We're now up to the two week mark since everything changed. I won't say they've been easy. There has been struggle on every front. There's no sense of sportsmanship or fair play with Satan, and he's got no problem kicking you when you're down and assaulting you when you're weak.
These two weeks haven't been easy, but they have been victorious. Satan may attack while I'm weak, but God's strength is made perfect in weakness. To God be the glory; great things, He hath done.
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i just found your blog and must say, i'm quite taken by the courage you are showing in fighting for your freedom from this addiction. maybe those aren't the 'right words'. i know that our freedom is secured by the Blood; i also know that making choices to keep that freedom is an act of decision and obedience. i applaud your convictions and pray you'll stay with them.
ReplyDeletehow did the letter go? i'm not so curious about it for the sake of knowing your 'business' myself, but that i think there is power in sharing. if we can get it out of ourselves, it can come into the light and we can see 'it' for what 'it' really is. as long as we hide under the cloak of darkness, we stay in the dark of defeat. you've come so far!
i'm very interested in your comments about accountability. it seems we live in a world where there is no such thing anymore...only gossip and ridicule. we need accountability to keep ourselves in check for the sake of living for Christ. we need others to help us, support us, encourage us, edify us, and give us a 'whoa there' from time to time. mostly what we have today is abuse. if someone finds out something about us, instead of using it to learn and make us stronger (for all involved), it is taken to a place of ridicule and shame to take us down, another stronghold for satan to grasp our lives in one of its most destructive ways.
i would be interested in more of your thoughts about accountability and where we can find it, how we can use it, whatever your thoughts and beliefs are on it. maybe that's because i need it, too.
thanks for your posts. they are uplifting, encouraging, and human. a side of ministers we don't often see.
Thanks, Tad. You may know this already... but preachers are afraid to show that they are human precisely because they are human. We're afraid, sometimes for good reason - those attacks you mentioned, rather than help and support. It's been said that Christianity is the only army that shoots its wounded. (It's not true... historically and socially, many groups would rather eliminate the weak than help them become strong - it's easier.) But that very fear to be seen struggling (even victoriously!) is a human trait itself. We'd all love to look perfect, if we could.
ReplyDeleteAccountability is a great subject; rather than putting it all here in the comments, I think I'll do a post on it.
Ultimately, you can use all the right tools, though, and still fail. I know people who have gone through the right motions, yet still struggle and fall. That's why I give God all the credit. It wasn't until it really hit me that this sin is already defeated, hung on a cross by Christ Jesus and left dead and crushed when He rose from the grave, that I was able to get victory from the steps I needed to take. I had to reckon myself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ my Lord.
As to the letter... I'm not going to post the text of it here; if it were just my privacy at issue, I would, but I need to respect the privacy of my wife, as well. Once before, early in our marriage, she found a discrepancy on a bank statement, and I had to confess to her that I'd used internet porn. That confession devastated a young wife who was already struggling with some things in our marriage. It hurt her badly, and she took some of that pain out on me for years afterward. So I was honestly petrified about how she would respond to this admission that it wasn't a one-time thing, but something I'd done even after that for something like a decade.
But I'm blessed. Although her initial response was numbness and shock, followed definitely by feelings of anger and betrayal, she also turned to the Lord. She's done a lot of growing herself (some of that spurred on by her seeking out accountability and counsel from an older Christian friend, incidentally) in the last year, and that made a huge difference in how things have played out.
After the shock wore off, we've talked about it some, a little at a time. I've tried to be very open with her, and she's tried to be gentle with me. It's uncomfortable, but those conversations have to take place if we're to get to a point of healing, a place where she can have any kind of trust in me.
We haven't reached a point of complete forgiveness, but in some ways, I think we're actually closer than we were before I gave her that letter. Dealing with the aftermath of something like this is complex, I'm finding, but so far, the Lord is getting us through it. I intend to keep talking with her about how she is faring, and by God's grace, I think a time will come when she's able to say that she has completely forgiven me and that we're closer than we've ever been before.
Thanks again for reading and commenting. It's certainly my hope that by my recounting my own struggle, someone else may gain victory as well or help others to it.