SALVATION IS HERE

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here
--Switchfoot (Dare You to Move)

I was never the boy who thought girls had cooties…I always liked them. I had a “girlfriend” since 1st grade (Tonya was the first). Growing up, I never was without one for long. I grew up in church and Christian school, but girls were my value, my worth, my addiction. It wasn’t bad parenting, it was just the way I was “wired,” I guess. I am not trying to start a debate on internal vs. external reasons for things, nor am I saying that God made a mistake with me, but I honestly believe that I came with this wiring and it is part of my gifts, but it is a part that is easy to screw up in very major ways.

Looking back now, when I was growing up I was told over and over and over again the dangers of alcohol and drugs and I kept myself pure from them, not drinking until I was of age. But I had not had those same lessons about sexual purity ingrained in me over and over again from a young age. And sadly, it is easy to screw up at a young age. I had a girlfriend all the way to my senior year of high school. I took that year “off” from girls to “find” myself. I do think I grew a lot that year. It was that year I fell in love with my wife, but it was also the beginning of a time where my problems festered and grabbed major roots.

But this goes much further back than Senior year…I saw my first Playboy at a friend’s grandfather’s house around the age of 10. I remember being drawn to it…wanting to see what the big deal was…being utterly amazed at what I found. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know why it was wrong. It was beautiful…it was like art…it was a woman…and what could be wrong with that. My friend was scared and didn’t really look, but I drank it in…I gulped my first sips of that sweet poison, and I have never forgotten it. It was not immediate, I am sure of that, but over time my mind kept remembering and was drawing me back for a repeat performance. The next years of this story all blur together from the same basic images burned into my mind constantly. I found any way possible to get my fix of naked women; I don’t believe I ever acted out in any rude or disgusting or vulgar way to the women in my life, but I was in constant search of my next fix.

The images of magazines, movies, TV, then later, all of a sudden, this concept of the internet was in my home. And it was all day every day available pornography, and all you had to do was click and say you were 18, no real check, just enter at will with one little “white lie.” I would overhear in the locker room the easiest and best ways to find it online and the sites to see, then when I got a chance I would go. I never shared those things, because then people would know what I was doing; and in my world, I was better than that, so silence was golden. I was addicted. I would sneak into other parts of the house after I was supposed to be asleep and watch dirty movies on HBO, or Cinemax, or Showtime. Sometimes I stayed awake for 3-4 hours just to get my rush. And when I would be going to sleep, I would be dreaming and fantasizing of me in those roles with the women I had seen. I bought my first video at 16; I was so nervous I would get carded. I practiced my response to that question numerous times before daring to go up to the counter. I was also so nervous, I looked at the video titles from the next aisle over in the store, so no one would know what I was doing. All of this led to me purchasing a 20 year old movie involving David Hasselhoff (even in this serious story, take the time to really think about that and chuckle). On the rare occasion I would go to a bookstore, I would go to the photography section and find photobooks of nude “art” so I could get my fix there as well. I would pull the swimsuit issue from the trash (my mom’s poison control) and look. I was completely desperate for my stimulus. There was a time when I couldn’t get to sleep without masturbating, I would lie awake for an hour and afterwards be asleep in 5 minutes. My mind was overrun with images and desires. I was utterly enamored with the female form. God is good and with women he was great. It was almost like the little devil and angel on my shoulder conversing; my mind would say “this is wrong,” then something would say “it is honoring the beautiful work of our magnificent creator.” (That is the most twisted Sunday School answer I think anyone has ever come up with)

All of these encounters affected my real relationships with girlfriends. I would desire for them to do those things with me. Not go “all the way,” but just make me felt like I felt when I was seeing those things on the screen. I wasn’t pushy or gross (I don’t believe I was), but my mind had turned what I had seen into the expectation of intimacy. Somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to abstain from intercourse, but more damage was done than I care to admit.

In college, I remained physically pure with real women, but inside I was defiling my mind. I was around other guys to whom this was the norm and there were no issues in their mind (at least none I knew of). On the exterior I was much better than them, I respected women. But my insides were rotting from swirling through this addiction to this cesspool of smut. At some point though, I made a decision to quit. I don’t remember the exact time or place, but it was a conscious choice to do what was right. I was getting ready to get married, and I was getting myself back into the Word and my little angel on my shoulder finally won the battle he had been fighting for years. And it worked, I broke my addiction free and clean. No real help necessary, not really admitting anything to anyone, just me and God…then…

After being married for a little while, I was talking to my “best-friend” on the phone and he was living with another buddy of ours from high school. They had been talking about things from high school and the buddy mentioned about how on a missions trip in high school I had brought up my porn battles in a “debriefing” session with all the people in the room (male, female, leaders, my parents). I mentioned that was something the Lord had really laid upon my heart that I needed to come to grips with. On the phone, I could hear them both laughing and remembering how they had choked back chuckles when it had happened. Then replaying it over and over about who all was in the room and people’s faces. I remember thinking that I had opened my heart about something that was killing me on the inside, and it was a joke…I was a joke…obviously this must not be such a big deal…or being right and pure is a joke.

Immediately, like that night, I was back online…dying. Married…Christian… clean and sober for years…and one joke did me in. I knew it was wrong, but it was “normal”…something guys do…and to be a real man, I would do it too. No more “Sunday school” reasoning, this was about being a man.

All of a sudden I was back in my addiction…up to my neck…the one that “Christians” don’t deal with and DEFINITELY don’t talk about…and no friends to talk it out with. So I drank away my pain with my drug of choice, naked women. I started with my old sites, but in just a few years, the internet had expanded to no end. The sites you could share music with, could now be used for so much more. And then I found my biggest draw yet: stories. Letting my mind, that I had trained for years to have these visions, take off and run with whatever story I read. And this was from a guy who despised to read books. (On a positive, this experience taught me the joy of reading, and allowing the mind to run wild with ideas, just better content)

The reality was, I was dying to get caught, I was dying for someone to back up that little angel that I was no longer listening to. Someone to tell me this was WRONG, because I couldn’t believe it myself. I needed to be shaken or slapped or anything to get me back to thinking straight. I effected my life…and my marriage…I couldn’t treat my wife like I should…I couldn’t get to sleep without seeing naked women.

Then it finally happened. Innocently enough, my wife was looking for something she had seen online the day before and opened the history of our web browser. There was her worst nightmare laid out before her eyes in alarming detail, and she was married to it and carrying it’s child. We got counseling, I found a great friend I could talk to about things…things were great. Then the Lord asked us to move back home to Keystone…to help our struggling church…with a struggling staff that was all family. So when the Lord and family (with first time grandparents) call you home, you go. But your friends don’t move with you. And when you only have one, and he doesn’t come too…and your only “friend” here is the one who sent you back into your darkest places in the recent past…what is to happen, and why would God call us into that? The closest men in my life for over two years have been my father (the pastor) and my father-in-law; neither are ideal candidates for discussions about this type of struggle. And any acquaintances or friends that are new…it’s not easy to catch them up…not like you drop it into your introduction to each other…or over dinner…or really ANYWHERE. It’s not like a conversation naturally leads to that…and in all honesty it’s not like I am dying to share these stories of my greatness and nobility, honor and valor…I am talking about my nasty, vile, disgusting, secrets…that I am in many ways happy to keep secret…to use my clean start with new people. And from the outside, no one is going to steer me there as if I need it. From the outside I look silky smooth…I am the pastor’s son who is constantly helping at the church; I am married to the only woman I have ever slept with, and I am madly in love with her; I am a dad to an adorable little girl. Those things wouldn’t be in my past. But there they are.

But over these nearly three years…no friends…work…child…parents…church struggles…annoying people…faith challenges…building a house…another child…marriage…macho attitude…how it will reflect on my family…helping others…sponsoring clubs…wearing myself out…and no friends I feel I can rest upon, that I can let my guard down with, I have been pulled ever closer and closer to that deep end. I have stared my demons in the eyes…I have looked for what is on late night TV…I have been tempted to click on the dirty emails…I have typed my old internet haunts into the address bar…but each time, I have struggled to keep from drowning. My lungs have taken on water, I am coughing and hacking and churning to stay afloat…at times the waves calm, and it becomes easier for a while, but the root issues have to be addressed.

I have to find a place to pour my passions so that they will not be able to be sucked from my being through porn. And I need a friend to be able to open up to. This blog is becoming that, I get to shit out on a page for others to read, the contents of my heart. But the reality is that I can hide from this screen the lies and the pain and sorrow and addiction if I choose to. And my passion needs to be something to replace those evil desires in my being. I need something(s) that affects my spirit the same way, except for Good and not Evil…I need my redemption story…I need my purpose for this pain…I need my community of hope…I need my rescue line…I need my continual salvation…I need my truth…I need my salvation, and I need it daily…and it is continually provided…how cool is that?