How Can Ministry Leaders Lead Double Lives?
By Nico Bougas, Special to ASSIST News Service
CINCINNATI, OH (ANS – July 8, 2017)
– As founder of Love Everlasting Ministries, Dr. Deborah Waterbury has
spent the last decade ministering to women around the world, including
starting a trade school for women who have been left widowed by AIDS in
Malawi. But after writing nine books, including bible studies and
fictional novels, Dr. Waterbury shares the most intimate details of her
pubic fall from grace in the new memoir, The Lies that Bind.
Though
she has shared parts of her story at conferences and churches over the
years, she had never, as she describes it, “connected all the dots”
between her childhood trauma and her subsequent life of promiscuous sex
and alcohol abuse.
“When
my world came crashing down around my feet because of my own life of
sin,” says Dr. Waterbury, “Jesus met me right in the middle of that sin
and heartache, and His only words to me were words of love and
forgiveness. When I began to write out my testimony in its entirety
starting with the rape when I was twelve and saw the lies I began to
believe about who I was as opposed to who I know I actually am, exposing
those lies became the only thing I could think to do. This endeavor
became a book about deliverance. It is about breaking the chain that
bind us, discovering who we are, and living beautifully in the truth.
But there is a lot of heartache in the pages. I had to stop writing many
times because I was sobbing so hard.
Dr.
Waterbury shares the candid details of the double life she led
throughout most of her adulthood. While serving in churches, being
married to an Air Force pilot, and the mother to two boys, Waterbury
secretly had sexual relations with numerous men until it finally came
crashing down fifteen years ago. She was a worship leader at a
mega-church, having an affair with another public figure in the church
who was also married with children. When the relationship was
discovered, Waterbury says all her lies were exposed in the most public
way possible. While it was devastating to her family and friends, it
became her moment to finally get real with herself and God. And though
her husband, Jeff, decided to stay with her, she readily admits their
marriage did not heal overnight.
“If
ever a marriage deserved to end, it was ours. In human terms, Jeff and I
have no right to still be married, but God is bigger than that. He
works miracles, real miracles, every day. I spent too much time trying
to make my poor Jeff be what only Jesus could be. Once I stopped that
and realized I already had Jesus, it freed Jeff up to be what he could
be for me. We didn’t forgive each other immediately. It took years to
recover from the pain we had caused each other, and a commitment by both
of us to trust God in the reconciliation process.
In
“The Lies That Bind,” Waterbury identifies five distinct lies that she
believes are the most common stumbling blocks for people. Both she and
her husband now counsel individuals and couples dealing with various
types of difficulties, but Waterbury says that total transparency is the
only way to ultimately begin the process of healing.
“When
I counsel someone who is caught in a terrible web of lies, my advice is
always to expose the lies. Exposing lies is a difficult thing. There
will be backlash. There will be people who aren’t gracious and there
will be repercussions to the sins we commit. God never said that when we
sin we wouldn’t have to live in the realities that come about in this
life because of those sins. However, if a person wants freedom from the
bondage of lies and deceit, then the only path to that is honesty and
truth. Jesus never promised us a rose garden in this lifetime. It’s
certainly not going to come up roses when we pour acid on the flowers,
for heaven’s sake. God is in the business of restoring all that the
locusts have eaten and making glorious beauty for ashes. The greatest
ministries and the most glorious of lives have been built on the charred
remains of people that some would think had nothing left to offer.”
The book, The Lies That Bind is available at Christian bookstores. For further information on the ministry of Dr. Waterbury see the website: http://love-everlasting-ministries.com/
Note:
This interview was conducted at the CBA International Christian Retail
Show, a four-day event held from June 27-30, 2017, at the Duke Energy
Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. This event showcased product from
the Franchising & Retailing industry as well as Christian and
inspirational media and products, leading authors and artists, plus
business training and plenary sessions.
Photo
captions: 1) Dr. Debbie Waterbury. 2) Book cover. 3) Nico Bougas with
his wife, Bee, to whom he had been married for 44 years. They have four
wonderful children -- George, Benjie, Jonty and Tami.
About
the writer: Nico Bougas is the International Development Director for
Hellenic Ministries. He has a master's degree in communication from
Wheaton Graduate School and M. Div and D. Min degrees from Trinity
Theological Seminary. He is the author of five books. He previously
worked for Youth for Christ in South Africa and was Editor of In Magazine and Christian Living TODAY and currently serves as Consulting Editor for JOY Magazine and
a Trustee for Radio CCFM and was one of the founders of Sports Outreach
Africa. He previously served on the national executive of the SA
Association of Evangelists and as a Trustee for the Bible Institute of
South Africa and on the advisory board for the South African Theological
Seminary and on the executive of The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund
(SA). For further information, please contact: nico@bougas.info
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