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Can I Be Whole
As I start this journey I need to trace the life that brought me here. Born in a southern town in the United States back when every thing was safe or was it. Life was so black and white when I came into this world. People had not stepped on the moon, the great speech about dreams had not been uttered and, noone looked to a grassy knoll. When I came to be here a mans word was his bond and honor. What happened to all this trust and honor?
In my early life I was given two rules be quite and do what I’m told. Sounds easy, small breaking of the will no harm to the child, right? Maybe not so little harm when a child is ridiculed for most of what they do and that comes from a parent. In my case we were not religious but very strict having a father that was a policeman and a mother that taught school all that I did was under an iron fist. When I started school if I did not do as good as my older siblings I was scolded and compared and later told how stupid I was. Did my parents mean to break my will? I believe that what they did was really train me to be what they wanted for me. The only problem they didn’t know what was happening behind closed doors. At six years old my older brother got killed in an accident that left a big void in me of understanding why he was not there for me. I tried to replace him with another older boy in the neighborhood and after a few months he took me in the woods and showed me how to masturbate. Because he was like an idol to me he talked me into giving him oral sex not that he was gay or even wanted me to be he just wanted to get off. Did he have a problem, probably not but it was a start to mine.
My next real sex experience would be when I was about eleven and would last for almost two years. Both my parents worked and didn’t always have time for a needy kid. When we met a guy that always took boys on fishing and other day outings my parents thought it would be really good for me. Never knowing that he only did this so as to have his way with them. He didn’t do anything at first he gained TRUST first. Later when you got to really like going with the other guys he would initiate you into the club. He took me into his room after another kid told me how much I would enjoy it I didn’t but I never told anyone about it either. Anyway who would I tell, my parents liked the guy and would never listened to me. In those days noone talked about things like that and so I wouldn’t talk to any body.
Right about the same time I found out all about girls. I had two pair of hot sisters move in across the street and right next door. Since my parents had put in a pool guess who was immediately made friends with? I didn’t care that it was only because of the pool I still got to have a lot of hot girls close to me. For a teenage boy I was living the good life every day girls coming over getting playful and stripping each other nude while I watched all of this and sometimes joined into it. Anyway we were just kids and kids did those type of things. (James 2 1:14-15) Now at night time it was a little different my bedroom had a direct view into the girls next door bedroom and I could see everything thru that window. While alone in my room I had a nude strip show every night. Slumber parties were the best they would dance and play and of course get naked for me while I watched and masturbated in my own room only a few feet away never being seen.
I was never the guy girls really went for even though I really went for them. I had a few crushes on different girls never knowing how to get past that until I met Cat. She was the first girl that I had a real sexual experience with. It was not that we had sex or anything but that she and I explored each others body and feelings. I don’t know what ever happened to her but she was the first girl that I really cared about on more of a level than just a crush. I had my first real kiss and first view of myself with a naked girl both so young that we knew nothing about what we were doing. We never really became boy and girl friend but we shared a connection.
After this I was on a search for that next person to make me feel good about myself. There was several one time girls but the girls in the mens mags that I found at the convenience stores around the area were always there for me. In my mind I was desired by them as I desired them and they never let me down. After a few real girl friends I met my wife to be in my senior year of high school. We were great together, and everything seemed right when I was with her. We dated for a few years before we married at nineteen. The first few years everything was great the sex was when ever and where ever and I could not wait to be with her again. Now as it goes with addictions you never know that your addicted. This is why when the mens magazines started coming back into my life I never saw the problem. My wife did though and would tell me on a regular bases that I was sick and needed help. I wasn’t sick I was male right. Never seeing never knowing what damage I was doing to her. Our sex life started to spiral down till it was almost lost. I blamed her for being less affectionate toward me. The life that I was leading showed her that she was second in my heart. Why would I let that happen? What she could see without any problem I could not. I only thought that she hated my porn and that was why she kept saying those things to me. I wasn’t sick or need help I just needed my wife to start loving me like she used too. The whole time I was undermining my own life and hers as well. Each time we had a fight or the sex wasn’t what I wanted I went right back to my security blanket the porn and the cycle was feed a little more. Then I started working in some of the strip clubs down town. Where this girl started hitting on me when she found out that my wife didn’t like the fact that I was working there. I never did anything except come home to my wife each night. The only problem was that she was not always there for me. Don’t get me wrong she was at home but normally had gone to bed or just not in the mood to be sexual with me. I am sure now how we got into this rut and it happened. I went back to the girls that had never let me down the girls printed in my mens mags. This was something else that my wife didn’t like but I needed to get relieve some how, even if she didn’t. Any way I wasn’t going out on her. Or was I? Each time I did this I drove a wedge a little deeper between us never seeing the hurt that I caused her. Was I being mean or hurtful? Not on purpose but the effect was still the same as if I was. Why would you want someone that every day showed you they wanted someone else?
Remember that the girl that you are looking at is somebody’s daughter. How would you feel if someone was looking at your daughter the same way? Where on earth would you allow this action to happen? Only at the alter of sexual idolatry where we will violate the most precious of our lives our children. The protection of their trust in us being let down each time we go to this alter. How can we be fathers and not insure the safety of our wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers. Training ourselves and our sons about the dangers involved with the alter that has taken so much of the world today. The healing process of this addiction will be harder on a man than one of alcohol or drugs because there is not someone coming to your house every day with free drugs and alcohol. Those things you have to go out and acquire where as sexually addictive material is every where you go even your own home. You tell me but I don’t have any of that type of stuff in my house. I tell you today there is an old quote “sex sells” if you have a TV, computer connected to the internet, magazines, or newspapers you have those images in your house. Add this to the lust that comes to men when they walk the streets of America today seeing the clothes that girls can wear in public today. You must put on your armor if you are ever to win this battle.
I have been talking to the men of most this talk but I say to you ladies that you are also in jeopardy of the devils at the alter of sexual idolatry. How are you carrying yourself as you go through your day? What type of clothes are you wearing and what signals are you sending out? We can be the best we want to be but there is that fact that men and women are attracted to each other. The natural part of life becomes perverse in the way that an addict looks upon it. They need no fuel to start that fire to be a raging forest fire out of control. I beseech you ladies that you be the ones that help our men fight and win this war without your help they will probably fall again and again till they give up the fight. When this happens the devil wins his heart and you and the world lose another warrior for protection, goodness, and holiness.
According to the bible if a man lust for a woman in his mind he has already committed adultery in his heart. (Matthew 5:28) Why had I gone so far down and how did it happen? The truth is that the PORN industry has its trolling hooks out and they are always fishing with bright flashy brand new lures. I know that noone here will ever have this problem but I also knew that I would not either and yet here I am. The facts are that most of us have internet in our homes and our children are the new targets that are being affected with this. Most children by the time they are twelve have been able to access hard core porn on the internet in the privacy of their own home. The largest market being your teens. Using every trick they can find to get at our youth the porn industry will trick them into viewing more and more of this filth. You say my kids would never look at that type of stuff. Now ask yourself have you ever been looking for some thing on the internet and found yourself at a porn site instead. This happened to me when one of my daughters had a report to do on the White House and I typed in whitehouse.com into the browser and a porn site popped up. I was not looking for porn on there but there it was to my amazement. Later I went back just like a moth drawn to a flame not thinking of any danger I was opening into my life. From this first viewing I found more and more things to view each time I went on, hunting and finding anything that my heart desired except piece of mind. The more I found the more I wanted to find which became a cycle for me as it is with thousand of other men in America today. What is the chance of one of you becoming addicted to porn. When you do nothing to protect yourself or your family you are almost no different than me. Till I lost everything that I loved in my life I did not have a problem and I definitely was not a porn addict.
As I sat in a dark room for three days with a bottle of pills on one side and a gun on my other planing my death, wanting to end the pain I learned the real price that I had paid. I had distraught my whole family and alienated myself from them. ( 2 Corinthians 10:3-6) Now I have only myself to blame for my own actions but an addict never takes that blame. Not till they turn over their life to God and know that they have no power over their addiction. The problem is that most addicts like me will not come to this until their life is devastated. Like me they will never accept their addiction till they are broken, put in jail, or dying from their non-addiction.
I had given into casual porn use not too often but that was all it took. As the years went by and the things that use to be shocking were common I never wondered why. There were so many signs that I was losing this war but the commander kept me in the dark. As the devils kept giving me all that I wanted for free of charge. There was however a penalty payment that was not disclosed. This payment would be disclosed much later to me and the cost would be great. Unlike the alcoholic that has to go get his drug mine was everywhere. No matter where I turned there was something feeding my addiction from the shows on TV, the adds in periodicals, and when I went outside there were all the beautiful ladies and what were they wearing. All I had to do was open my eyes and take it all in. These things feed my hunger but the feast was on my computer in my office. I could go home and go into private where they all waited on me teasing me calling me. How could I ignore this urge that made me feel so good. Only it never last and I was always worried about being found out. I was living a lie showing the world how happy I was when in reality I had no self respect and doubted everything I did. Finally the devils let my sins be known and started collecting their debts from me. My wife left me and filed for divorce. (Matthew 19:3-9) My daughters stopped talking to or seeing me. They took away my home, and my business. I lived out a series of threes (30 year marriage gone, 33 year best friend gone, 3 daughters gone, $300,000+ house gone, $150,000+ business that I had put everything into gone approximately $500,000+ in total gone). All this cause I didn’t have an addiction to porn. I had lied to myself and my addiction had taken away my life. When all was dark God gave me all his love and paid my debts for me. He will do this for anyone that ask him to handle their heart and bring them back to serenity. God can give them a way to escape the pain and the shame if he is given power to give guidance. (1Corinthians 10:12-13) Should I be telling you all of this, it is my obligation to do so, or allow one of you to fall. (Romans 12:1-21) A pit that I myself have been in and known a pain that peeled the fibers of my soul. With Gods words I am directed to carry my pain and warning to you in a plea to protect your life from a peril of losing your soul. According to statistics approximately sixty percent of all Christian men are addicted to some form of porn. If you or someone you know has this problem please come as we pray. ( Psalm 23 )
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