Dear Robin,
I don't know you. In fact, until I watched the VMA video, I didn't even know you existed. However, I did watch the VMA video, and I do know you exist, and I know a bit more about you than I wanted to, and I would like you to know some things, too.
I want you to know what means to be a man of integrity and honor. Just trying to google your name to make sure I spelled it right told me a lot about you. Granted, paparazzi and tabloids have a tendency to stretch the truth or just make it up, but if that is the case, what I saw was a lot of stretching and similar imaginations. Robin, I know society, and maybe even your dad, tells men that real men are the ones who can convince as many women to have as much sex as a body can tolerate. A real man is unattached but always wanted. A real man is one who is always in control, always above everyone else, always...the master...who lives above consequence or concern. Society lies.
A real man knows how to honor and cherish one woman. A real man doesn't need everyone woman in the kingdom but knows how to daily take care of his queen. A real man knows the only one he needs master is himself, and he knows that is the hardest one to master of all.
I want you to know what it is like to be a real man.
I want you to know shame for what you've done and how you've lived, not so you can wallow there, but so you can leave there. No one repents of their past without seeing the damage and disgust it holds. I hope you see yours with wide eyes and open heart, and I hope you walk away from it, and when you do....
I also want you to know grace. Grace is the wondrous gift that says starting today, right now, that person you were is someone you don't have to be any longer. It isn't a get out of consequences free card, but it is a get a new future promise. You have to choose it, though. It won't fall in your lap. No one will wrap you in it and throw you into tomorrow. It is a choice, and you only find it in the One who created you in the first place. I hope you take it.
I want you to know forgiveness both His and your own. Very often we look at the life we've lived, especially in front of people, and we have a hard time getting past it because we can't let it go. Give the past to God, let Him handle it from here, and you keep moving. There is nothing back there and beating yourself up won't change it. Best thing you can do is leave the dead in the tomb and walk back into sanity, just like the man in the cemetery whom Jesus set free from the demon. Get set free. Leave your demons and move on.
I also want you to know I had a hard time figuring out what to say in this letter because honestly, what I saw on the VMA video and what I've read about you disgusts me, but sometimes, what I see in my mirror disgusts me, too. I pray for forgiveness and grace for me. I pray for it for you as well.
Finally, I want you to know if you ever want to talk about what any of this means, I would love to talk to you. There is a life so much better than the one you are living. You may not see it now, but prayerfully, one day you will, and when you do, if you want to talk, I am here. Just wanted you to know.
God's grace to you.
With utmost sincerity,
Jerri Kelley Phillips
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