Tim Ross

When Tim Ross was sexually abused as a young child, it started a chain reaction of consequences. First was protecting the secret. Next came an addiction to pornography. That was followed by living a double life. At age 19 the secret was exposed, and with it came freedom.

Tim’s experience shows how the love of Christ can win out—and the love of people  can help change how one lives a life.

Nobody wants to live with a secret. It torments your soul. It bothers your conscience. I created this guy that everybody loved and I went home and didn’t like myself. The effect of holding a secret that long is that you never have the freedom to be you.

I don’t carry secrets anymore.

One day we were playing in the neighborhood I grew up in—nice little neighborhood—just playing with some friends. There was a neighbor that lived across the street from me. He told me to come over to his house so I came over to his house and didn’t go inside the house. He said, “Come in the garage, I’ve got to show you something.” So I go into the garage and he just starts touching me—just inappropriate touching. And I was eight. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I knew it wasn’t right. I came home and I walked in the door and my mom asked me how was my day went.

That was the day I became a professional liar. And I got real good at it. A couple of days later, I got called into the garage again and again and again and again. I didn’t know how to process this, to deal with this. All I did know was that if my dad found out, he would kill him, so I had to keep it a secret. I was literally becoming two different people. There’d be the guy that would go to school and kind of get through the day, and then there would be the guy that could not stop looking at pornography. It was not casual. This is I couldn’t stop. I was driven to the magazines. So I had to keep it a secret.

I didn’t have answers for this. I’m twelve. I’m thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. I’m nineteen, and this thing is still on me.

She caught me. I didn’t know what to say. I was embarrassed. I felt like a pervert. I felt completely disgusted with myself. Because she’s a praying woman, she went back to her room and started praying for me. Probably the best prayer I think my mother has ever prayed. I didn’t hear it, but that prayer came and got me. I got up, cleaned myself off. Walked down the hallway. If I make a left, I’m going to go back to my room and I‘m never going to talk about this again. If I make a right, maybe I’d have enough strength to go into her room and tell her what the real situation is. ‘Cause it wasn’t porn. That wasn’t the root of the situation.

Then I’m crying. I cried. And she went and got my younger brother. He came in the room. He said he’d gotten molested by the same guy. So all three of us cried. My dad comes home. We share what happened and my mom says that she got sexually abused when she was six. And my dad says that he got molested when he was five. So one night, my exposure caused everyone to come clean and confess their pain.

I mean that night man, I just can’t articulate to you the freedom I felt. To be able to tell the truth to someone and not be judged. To be surrounded by nothing but love. My parents—their relationship in Christ is amazing. They have always been authentic and real in how they live out their faith. I just thank God that they weren’t the type of deep religious people that can’t handle pain. I was just happy that they loved me—that they didn’t judge me. We didn’t grow up in an atmosphere where we saw any hypocrisy. My parents weren’t one way at home and another way at church. They were the same people. They told us the right way. They showed us the right way, and they just prayed for us. You know when the Lord got ready for us—when he called, we knew His voice ‘cause they taught us well.

I would love to tell you that as soon as I accepted Christ into my life I put porn down and never picked it up again. But the fact that the Lord was patient enough with me, knowing that it didn’t take me five minutes to get into it, and it probably wasn’t going to take me five minutes to get out. But if I just started walking with Him, He would just start shedding layers of bondage, abuse, molestation, low self-esteem, people pleasing. As we began to walk, stuff began just falling off of me. And He would give me relationships.

When God really wants to love you, He loves you through people. He brought people into my life to literally love all that crap out of me. It’s been a great walk. Fourteen years—still walking, It’s been good. So, I don’t carry secrets anymore.

My name is Tim Ross and I am Second.