Author's Note

What if every thought that you had, you suppressed because you deemed it the right thing to do? What kind of adult becomes the “good girl”, the “a-sexual one”, “the virtuous one?”, “the maternal one”? What dangerous things does she act out in adulthood when she is grown up in the imaginary cage that she created for herself? How do the perceptions of ourselves contribute to the contaminated relationships that we encounter and then fall into?

For many women, living a secret life and engaging in a secret love is real life. And aside from how the world casts these women out or portray them in the sensationalized media, so many fragile, hurting, misplaced, and misguided women are desperately fighting to survive-- to survive their shame, their ache, and their loss of self as they love a man that they know, they should not. Where do these women go? Who do they confide in? Who covers them? The church dismisses them. Their loved ones marginalize them. And society berates them. This adds a whole new thick coating of pain and humiliation.

I speak on this because I know what it is like to have fallen in love with a man who wears a wedding band, while I do not. I speak on this because I know what it is like to be so isolated from every single loved one in my call log because the shame runs that deep and is that real. I speak on this because I know how insane it feels to constantly try to get out of a relationship that seems to have no end-point. I speak on this because I know that Jesus still saves. He still saves and preserves and uses and redeems the “mistresses”, and “the other woman”, and “her” because He did it for me.

“The Last Pew: Journeying Back to God’s Will After an Affair” is not a blame game. It’s not a story on the “bad guy” vs. “the good girl”, or vice versa. It’s an honest recount of confusion, love, mess, grace, sin, shame, backsliding, healing, circles, secrets, cycles, mercy, lust, emotions, healing, forgiveness, relationships, and closure. Though you may not identify with having an affair or your spouse having one, surely you can identify with at least one of those entities, if not all. Together as a conglomerate, they simply form the human experience. My experience. On the low, so many people’s experience, particularly in the pulpit and in the Church.

I invite you to begin your healing, whatever that may be. Or perhaps, you are taking my invitation to experience an anecdote about someone else’s healing. I don’t mean to give the story away, but I promise you, she makes it out alive and well. With God, all endings are good. Happy reading to you! Thank you for your openness and your support.

In His Will,
Sophia Sunshine Vilceus