shipwreck

I'm 43, married with 3 children. I'm addicted to porn. Started getting into it at 13 or so - magazines and such. When I grew up I would go to the video store and was a regular renter. When I started to to have sex with my girlfriend - now my wife - I got her into porn as well. We would watch together and she had her own. I always thought I wanted to marry a freak and I thought I could make one. Well, I did and porn became a part of our love life that was just always there. In 2001 I was converted and gave my heart to Jesus Christ. That changed everything...I had a massive video collection that I tossed. I went from watching porn everyday (Now, sometimes I say I did something everyday but I mean once a week, but I mean "EVERY DAY") to NOTHING for almost a year and a half! Thank you Jesus! But as my initial salvation experience began to change into my 'life in Christ' I found some of those same desires. Before Christ I would have said "there's no problem with this". Nothing wrong with it and no reason to change. But when I fell in love with Jesus he changed my mind and heart about this. I felt terrible and that I had betrayed the purest trust I'd ever been given. And of course I had to live with the consequences of my former life too. My wife did not and still has not accepted Christ. So although my addiction was well known to her - my confessions to her of stumbling just seemed like an accusation against her. After a few confessions to her over time - she let me know that she didn't want to hear it. Like Paul said "what did you get from those things of which you are now ashamed?" I got pain and regret and plenty of it. I found what I was looking for outside of God and it's a total shipwreck. So as time has gone on I've learned to deal with temptation from the front end. Always going to where it starts. It may end at the computer but it starts at TV. So I fight it at the TV and I pray for holiness daily. This has worked well giving me at first 4 or 6 months in between 'episodes'. Then longer as time has gone on. Before this last time on friday it had been 2 years. So friday I had a nice juicy argument with my wife - the deep kind that you can only get after 20 years together. And I'm going to be very honest here. I said to God - "ok, if You're not going to save her and if it's going to be like this I'm going to do what I want." I didn't set out to watch porn but I took down my defense and opened the doors. Even after two years I still know exactly how to slip down. "It's the things that come out of a man's heart that make him unclean". I still have plenty that's unclean. And here's the most humbling part for me. Two days later my wife came and apologized for being in a terrible mood and laid her heart out to me so that I was able to minister to her. God had a blessing for me but I was angry and unwilling to wait. I am prideful and petty, forgetful and blind. I'm sorry Father, I'm sorry wife for what I've done. I don't deserve Your grace and am ill equipped for the position I'm in with my family. Father restore me because my salvation and sanctification is YOUR idea. Make me holy BECAUSE YOU ARE HOLY! When I believed that Jesus was raised and confessed that He is Lord-You gave me a deposit for my eternal life - a part of You to live in me. So for Your sake don't let Your enemies (the old me) prevail over You. Destroy 'them' and and let us be done away with them. In Jesus name. Amen.

RSS Feed Archives