At Last I Open My Heart

By Bart Mercurio

At Last I Open My Heart is a true story about a self-destructive man who, for more than forty years, lived in a secret world that was filled with lies, lust, and deceit. It is a compelling account of a man who intensely hated himself and believed that his entire life was a failure. It is also a moving testimony about triumph, and about how a once lost man miraculously recovered from decades of sexual addiction. It openly recognizes the seamy world of pornography, a multibillion dollar scourge that destroys marriages and ravages relationships. No one is immune from pornography's steel grip. It is a dreadful, widespread epidemic that each day ensnares millions of men and women. In his straightforward style, first-time author, Bart Mercurio, shamelessly leads us through the pages of his harrowing battle with pornography. He shares how his troubled heart was hidden away for nearly a half century, how he constantly lived in denial while vainly searching for genuine love, how his secret lifestyle came to be exposed, and how he was humbled and at last redeemed from his lifelong struggle as a sex addict. His eye-opening, personal experience is inspirational and honest and delivers a powerful message that will speak loudly to every man and woman who read his story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644589946

Book preview

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At Last I Open My Heart

An Autobiographical Account of Redemption

from a Lifelong Struggle with Addiction

Bart V. Mercurio

ISBN 978-1-64458-993-9 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64458-994-6 (digital)

Copyright © 2019 by Bart V. Mercurio

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Diana’s role in my life inspired me to write At Last I Open My Heart. God blessed me by making her a special part of my life. Diana will always be my best and dearest friend.

Preface

At Last I Open My Heart is a true story about a lifelong struggle with addiction. It is an honest and straightforward account about a man who, for many years, existed in a secret world that was filled with lies, lust, and deceit. The story’s powerful message will speak loudly to every man and woman who read it.

I am the man who fought that long battle with addiction. I once hated myself very much and believed that my entire life was a failure. I searched vainly for genuine love and did not discover it until, at last, I opened my troubled heart—a heart that had been closed to the real world for more than forty years.

At Last I Open My Heart is a moving testimony about repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. It is a labor of love that has taken eleven years to write, and it was inspired by a remarkable woman who played a significant role during a long journey toward my recovery from addiction.

It is my sincere wish that this story deeply impacts the lives of others, especially men—young and old alike—who struggle with pornography, which is a blistering issue that continues to remain a taboo in today’s culture. Pornography is a secret scourge that erodes souls and destroys marriages. It is a widespread epidemic that must be seriously reckoned with and challenged.

It is by God’s amazing grace that I, once a lost man, can now share my triumphant story with you. Though it is written from a biblical perspective, it is directed to a universal audience and is a heartfelt and compelling autobiography that scores a great victory over pornography. I am blessed to have recovered from a secret immoral lifestyle that could have otherwise permanently devastated my life.

I no longer believe the ugly lies that I am a worthless man and that my life has been a total failure. I am a redeemed man created in God’s image. He never stopped loving me, and he never abandoned me. He offered me eternal salvation in spite of my sinful past. And I now proclaim that I am at last set free to share my story with others so that they, too, can see that there is always hope to escape from the horrible bondage of sexual addiction.

Bart V. Mercurio

August 2018

Introduction

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.

Man looks at the outward appearance.

But the Lord looks at the heart.

—1 Samuel 16:7

I solemnly walked through the revolving doors of the Lorain County administration building on a brisk morning, April 8, 2008. Once inside, I stepped onto an elevator that slowly brought me up to the Lorain County common pleas court located on the second floor of the building. I greeted Diana in the spacious hallway outside the courtroom. During our seven months of separation, I often hoped that this day would never arrive.

After responding to a few questions while quietly standing next to one other, we were legally granted a petition for separation and dissolution of marriage. Nearly fifteen years earlier, on a rainy Friday evening, May 28, 1993, Diana and I also stood next to one another, not too many miles away from the courthouse in which we now stood. On that special evening, we joyfully exchanged vows at Church of the Open Door in Elyria, Ohio, before family and friends, ceremoniously repeating to each other, For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part…

Great sadness overcame me as I realized that a dissolution of marriage was not the result that I had ever expected. And certainly, it could not have been the result that Diana had ever expected. A brief legal hearing swiftly dissolved a once broken marriage that had since been restored for the past five years. As we exited together from the building that morning, I silently regretted my failure to provide a more comfortable and secure life for Diana. I knew deep in my heart that I still loved her, and I wondered whether or not a trace of that mutual love might still be flickering in a corner of her own heart.

The words that Diana spoke to me shortly after we separated often haunted me.

I don’t think I can ever trust you again, she candidly told me. There’s just too much history. Those words grimly reminded me that although Diana forgave me many times while we were married, I nevertheless remained dishonest and secretive far too often. My unwillingness to be open and truthful severely destroyed our relationship and created a burden far too overwhelming for her to endure.

More than anything, Diana always wanted my heart along with the assurance that indeed I truly loved her. Unfortunately, I never fully gave her my heart; I never fully expressed genuine love toward her. As we parted that spring morning, I slowly approached my van with tears gathering in my eyes. I intensely thought back, first to our marriage, then to my own past life. The painful truth was that I had never really shared my troubled heart with anyone, especially with Diana. She was the one woman who loved me more than any other and now I had lost her as well.

The human heart is a vital organ, the central and most essential part of our body. If our heart stops pumping for more than a few minutes, our life will end. The Macmillan English Dictionary defines our heart as the center of our emotions, our innermost feelings and thoughts. As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man (Proverbs 27:19). Those words adequately describe how a man’s heart and his inner thoughts reveal the true character of that man.

In 1939, moviegoers were introduced to the beloved tin man in The Wizard of Oz, one of the most endearing motion pictures Hollywood has ever produced. In that feature presentation, the tin man’s greatest wish is to receive a human heart. We certainly empathize with him as we listen to his memorable words:

When a man’s an empty kettle,

He should be on his mettle,

And yet I’m torn apart,

Just because I’m presumin’

That I could be a human

If I only had a heart.¹

As this classic film draws toward its conclusion, the mighty wizard of Oz grants the tin man his priceless wish by bestowing upon him a human heart. Unlike myself, the tin man had no human heart to hide. Throughout the greater part of my life, I hid my heart from a real world and opened it instead to an unreal one—one that was absent of truth and joy. I wanted to make certain that no one could ever hurt me or embarrass me or mock me or, for that matter, even love me. I conveniently chose to exist in a perfect world and tried desperately to live up to my own unrealistic expectations.

Often viewed by others as good-natured, personable, and quick-witted, I was admired by many, able to converse with anyone about almost anything at any time. Yet, inwardly, I was lonely and insecure, tormented by a streak of self-hatred that eroded the depths of my very heart and soul. I was deeply driven by obsessive and self-serving behavior that defiled the very existence of a man created in God’s own image. I remained in denial for decades, stubbornly and vainly battling that same sovereign God. I obstinately refused to accept the truth that I could not recover from a lifelong pattern of dreadful addiction without God’s guidance, ignoring the thought that He never stopped loving me in spite of my sinful life.

In his book, Faithful & True, author Marc Laaser, a former pastor who admits his own struggles with addiction, discusses the significance of sexual integrity in a fallen world.

Christ, after dying, rose again. After dying to themselves, addicts can also live again. They can experience freedom, spiritual resurrection, and peace. When they allow Christ to step into the deepest shadow of their most secret sins, he will flood that place with redeeming light… Best of all, the recovering addict experiences a deep sense of the presence and redeeming grace of God.²

Because of God’s redeeming grace, my long-suffering soul was lifted from spiritual death and restored to resurrected life. Though once lost, a wretched man like me was accorded eternal salvation, and my bolted heart was unlocked after hiding away for nearly a half century.

These inspirational words, written in 1773 by English clergyman John Newton in his quintessential hymn, Amazing Grace, must never be forgotten.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found;

Was blind, but now I see.³

Because of the unsurpassed wonderment and unparalleled awe of God’s amazing grace, I can now stand tall and triumphantly proclaim that at last I’ve opened my heart!

Bart V. Mercurio

July 31, 2018

1 . The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming. Based on the Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Perf. Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley. Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer, 1939.

2 . Marc Laaser, Ph.D., Faithful and True: Sexual Integrity in a Fallen World, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan, 1996), 198.

3 . John Newton (1725–1807). Amazing Grace. Christian hymn written to illustrate a sermon on New Year’s Day, 1773. First published in England in Newton and Cowper’s (Cowper, William Olney Hymns in 1779. Amazing Grace hymn used extensively during the Second Great awakening of the early nineteenth century.

1

And God Did Not Create Junk

For you created my innermost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

—Psalm 139:13, 14

After concluding with these words, And this morning, I give him all the glory. I thank him for opening up his arms and extending his amazing grace to a sinner like me, I glanced about at the hundreds of people who had been listening attentively to my compelling testimony during the worship service at Church of the Open Door in Elyria, Ohio, on that Sunday morning, January 25, 2004.

An enormous cloud of shame, one that had shadowed me for more than forty years, seemed to be rising from a soul that was dreadfully stained from a lifetime of lust, lies, and deceit. A few tears welled into my eyes as the congregation of men and women rose to their feet and graciously responded with applause to the words of my powerful testimony.

I seriously wondered during those moments about the unsettling thoughts that may have been flowing through the mind of my wife Diana, for although she reluctantly agreed that I could openly share my testimony about a lifelong battle with sexual addiction, she was still unquestionably struggling with mixed feelings of her own.

* * * *

When I first met with him at St. Martin of Tours’s church rectory in April 1976, I was a broken man. I had been divorced for more than a year following a failed marriage to my first wife. The down to earth counseling that I received from the young Roman Catholic priest helped significantly at that juncture of my life.

The police department of the city of Maple Heights, after serving a warrant for my arrest, had charged me with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor that would later carry with it a suspended sentence, three years’ probation, and six months of court-ordered psychological counseling. I also voluntarily agreed to undergo additional counseling with a compassionate priest who at the time ministered at St. Martin of Tours parish, located near the Maple Heights home where I had been raised during the 1950s and 1960s.

During our opening session, Father Bob, as he was affectionately known to his parishioners, enlightened me with a profoundly simple phrase regarding God and his creation of man. I started out our discussion by invoking myself as a failure and a loser, and I challenged him to explain why God ever created someone as worthless as me. My emotional pain was quite evident as I burst into unrestrained tears. With very little dignity, my self-deprecating attitude reflected the deep self-hatred that had been ravishing me since my graduation from high school.

Quite troubled by my self-bashing outburst, the sympathetic priest earnestly tried to comfort me by directing my attention to a framed message inscribed on a small, wooden, oval-shaped plaque mounted on a nearby wall a few feet away from me. The bold-faced letters quickly captured my eyes: God did not create junk. The declaration of the words in that phrase represented a powerful affirmation of truth and encouragement. God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created man (Gen. 1:27).

I believed that God created me as junk, and with relatively no worthy value at all as a human being. Although I temporarily chose to disregard the unparalleled message that God did not create junk, the words written on the plaque indelibly struck a nerve that implanted an unforgettable message into my mind for many years to come.

I will always remain grateful for the dedicated counseling that I received from the empathetic young priest, and I am honored that he influentially impacted my life during a critical stage of great personal confusion. Never talking down to me, he soberly reminded me that even though he was ordained as a man of the cloth, he too was no greater than any other man and that he was certainly not exempt from the worldly temptations with which every man must do battle. If I ever had the privilege to somehow reconnect with him, I would joyfully proclaim those five precious words that he first introduced to me: God did not create junk.

* * * *

On a chilly Monday evening, August 23, 1943, lightning flashed and brightened the dark, overcast skies of northeastern Ohio. A volley of thunder was followed by a steady stream of rain that pattered against the steel-framed windows of Polyclinic Hospital, a huge building that stretched along Carnegie Avenue for an entire block, a few miles east of downtown Cleveland. A young couple, Bart and Mary Mercurio, had just become the proud parents of their first child, a newborn son. They named him Bart Vincent and he was not junk then nor had he been junk at the moment of his conception. As with all men, God preordained a purpose for the life of this newborn child. In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28). In his best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, senior pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in Riverside, California, shares these words:

The moment you were born into the world, God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth. He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for his own enjoyment. You exist for his benefit, his glory, his purpose, and his delight. Bringing enjoyment to God, living for his pleasure, is the first purpose of your life. When you fully understand this truth, you will never again have a problem feeling insignificant. It proves your worth. If you are that important to God and He considers you valuable enough to keep with him for eternity, what greater significance could you have?⁴

Personal computers, cell phones, and digital cameras were nowhere to be found in America in 1943. Radios were tuned in to the swinging sounds of big band music. Franklin D. Roosevelt was serving his third term as president of the United States. James Cagney had just won an Oscar for his dynamic portrayal of George M. Cohan in Hollywood’s grand production of Yankee Doodle Dandy.⁵ And the New York Yankees would soon clinch another World Series championship title.

In 1956, as I celebrated my thirteenth birthday, millions of American teenagers idolized a phenomenal singing sensation named Elvis Presley. In 1963, seven years later, an entire nation was shaken by a dreadful November day in Dallas, Texas, when an assassin’s bullet silenced the life of President John F. Kennedy. In Los Angeles, California, four years after that unforgettable and shocking incident, Vince Lombardi coached his professional football team, the Green Bay Packers, to a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in the National Football League’s first Super Bowl game. And two years later, shortly after my twenty-sixth birthday, American astronaut Neil Armstrong was recognized as the first man to step onto the surface of the moon, historically proclaiming, That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Those groundbreaking events were only a few that spanned the early years of my life—a life that carried with it one certainty, one permanent blemish that I inherited, just as all men who entered the world before me had inherited and just as all men who would enter the world after me would inherit. That one certainty was original sin—the sin of the human race. "Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, death came to all men because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12).

In 1953, as a nine-year-old boy, I ceremoniously celebrated the Roman Catholic sacrament of first Holy Communion. The doctrine of original sin, recounted in the Bible in Genesis chapter 3, describing the fall of man and the inheritance of sin from Adam, admittedly carried very little interest to me at that time. I was just a third-grade kid completely oblivious of the doctrine of original sin. Dr. Alan B. Stringfellow, a minister and teacher who specialized in Christian education for more than four decades, provides this explanation for original sin in his book, Great Truths of the Bible:

Most, if not all, people recognize the conflict between conscience and conduct. Many have a natural tendency to go astray, to think and act in a debasing way. There is the endless struggle to do good, but evil is always present to distort, to lead astray. The conflict is real within the heart and soul. Why a conflict between conscience and conduct? Something happened in the fall of man in Genesis 3. Since then, sin has been inherited. We are born with a sin nature. If you doubt this, then answer this question, Do you have to teach a child to do wrong? Quite the opposite—you have to teach a child to do right.⁶

In his book, Bible Doctrines of Today, Dr. Michael C. Bere sums up the sin nature of man in one single sentence: Man sins because he is a sinner by nature, and because of his nature, he continues to sin throughout his life. ⁷

The apostle Paul provides an excellent example of man’s endless struggle with the nature of sin:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, said as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I