He is with us in our weakness and He STILL Loves Us!!!
About 3 weeks ago I finally had the courage, and deep prompting by the Holy Spirit, to tell a trusted friend about my addiction and some other things in my past. I've been walking clean from porn, masturbation, and fantasies for almost a month now and am just needing continued prayers to stay clean this time. I'm female, 30 yrs old and have been addicted to masturbation (ugh! I have a hard time even saying that word sometimes!) since I was a young child, even before I really knew that it was a sexual thing. I had friends that were very hypersexual, probably from all the adult movies their parents let them watch, and in turn they were always acting that way around me. I always felt uncomfortable with them being that way, but as a young kid I just wanted friends and to be liked so I often went along with what they wanted, even though I really hated it, but it sometimes felt good too, so I was really internally conflicted. After a while those friends moved away and I grew to be a teen where I had an encounter with a boy about 17 and I was 12 or 13. I wasn't raped, but it went a lot farther than I was comfortable with and I remember spending the whole night dry heaving in the bathroom because I was not prepared for such an intense experience, emotionally and physically. When I was in high school things only progressed from there. I got involved with the "bad" boy at the church and lost my virginity to him just after I turned 18, after that brief relationship I went on to sleep with 14 men (and fooled around with countless others) within a 4 year period, most of the encounters were one or two night stands. Some of them were relationships, but after I slept with them, I pulled away or they did. I also had an encounter with a woman about my age, I was curious and decided to just go through with it and just like when I was a kid with my girl friends, although it felt good, I hated it and I despised myself for doing it. I knew it was against God's plan for me as a woman and it only served to harden my heart even more. After high school when I went to college is when I started getting involved with porn, and it didn't start out with all the soft stuff either, I somehow was attracted to the hard core part of porn rather than the lovey part that they usually make for women. I did chat rooms, talked to men on the phone from as far away as Germany and Canada, I actually met a man who was older online who was into the S&M scene and although nothing happened, we just talked, it scared me enough to never meet anyone that I met online again. After that I just fell head first into a very long and dark cycle of porn and selfishness, I ended up doing drugs (recreationally with friends) that included ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, crystal meth, alcohol, and one very very bad night on a trip of acid. I thank God that I never became fully addicted to the drugs or alcohol. I can remember spending hours, if not days, on porn binges, just surfing the net hour after hour only to realize that I've just spent the last 8 hours or so filling my mind with trash and wrecking my body. You're body can only take so much stimulus and after that you can just sleep for days. A few years ago I came back to Jesus Christ and in one night I felt totally healed from this habit, but within 3 weeks of not doing anything with my habit I began to fall again and again and again. It's been a very rough 3 years and I thought I could handle it all on my own, I never wanted anyone to know my past, never wanted to get married because I was afraid of the person I would marry to know these things about me (still not married yet) and I kept reading that for the hold of sin to be broken you need to confess it and bring it out into the open. I struggled with this sooooo much!! There was no way I was telling anyone, ever! Then over the past few months things had gotten very bad, I was in a deep depression, not wanting to even live anymore, was on porn binges every week and had stopped going to church for 6 months. Then about a month ago I just got up the courage to go back to church and within a week God had placed a treasured sister in Christ in my path and I ended up sharing my past with her. I felt like I was out of my body when I was saying all these things, like I didn't want to, but I knew I had to obey God and confess it out loud to break the hold it had over me. Sin has incredible power when it's in the dark. The minute you let the light shine in is when healing can begin taking place. I had confessed it to God so many times and had momentary victories, but always reverted back to my old ways and I just knew that confessing to an actual person in the faith was the next step for me, even though I totally rebelled against having to do that!! I thought He was wrong in wanting me to do this and why couldn't it just be between He and I to work out. But God wanted to show me that the whole world wasn't going to end and crash down around me the minute I shared my story. He also wanted to show me the love and grace that a trusted friend can really have in accepting you regardless of your past and also let them know so the Holy Spirit can bring to their mind to pray for you in the future in that area of weakness. He wanted to show me that not sharing it was choking me and hindering me from moving forward in my spiritual walk and life. As long as I lived with these secrets in the dark I could never be free to be completely open and honest with another person. I was only showing one side of myself and it always felt like a lie. Like I was only masquerading being the good girl, which is the image I've always portrayed to people my whole life. The conservative girl next door, the good, understanding, nice Christian girl. I could never be the woman He wants for me to be and progress in the life He has for me if I kept keeping this inside trying to handle it on my own. I have a lot of healing to do, but I have my first meeting with a counselor next week who is a Christian and specializes with things like this. I hope she can help me start living the life God has meant for me to live. It's never too late! God wants to work a miracle in all our lives. We are precious little girls to Him and He longs to hold us close and be our protector, our defender, to speak gently and tenderly to us, to be our best friend and the great great love of our lives. Oh that we would let down our guard and let Him in to heal our broken hearts and cleanse our bodies, our minds, our souls and our spirits with His precious blood. I love you all ladies and am praying for us always :) I know that while we are weak, God is able and powerful to uphold us :) In the love of Jesus Christ our Mighty Savior!
Love,
H
fyi...I also posted this on [edited by admin] which is another Christian Ministry that is specific to helping women overcome sexual addiction. I've been inspired by both PinkCross and this other Ministry so much that I felt I should share my story and struggles on both :)
Also, I previously was member hs77 and posted a topic here (under female addiction) called "YOU CAN’T REMOVE YOURSELF, FROM YOURSELF, THAT’S MY ISSUE....." I think I posted it last February 9,2009 and re-reading it just made me realize how far I've come mentally and emotionally from that time. I wanted a new member name and decided for morningstarglory77, that is what I'll be under from now on :))
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"For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved."
Romans 10:10, NLT
God never promised that by becoming a Christian life would instantly be a bed of roses in fact HE tells us that we will struggle, be tested, but ultimately overcome in HIS name.
"Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted"
2 Timothy 3:12
"Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also."
John 15:20
"Strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."
Acts 14:22
"Persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed"
2 Corinthians 4:9
At times our worst enemy is ourselves. You see it is the "self" that causes us to fall, feed into the enemies lies and deny God because the self is "selfish" and "self indulging" at any cost. We are more than over comers through Christ Jesus who strengthens us!!
Romans 8
Life Through the Spirit
1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. 5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. 12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Future Glory
18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
More Than Conquerors
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I feel this is the best scripture that sums it all up. God is for you!! You can and WILL overcome through Christ Jesus who loves you sooooooo much, cling tightly to HIS word, learn it, eat it up, HE will continue to work in you.
"And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns."
Philippians 1:6
God bless you and keep you,
Jan
In order to marry a soldier you have to be one at heart.
I can relate a good bit to your story and found it encouraging. I struggle with getting everything out into the light, too. I find myself wanting to hide some things and keep things to myself. Particularly with my husband. I can share find with my female friends. I think men in general are hard for me to relate to and talk with. I prefer women. But its affecting my marriage, sigh.
I am also learning to see my relationship with God in a new way, in a large part thanks to a couple of books by Mike Bickle, "Passion for Jesus" and "After God's own heart". He really helped to change my perspective on how God views me, and has drawn my heart toward God like no one else has. While I may not agree with everything he says in the books and have some reservations, (frankly, most anyone has some "junk" in their teachings;God is working to get our beliefs more pure and in line with His word), the overall heart of his messages in Bickle's books are very encouraging and compassionate, drawing me to desire to really know God because He isn't angry with me cuz of all my failures and weaknesses...or maybe I should say, He hasn't given up on me...He graciously, compassionately, lovingly is drawing me to Him, and will bring me to the place of walking more and more in obedience to His ways the more I know Him and know His love for me.
I look forward to having you post more here and share more of what you learn! As we all will do as well.
Blessings,
Tonya
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine!...I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...You are precious and honored in my eyes, and I love you...do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Is.43:4-5)
Hi Tonya :)
I find the more I get close to someone the harder it is for me to share myself fully with them. I usually do most of the listening and they do alot of the sharing, in most of my friendships I am the "perceived" strong one, I guess I just always want to give the impression that everything is great, even though inside I know that's it's not.
I have to admit, my clean streak only lasted about a month. Yes, I have fallen....again. But, this time I realized something that I had never noticed before which was actually a breakthrough in itself. I noticed that when I am feeling particulary stressed out and anxious it's then that I turn to porn/masturbation. I was feeling extremely stressed this past weekend because I had 3 tests and a paper due (I'm 30, but went back to college) which I had really procrastinated on and now I had put myself in a very stressful position, well the first thing that started coming up was some strong emotions and the feeling of just wanting to "get away" from the pressure and my body/my mind wanted to turn to "that thing" that it knew would release that pressure and stress. Obviously there are other times when we feel tempted to use porn/masturbation, but this is one of my triggers that I had never noticed before. So at least it's a glimmer of hope and I can build on that for future times when I find myself feeling stressed or anxious.
I also had my first counseling meeting with a great lady. She's a Christian counselor that deals with both the spiritual and physical part of addiction, we had a intro session and I tried to tell her about why I was there, but I just clammed up and started sweating and almost shaking about the thought of telling another person, face to face, about this. I didn't think I'd have that type of reaction, especially since I'd already told my friend earlier in the month, but my goodness, I really realized what a hold this had on me still. And she said, it's not about the porn/masturbation/affairs, etc. she wants to get to the root of the issue, the soul damage that was experienced that led to the addiction and damaging behavior that I keep engaging in. I'm nervous to continue, but I know that I just need to press on and keep moving forward. I think I heard somewhere that when we sin we are trying to fill a real and valid need in a wrong way. Do we sin because we're lonely, stressed, bored, etc. Well there is that valid need, but we need to look to God to fill that need in His perfect way, instead of filling the need with the temporary unsatisfying things of this world.
I'll definitely check out those book you mentioned, I love checking out new Christian Authors. My counselor mentioned Henry Blackaby's book "Experiencing God" so I might check that out too. You are certainly not alone in your struggle and I'm grateful that this site is here for us to go to for encouragement from each other :)
My personal prayer to God has always been "Please don't give up on me, even when I've given up on myself and given up on You, Please remember me and help me to come back to You" Ever since I was little I remember praying that.
Hope you're week is going well so far. Feel free to pm me anytime :)
God Bless,
Morningstarglory77
I have tried a number of different counselors over the years and never stuck with it. So now I'm just seeking God and waiting for Him to do His work in me, cuz there are just too many barriers for counseling to work for me (babysitting, money, gas, etc).
Yeah, I do find I do pretty much same type of stuff to deal with my stress and emotions. Hard to break free of stuff you've been doing for years! Only thru God. By His grace. I've really been having to say, "I can't. I've tried and tried and fail every time. I can't do it. I need You to help me. By Your grace, God." And lately, He has been. Both times with issues my husband and I were struggling with, both related to finances.
I really do like Passion for Jesus and After God's Own Heart, even though I have heard that there are groups of ministries/people who take issue with the author...I am just seeking God to help me discern truth and make sure to get my Bible out more when I read books to look up the passages and make sure what they say, and also compare different books by different authors to get different perspectives. Discernment is very important, to be able to make sure someone isn't teaching wrong stuff. And it seems most everyone is likely to! God has a work to do in each of us, and if we will let Him, He will remove the junk that aren't light and truth and holy.
I did scan thru the book, Experiencing God, and perhaps wasn't ready for it or just not drawn to it. I'll check it out again someday later. I am wanting to focus on seeking God and knowing Him and receiving His love. I figure that is foundational, being rooted and grounded in the love of God thru Christ Jesus, as it says in Ephesians 3: 16-21.
Looking forward to talking more!
Tonya
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine!...I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...You are precious and honored in my eyes, and I love you...do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Is.43:4-5)