Jody Lusk’s life as he knew it is over.

The 35-year-old former pastor of the Auburn Church of Christ is now sitting in a small jail cell at the Logan County Detention Center, awaiting trial on a charge of raping a 13-year-old girl.

Lusk, who admits to a six-month affair with the young teenager, said he will not fight the charge of second-degree rape.

He was arrested early Sunday morning after he turned himself in to the Logan County Sheriff’s Department.

Lusk was wanted after he faked his death at Briggs Lake last Friday and then took off with the 13-year-old girl.

“I’ll be the first to tell you how bad it is,” Lusk said in an interview Wednesday at the Logan County Detention Center. “I look back at the events of the past few months and wonder if that was really me. And the sobering reality is that it was me. I don’t know how I ever got to this point.”

The two spent the night at a campground in Illinois Friday night and were continuing their getaway on Saturday morning when Lusk had a change of heart.

“We were driving on the highway and I pulled over and asked her if she was okay – meaning ‘Are you okay with all of this?’” Lusk said. “And she said she was and asked me ‘Are you not?’ and I just lost it. It just really hit me how it was going to hurt everybody else.”

Since the two had left Logan County, the Sheriff’s Department had been tipped off to a possible inappropriate relationship between Lusk and the girl.

“We checked it out and found out she wasn’t where she was supposed to be Friday night,” said Logan County Sheriff Wallace Whittaker.

The girl was supposed to be spending the night with a friend, but when it was discovered she wasn’t, the FBI was called in and authorities began looking for Lusk in the girls’ disappearance.

Without knowing he was wanted by the law, Lusk returned the girl to her home Saturday afternoon and then went to a hotel in Morgantown to collect his thoughts before going back to his family.

“I thought I could just take her home and then lay it all on the line with my family and then just go from there,” Lusk said.

While watching television in his hotel room, Lusk saw on the news that he was a wanted man.

“My heart felt like it was coming out of my chest,” Lusk said. “When I dropped her off, I didn’t know she was reported missing and that she had told all.”

After watching the news that night, Lusk said he left the hotel room and drove around until ultimately turning himself in to the authorities at 5 a.m. Sunday morning in Russellville.

Logan County Sheriff’s Department detective Robbie Matthews interviewed Lusk and said he was very cooperative.

“He confessed to everything,” Matthews said. “He said he wanted to make it all right with God and he couldn’t do that if he was always on the run.”

Lusk said that right now, the main two priorities in his life are getting right with God and then working toward having some kind of relationship with his family.

As of Wednesday, Lusk had still not spoken with his wife, Shannon, or any of his three children since faking his death and running off with his teenage lover.

He was expecting to speak with his wife for the first time on Thursday, but said he was not hopeful for a happy – or even civil – reunion.

“I am expecting divorce papers and she has every right to do that,” Lusk said.

The affair had been going on since March, Lusk said.

He said it began during a time when his marriage wasn’t at its best.

“We have had our ups and downs and at that time, Shannon had just started going back to school and she was still working at the time and we just didn’t have a lot of time together,” Lusk said. “That’s not an excuse, though.”

When the affair first started, Lusk said he felt like he was just being a friend to the girl at a time when that was all she needed.

The two began talking and texting regularly and eventually the relationship became physical.

Lusk said he had sex with the girl on more than one occasion during the affair.

“I used to stand in the pulpit and tell people about what not to do – and I was the one doing those very same things,” Lusk said. “The past several months, I had the same struggle day after day. I knew it was wrong, but I was not strong enough to do anything about it.

“It was eating me up inside. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Then I would get a text from her telling me that she loved me and all those bad feelings would disappear.”

Lusk said he thought about stopping the relationship, but never went through with it.

“Every time I thought about ending it, I thought about how I was the only person she has,” Lusk said. “I thought I couldn’t end it with her, because it would crush her.”

After being in the relationship for several months Lusk said he stopped praying and studying the Bible all together – despite being the pastor at Auburn Church of Christ.

“I even started pulling out old sermons I had done years ago so that I wouldn’t have to study the Word,” Lusk said. “It was just a spiritual charade.”

Lusk said the affair was not just physical and that he and the 13-year-old were in love.

He said that he still has strong feelings for her.

“I love her – I can’t say that has disappeared after sitting in jail for three days,” Lusk said. “But I know I can’t act on those feelings ever again.”

Lusk added that even though it may be hard for many people to understand, he still loves his wife and never stopped caring for her even during the affair.

Just how long Lusk will have to serve in prison remains will depend on what the charges against him ultimately are.

He is currently incarcerated on one count of second degree rape – which means the sex between him and the 13-year-old was consentual, but still illegal because of the he was over 21 and she was under 14.

But Matthews said additional counts of second degree rape will be added because the two had sex on multiple occasions before they ran away together.

Each count of second degree rape, which is a Class C felony, carries a sentence of 5 to 10 years.