The Healed Heart

By Joel Vaught

Reclaim your identity and purpose in Christ with The Healed Heart: 90 Days to Rediscovering Your Identity, Life, and Mission in Christ. 

 

In this poignant and powerful devotional, author Joel Vaught shares his deeply personal journey of overcoming a decades-long struggle with pornography addiction, offering readers a roadmap to reclaiming their identity in Christ and place in God's mission for the world. With its passionate storytelling and life-changing insights, The Healed Heart promises to be a powerful and transformative read, offering hope and inspiration to break free from destructive habits and find healing for your broken heart. 

What you will find inside:
- A 90-day devotional to reclaiming your identity and purpose in Christ
- Inspirational and candid reflections from Joel's own journey of overcoming addiction
- Powerful and life-changing insights that will help you find healing and hope

Buy The Healed Heart now before the price changes and start your journey of self-discovery and healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joel Vaught
• Release date: Jun 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987840818

Book preview

Introduction

We are not called to be comfortable but to obedience.

Paul Alverson, Chick-fil-A Operator

No matter what it takes, no matter the cost, I’m going to give this a shot. These were the words that I told myself when I went into my initial interview for The Retention Formula (TRF). I had no idea what I was getting into. It was my first ever Zoom meeting, and I had never been so open about my struggles with porn, masturbation, and orgasm (PMO) with another person before. But after 22 years, I knew something had to change to find freedom.

I was first exposed to the evils of pornography when I was 11 years old. While I was on a Boy Scouts camping trip in middle school, some peers ridiculed me because I had never seen a naked woman before. These high schoolers seemed so cool, and here I was, a self-conscious, nerdy kid desperately trying to find my place in the world. They all laughed in unison at my innocence. Their mocking cut deeply to my soul.

I longed desperately for acceptance. Up to that point in my life, I had a difficult time finding and keeping friends. I was teased, picked on, and bullied often by my classmates in school and afterschool programs. On top of that, my parents had recently divorced, leaving me to split my weeks between a hardworking and caring father and an increasingly absent mother. Rejection had become commonplace in my life from my friends and my mother especially, so I reached out for love and acceptance however I could. After that camping trip, I decided that I was going to be like one of those cool high schoolers. I stayed up late the night I returned home and did a quick internet search once everyone else was asleep. It didn’t take long to find a pornographic website. I was hooked.

For the next several years, I couldn’t get away from it. I stayed up late most nights to steal as much time as I could online. Soon, masturbation was incorporated, and the cocktail of chemicals rushing through my body was intoxicating to my juvenile mind. I became obsessed; it was all I could think about. It’s what I lived for.

Something shifted in my life when I was 13 years old. My aunt told me about this youth group at her church that was starting a praise band. Since I was in the symphonic band in school, she urged me to join them and play my trumpet in their band. I was introduced to a newlywed couple in their early 20s who were the leaders of the group. They would soon introduce me to Jesus. I knew about God and Jesus and the Bible, but this couple, along with their parents, introduced me to the God of the Bible—the God who loved me and wanted a real relationship with me. I gave my life to Christ one night while I was alone in my bedroom after I realized I needed to be saved.

For the next several years, I grew to love the Lord. I attended church faithfully and got involved with everything I could. In fact, my sister and I were considered the black sheep of the youth group because we were trying to pursue God instead of a social club. It was a wonderful time.

But the chains of pornography were still there.

My addiction to PMO didn’t get any better. In fact, it got worse! Before, I would consume pornography, and it didn’t faze me. Now, suddenly, I could feel the weight of my sin. What I was OK with before no longer felt good. Afterwards, I would always felt guilty and ashamed. I felt condemned and like a hypocrite. What kind of Christian is OK with looking at this stuff? I would ask myself. My questions felt like they were hitting deaf ears as the addiction continued to grip me.

In my junior year of high school, I was invited by my girlfriend at the time to attend a Wednesday night service at her church. I accepted without hesitation, and I’m glad that I did. That service was designed by God for me. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so strong as I sang along with a setlist made up entirely of familiar songs, and I connected immediately with the adults and other teenagers there. Two weeks later, I found myself at their Friday night youth group service where I encountered the presence of the Holy Spirit in a way I would never forget. The rush I felt from PMO had nothing on this. I wanted as much of the Lord that I could get.

It was during this season I gave my life completely and wholeheartedly to Christ. I loved God before, but now I wanted to give my life in complete service to him. My life completely changed. I was filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. I wanted to read the Bible more and be in praise and worship as much as possible. If I could be at church, I would be there. Anything I could do to be with God, I wanted to do it.

But the chains of pornography were still there.

The guilt I experienced before was now magnified tenfold. I longed for God with all of my being, and yet I felt trapped. I sought counseling from my pastor and friends, and I read books on sexual freedom and purity. As a result, I would experience some periods of freedom… only to fall right back on my face. I was the proverbial dog continually returning to its vomit.¹

I was utterly miserable. Trapped. Ashamed.

One night at a church prayer meeting, the Holy Spirit spoke clearly to me and called me to preach, pastor, and plant new churches. I felt an urgency to teach God’s Word and serve him in full-time ministry. So, I forfeited my full-ride scholarship at a local university to pursue Eagle Summit Academy, a small Bible school and internship my pastors created just for me and eight others who also felt called to ministry. For the next two years, I devoted my life to studying the Bible and serving the Church. My heart was determined to be used by God to fulfill what he had called me to do. As a result, I experienced the greatest strides of freedom and victory in my entire life.

But the chains of pornography were still there.

After graduating from Bible school, the other graduates and I were transitioned from being interns to having active roles on the church’s ministry team. I led kids church teams. I served on the worship team and was part of the youth leadership. When given the privilege to preach a Sunday morning service or lead a Bible study or class, I zealously took the opportunity. I even began to regularly preach chapel services at our local Adult & Teen Challenge, a faith-based rehabilitation program for men seeking freedom from addiction. I was doing what I was called to do, and I felt the most alive doing these things. I did everything that I could to be pure before God before ever standing in the pulpit. Leading up to a church service to preach or serve, I fasted, prayed, worshiped, and committed myself to God. I wanted to do what was right.

But the chains of pornography were still there.

I didn’t understand! How could I have known so much truth and still be bound? How could I have preached sermons about abstaining from sexual sin and living a holy life but be continually drawn to pornography? How could I stand before my friends, family, and church and act like everything was OK, when my soul was crying out for help? I felt like the Apostle Paul:

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate… I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong… Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?²

On May 5, 2022, I had reached a breaking point. I cried out to God for the millionth time for deliverance from this sin eating away at my soul. I needed to be free. The next day after this desperate prayer, I received a random direct message from Gianfranco Martinez, founder of The Retention Formula, a coaching program and community designed to help men overcome PMO addiction. I had been following his page on Instagram for a while, and the content Gianfranco regularly posted was entertaining and encouraging. I mentioned this briefly to him and that I had struggled with PMO for a long time. That’s when he cut to the chase: How long have you been struggling with this? So, I told a total stranger what I had been keeping inside for so long: I had a pull towards pornography that I could not shake, and I was ready to be done. For good.

§

No matter what it takes, no matter the cost, I’m going to give this a shot.

I joined TRF a few days later after that Zoom interview. During this program, I made practical lifestyle changes like cutting out social media, gray scaling my phone, getting up earlier every day, and taking cold showers. I watched teaching material, did homework, and read a couple of books. One change that I made was returning to