Questions

I’m not sure if this is a right place to ask this question. I’m 15 and i’m a girl. I never watch porn and was never addicted to it. But God gave me this idea to go to a public speaking competition with porn as my topic. so i went… I know the effort was worth it because words about the speech circulated throughout the tournament. So here’s the problem. There’s another public speaking competition coming up, and a fellow sis in Christ told me to talk about this topic again.. I just want to know how am i suppose raise awareness through a persuasive speech? I’m living in malaysia, and here i don’t know of any porn ministry YET, so i don’t have any resources or anybody that knows how to do this kind of things… tried the internet..and well, i can’t find an example speech about porn..

With the Lord’s help, my husband has come a long way in his struggle with pornography. He has sought counseling and has an accountability friend he can talk with if he needs to. We have filters on our media and safeguards built into our lifestyle. I know that the temptation is still there for him, though. I pray for him and I try to respond with forgiveness and grace when he confesses to me that he has stumbled. I am writing because recently it seems that his stumbles happen very predictably whenever one of our safeguards is down (if I am away overnight and he is alone, if I accidentally leave a computer logged in with the filter disabled, if we are visiting somewhere with unfiltered television). Sometimes he confesses these stumbles to me, sometimes I find out about them as I monitor our media usage reports. He is repentant, but I am troubled because it seems that his repentance is basically just apologizing. I feel like his repentance should be accompanied by self-motivated action. I feel like he (not me) should be the one asking “what can I do to prevent this next time?”, and because I don’t see him doing that, it makes me think that he isn’t sufficiently motivated to take his recovery journey further. I expressed this to him a few days ago when he confessed to me he had recently tried (unsuccessfully) to access pornography. He was hurt and said that my words were “beating him up.” He tells me that I don’t always see the times when he is tempted and doesn’t give in. Now I am concerned that I am not supporting him as I should. I don’t at all want to make him feel condemnation, especially when he is voluntarily confessing to me. But, I can’t shake this feeling that this is not the best we can hope for, that a greater experience of freedom and victory is possible. I want to encourage him to cultivate strength in Christ to “stand up under” temptation (and not just trust the filter to do this for him), but I feel frustrated when I don’t see evidence of his desire to gain greater freedom. I would welcome persepctive on how to respond to his struggles and whether I am approaching this with the wrong attitude.

About 4 months after a series of events my fiance told me one night that he had not just dealt with porn in his past (which I was aware of) but that he had struggled while we were dating and was so scared to admit it to me because he knew how much it would hurt. He came to me sobbing and very repentant. He told me he could understand if I couldn’t forgive him and at that moment as clear as I have ever heard the Holy Spirit, I heard the Holy Spirit say “But I wouldn’t understand”. I was certain that not only did I have to forgive him but I wanted to. The verse from James about repentance in mourning allows God to uplift the humble was the verse I kept thinking of as well as the verse that tells us to confess our sin to one another and we will be healed. I knew in that moment that God was truly bringing freedom to his life, that he had prayed for and wanted for so long. Since then he has the accountability 3x watch on his laptop, my laptop and his phone. He also does not have the laptop with him at night when he goes to his house, so as to avoid temptation when he is alone. I ask him regularly how he is doing and I know for certain that he has overcome this. But I have overcoming to do with the amount of insecurity that I have incurred since all of this. I have always been a private person, but I was excited to be with my husband one day. Now just talking about the wedding night fills me with sadness because I fear he will think of someone else when he is with me. Even the lingerie that I have gotten as presents, instead of feeling sexy and excited to be with my husband, I become nervous that I look slutty and he’ll remember something. Or I won’t be good enough. I have told him my fears, I have been very honest with him – he has assured me with tears in his eyes every time that I am perfect and that I am too good for him – that I have nothing to worry about. But with only 2 months until the wedding I am still dealing with this sadness and fear. Is there anything I can do to help this? When I ask him if he can still remember images he says that God has answered my prayers and he doesn’t. Can you forget the images? Do you think of other people when you are with a husband or wife? I want our night to be perfect, I don’t want this sadness and fear anymore.