Campus Life: Ignite Your Faith was a published teen magazine by Christianity Today that was discontinued around 2009. I started to read the magazine in 2004 when the magazine was gifted to me by my pastors. I wish that I could tell them how much their gift changed my life.
The main topic of the issue that was gifted to me was: ‘sexual abuse.’ That particular issue had three articles by girls who had been sexually abused, sexually assaulted and sexually pressured. I remember staying up late one night; I had the door closed to my room, I was listening to my CD player and I was lying on my bed reading this issue.
I remember thinking how brave these girls were to share their stories, to share what had happened to them. I was amazed.
In every issue of the magazine there was a poem that was published. In the issue that was gifted to me there was a poem about picking up a pen and writing. Writing out everything you felt, everything you thought. Just write what your heart wanted. For the first time in months I was inspired to write a poem myself.
At this time in my life, I was obsessed with writing poems. I wrote poems on a daily basis. However, I had reached a point where I was unable to write. I had a block of some sorts and didn’t know how to get rid of it. So I did what the poem said and I picked up my pen and started to write anything that popped into my head.
I ended up writing a poem about walking away from the Lord and not knowing or feeling His love. I wrote that I felt lost. And that I wanted the Lord to find me, but that I didn’t know how to get back to Him. After I had finished the poem I wrote the magazine an email, telling them how the poem had affected me and thanked them for placing the poem in the issue and then I attached a copy of the poem I had written.
At that moment, that exact moment of me hitting the send button changed my life forever. An editor of the magazine read my email and replied back to me. They said they were happy the poem had helped me and said they were so impressed with my poem that they wanted to publish a portion of my poem in the magazine and have it fully published on their website.
I replied back so ecstatic that I was going to get published for the first time. I communicated back and forth a little bit to the editor, working out all the details about my poem being published and then the emails stopped.
After a few days, with the magazine staring into my soul and pressuring me to write the editor back about another topic, I opened my email account and for the first time in my life – I opened up to another person about my molestation.
At that moment the editor, Todd Hertz, became my ‘best friend,’ pen pal and mentor. We communicated weekly for years. Todd was the first person I opened up to – about everything. I had kept so much bottled up in me. I was afraid, humiliated, confused and guilty of so many things, I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about my issues. But Todd, Todd I could tell anything to. I didn’t have to see his face when he heard everything I was struggling with. I didn’t have to hear the disappointment in his voice. I didn’t have to see the sadness in his eyes when I did something ‘wrong.’ Todd was a faceless person I could openly and freely confess to.
Todd helped me to come to terms about my molestation. He helped me through the grieving process of my mother passing. He was the first person I told when I started to harm myself. He encouraged me to stop cutting and drinking. He made me promise if I ever had a suicidal thought and started to plan it out that I would tell him first. When my cutting got bad, he made me promise that I would write him before I placed a blade to my skin. And of course when I told him my suicidal plan or that I wanted to harm myself he talked me out of it. I started to dread seeing “email from Todd Hertz” in my inbox because I knew it was him lecturing me or telling me not to do something I wanted to do.
And when I accidentally overdosed on pills, he was the one that convinced me to call the poison control. He was the one that convinced me to go to the hospital. He was the one who pushed me to get physical and personal help. If it wasn’t for Todd that day, I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital. I wouldn’t have gotten placed into the psych hospital and I wouldn’t have started my road to recovery.
God used Campus Life: Ignite Your Faith and Todd Hertz to save my life. Without either of them I know I wouldn’t be where I am today. Or at least I wouldn’t be as ‘well’ off.
Todd will always be a hero to me. He spoke to a lost and confused girl and refused to let her go. He saw the potential in me that I couldn’t see.
Todd saved me. And for that, I will always love him.
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