of it all. I felt like my relationship with God was not as intense as my YFC mates. When worship and they close their eyes and I can feel their sincerity in their praise. I tried my best to get to that intense level but I guess you just can’t force that type of connection. Nevertheless, I learned and experienced a lot in those years. I would say this was the chapter in my life that introduced me to my personal advocacy, which was to help the children. Hmmm.. maybe it was God who introduced me to my calling. Wow.

Anyway, within YFC, I joined a subgroup called Reaching Out Christ to Kids, and of course it had an acronym too, “ROCK”. This group was for volunteers who wanted to serve the children. I remember even attending a camp to be part of ROCK. That event was actually really fun. Anyway, so YFC-ROCK would be the service team for programs prepared for the kids. These programs were simple monthly gatherings held in different churches in our area. The goal was to preach a little and keep it fun for the kids. We would prepare games, prayers, lectures and merienda for them.

Now to the story, there was this guy who was kind of like our senior. He was nice to us and he was really nice to the kids. He seemed really dedicated in what he did for the kids. This guy was pretty much our leader because he would be the one to delegate the tasks for each service team member. Then one day, us cool service team YFC-ROCK people were all hanging out, then this guy opened up to us about why he was so passionate in teaching kids about God.

He revealed to us to that he almost r* a little girl when he was younger. A little girl went into their (can’t remember if they owned it or not) computer shop. He was alone and he thought about r* her. He went as far as calling the little girl over, held her, but fought the temptation to push through with it, and let her go. He said it was God who stopped him that day.

I hate to weaponize his own words against him, but in retrospect, if he had atrocious thoughts about a child, and he so loosely used the r* word to describe what he wanted to do that little girl, was it safe for him to be around children all the time? Does that sexual perspective of a child completely go away through a spiritual awakening?

No one their right mind would have such vile thoughts about a child. People who do are pedophiles. He claimed back then that God helped him get out of the dark, and for his sake and the sake of all the kids he handled, I sincerely hope that was true. Otherwise, it was a terrible terrible situation. It was dangerous for children to be around a grown man who almost r* a little girl… and us who knew of this story, young and ignorant, blinded by our faith, were we enablers of temptation?

If I were to face this guy today, I would advise him to seek professional help, even if what happened years ago was “just a thought,” and ultimately resulted to him finding God. Strip away the religion from that story, all I see is pedophelia. I feel like that core thought should be addressed and this guy needs to be helped. It all starts in the head. That thought he had about that little girl could have progressed in different ways, and even if it wasn’t executed that time, I don’t think a spiritual awakening is enough to kill that type of thinking completely.

We all know that even the most religious people sin, sometimes they’re even worse than the rest of us.