I find it incredible and paradoxical….than when we share our sins, vulnerabilities…that is when we are most admired. Those Christians that criticise and find fault, are those we least admire.

Kaye Warren (Rick’s wife) is someone I admire…have a look at this article, here are some segments.

“Now 53, Warren has written her own remarkable story, “Dangerous Surrender,” which details their journey together as her husband became one of the most influential pastors in the world, including those “awful” early years of marriage. “

“Warren doesn’t just open up about her relationship; some other revelations in the book are shocking, particularly coming from the minister’s wife. She talks candidly about being molested when she was 3 years old.

“I talked about some of the effects of that molestation, the brokenness that happened in my life,” she said. “The addiction to pornography. Experimentation, sexually, with some older kids. I’d never talked about that to anybody besides my husband and my counselor.”

Warren says that as a teenager, pornography “became a regular part” of her life.

“I did a lot of baby-sitting, and it turns out some of the people I baby-sat for had pornography,” she explained. “And I viewed it. And I wanted to do it. And it became a cycle of failure. Anybody who’s ever caught in any addiction. & The cycles are the same. & Drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping. & It doesn’t even matter. Whatever that addiction is, that cycle is the same. And to break that and to find freedom on the other side, and to find freedom from the guilt and the shame is so incredible.”

Warren says that like any addiction, she was using pornography to “soothe the ache” of her abuse. Years of living with silence and shame makes the startling change Warren underwent five years ago even more surprising. Abrupt and unexpected, it was brought about by reading a magazine she has long since thrown away.

“It was not a cover story, but on the cover there was this little line that read something about a story on AIDS in Africa,” she said. “I opened it up and began to read. I was instantly horrified.”

Reading about the 12 million children orphaned in Africa due to AIDS rocked her world, but Warren says she isn’t sure what made her notice that particular article on that particular day, or why she had been oblivious to the issue beforehand.

“There’s a spiritual answer and there’s a not so spiritual answer,” she said. “The not-so-spiritual answer is that my heart was hard. I had spent the majority of my adult life raising my kids, helping my husband build his church. I had tunnel vision: my life, my dreams, my plans, my agenda, my family, my struggles. Everything was about me and my life. That’s the nonspiritual answer. The spiritual answer is, for reasons I don’t know, God intended me to read that article that day. I can’t think of any other reason.”

There is a lot of challenging stuff in this article, if you have time, I encourage you to read it all. Article