Pulling back the band-aid

This post is rated R for mature content. Or, depending on how you look at it, I guess you could say it's rated NC-17 or rated X. In this post, I'm going to get very personal with you. I'm going to confess some stuff. I'm going to talk about sex, sex-related issues, whatever you want to call it. If this type of topic makes you uncomfortable, or if you are extremely sensitive about this topic and I just accidentally turned you on just by writing this, I truly apologize, and you might want to skip this post altogether.

I'm ready to talk about my issues now. My intention in doing so isn't to gross you out or to be indecent about something that should probably remain private. My intention is to be honest. My intention is to bring stuff out into the light so that the invisible beings in dark places won't be able to shove it in my face later.

My intention isn't to make you stumble. In fact, I truly hope I don't. I will spare you a lot of details for that very reason. And please understand that I'm not trying to rewrite theology or start a cult or anything weird like that. This is my blog. This is my journal. When I go through stuff, I process it here. You are welcome to read it, especially if it helps you process the stuff that you go through.

If you're familiar with my blog, you know my style. If something inside me is healing, I like to pull back the band-aid and show you my wound. I'm like, "Hey, check out that scab. It took a really look time for the bleeding to finally stop, but it sure is nice to see the scar beginning to form underneath. You think this looks nasty? Yeesh. You should have seen it when the pus was oozing out of it and it was starting to turn green. Hmm. On second thought, maybe it's a good thing you didn't see it. It stank, too. But it's getting better now."

So, in this post, I'm going to pull back the metaphorical band-aid and let you have a quick look. I mean, you never know what's healing underneath a band-aid. And you never know what's going on behind a smile.

So, Valentine's Day is coming up. Also, oddly enough, a sexual movie called Fifty Shades of Grey is going to be released in the theaters around the same time. I don't even know if I spelled the name of that movie correctly, so I'm not going to research it (which is what any good writer/editor is supposed to do). I don't mean any disrespect toward the filmmakers; I just don't want the search engines on my computer to pick up the name of that movie, think that I want to see it, and then wallpaper my internet with movie ads or anything that might be related to it.

It's kinda hard to escape hearing about that movie if you're doing anything on the internet nowadays, isn't it? Well, I'll be honest with you. The reason I don't want to see that movie isn't really a religious one. No one from my church has forbidden me to see it. I don't think seeing that movie is going to automatically send anyone to hell or anything like that. The reason I'm not going to see it is because it would be like pouring kerosene on a fire that I've been trying to extinguish for a really long time.

I don't really mean to pick on that movie. I just wanted an anecdotal cushion with which to jump-start this post.

So, Valentine's Day is coming up. Hey, Tirzah, do you have any big plans? Yep. For Valentine's Day, my goal is to not have sex with anybody, especially myself.

Just being honest.

"Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Timothy 2:22)

Frankly, I wish I could label what I've been battling a "youthful lust," but I'm an old lady. From what I understand, men hit their sexual peak around age 18 or 19. We women peak sexually in our late 30s, early 40s. At age 38, I am sexually peaking for sure. This ain't youthful. This is serious.

I think that's just how God designed the female human body to work. My entire reproductive system is gearing up for menopausal oblivion, so it's kind of on a sprint to the finish. My hormones are kinda like, "Your childbearing years are almost over, so come on and get pregnant, pronto!!!" Egad! They show no mercy whatsoever.

So, if you're wondering what the big deal is, minor detail: I'm not married. I'm not here to argue with you about what's right and what's wrong. I'm just talking about my life. From what I understand biblically, God intended for me to have sex, to express myself sexually, only when I'm married to a husband, period. Everything else outside that boundary is missing the mark.

Hence my struggles.

Previously in this blog, when I've said that I'm currently struggling with [insert X-rated sins here], what needs to be inserted between the brackets is lust, pornography, and masturbation. Lust is just a general blanket term that's pretty safe to label anything related to it. By "pornography," I mean that I dabbled in actual porn (mostly written) last spring/summer, and I've constantly battled pornographic thoughts that run through my head from time to time; most of the time, my mind/heart invents new pornographic thoughts out of nowhere. Masturbation is something that I struggled with off and on in the past, but nothing like the explosion that occurred several months ago.

I think I can explain this best with a bit of background information.

As I've alluded to previously, when I was a kid and I hit puberty, lust, pornography, and masturbation were kindled into a nice little flame. (Not counting the iniquities that I was born with.) It was the 80s, when all sorts of stuff was broadcast without any TV rating system, and I lived in a house where there was a TV in every room, and I was often left alone. We didn't have hardcore porn, but anytime a sex scene was broadcast, of course I was quite drawn to it.

Eventually, I started masturbating myself to sleep at night. By this, I mean that the images that I saw mostly on TV/movies would fuel my thoughts, and then I would invent new pornographic thoughts, and the resulting physical sensations would comfort me. But during these nightly sessions, I really don't remember touching myself. I didn't find out until many years later that people usually touch themselves during masturbation. (I think my body learned how to sin all by itself.)

As a side note, I will say that I've learned that not everything that happens physically in your body is a sin. Some reflexes are involuntary and natural.

But in my case, trust me, it was a sin.

I finally stopped masturbating sometime around high school or college when I learned that that behavior was wrong. But the thoughts never really stopped.

Meanwhile, I became very involved in a church in college. Unbeknownst to me, it was a spiritually abusive church environment. The people there had this truly crazy idea that almost EVERYBODY deals with masturbation. It was like their favorite sin to talk about -- no, to beat you over the head with.

So, one morning around my college days when I was suddenly awakened during a wet dream (an involuntary reflex, completely natural, no lust involved), I freaked out because of the orgasm I was feeling. In my truly naïve, massively uninformed guilt, I labeled my sensation as "masturbation." I was in my early 20s, and I was a virgin. Nothing bad was happening. I was just clueless.

So, when I went to the church altar and confessed to my mentor that "I masturbated," she became angry, and she verbally beat me over the head with the third-degree: "Come on, what set it off? Movies?"

Nothing. All I did was have a wet dream. It was a perfectly innocent accident. But I didn't know that, so I didn't tell her that. In retrospect, it was really none of her business.

But on that spiritually abusive church altar, I was crying into my mentor's lap because I was horrified that my "sin" would affect the people that I was leading at the time (in my small group).

There was another incident that branded me in a similar way. A few years later, while I was still hanging around the same spiritually abusive people, I was struggling very intensely with depression. I was afraid of my apartment (I guess I thought it was cursed or that there were demons there or something), so some leader-friends came over and prayed over my apartment. At one point, one of them asked me, "Do you deal with masturbation?" The truth was, I hadn't really officially masturbated there. I had come close, possibly crossed a line or two, perhaps tiptoed around the edge of the pit, but I honestly hadn't jumped in. But I started to cry, I said yes, and I possibly over-confessed again while my leader-friends prayed for me.

To this day, I'm not sure if that "friend" had a real word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit, if she was listening to a familiar spirit, or if she was just assuming that everybody dealt with masturbation because it was that sicko church's favorite sin.

"When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.' " (Luke 11:24-26)

So, I don't know if maybe all of that just kinda floated around inside me without being dealt with thoroughly, or if I thought I was free from that junk, or if all that Freedom ministry that I got was a necessary band-aid to the pus-boiling wound that still lay underneath. I'm not completely sure what happened between college and now.

But what I can tell you is that I backslid bigtime last year, and I'm still dealing with its effects. If you're freaking out reading this, I just want to say that the only person involved in my sin was me. Just me, myself and I.

Yes, I'm important. That's part of the reason why I'm fighting so hard.

About a year ago, I'm not completely sure what led me to do this, but I got very curious about sex, so I started researching the subject on the internet (mostly Wikipedia; don't go there). The good news is, I cleared up a lot of questions that I still had, and I filled in some important gaps in that sex education class I took back in the early 1990s.

The bad news is, I unearthed something deep inside me that I haven't been able to completely kill yet. As I mentioned before, I dabbled in porn. I began looking for it. I looked for some in my home, but I couldn't find any, because I had already thrown out anything that seemed questionable. So, I looked for it on the internet, where there's lots of it. I had heard horror stories throughout the years about hardcore sites messing up people's computers, so I stayed away from those. I found "art," I found YouTube videos that didn't require me to sign in, and I found amateur short stories. (I even tried writing my own porn at one point, but it was boring and dumb. Honest, I'm still physically a virgin.) I combed Wikimedia Commons and "studied" whatever I could find there (seriously, don't go there). After my online visits, I would clear my cache to cover my trail. All of this stopped after a short while.

Unfortunately, during this time, I eventually became addicted to masturbation. This time, it wasn't the innocent nighttime puberty thing. This time, it was the totally bona fide... I don't want to accidentally go into too much detail. But I will say that even though I'm technically still a virgin, I've pretty much violated my own innocence. I have been using masturbation as a substitute for sex.

My addiction grew while I was unemployed, when I was at home by myself all day, and nobody was around to stop me.

"Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears." (Hebrews 12:14-17)

During my months of isolation, I noticed that after my sin sessions, I would often feel ashamed (of course) and very angry, and I would obsess over how somebody had hurt me. After a while, I realized that part of my sexual bondage was related to a root of bitterness. I'm not sure exactly how the two were intertwined, but they would often both express themselves around the same time. The good news is, God showed me stuff that would get squeezed out while/after I would sin.

The bad news is, I was hurting myself, other people, and (especially) God while/after I would sin.

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." (Galatians 6:7-8)

Technically, if I understand the Bible correctly, whenever I masturbate, I sin against my own body. I think that explains why I've been getting sick lately in weird ways: I accidentally popped my knee out of its socket a few months ago, I had to leave the choir platform one evening in the middle of a worship set because I felt sick/dizzy, and I'm just now getting over a cough. I think my addiction has been destroying my health.

Which is one reason why I've been fighting to destroy my addiction.

God showed me that my healing from this addiction would happen gradually, and He's right. It has been a very gradual healing. Last summer, I would masturbate about twice a day (sometimes more). Now it's about once or twice a week. Since I fell into this sin last year, the longest I've been able to go without masturbating is six days.

I'm looking forward to the day when "six days" will become "never again."

But until then, I've done almost everything I can think of to get free. I've stopped looking at porn. I've meditated on scripture. I've rebuked demons. I've crucified my flesh. I've fasted. I've confessed. I've been accountable to people in my life who are very important to me. And I've prayed, very tearfully.

God and I have had lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of conversations about this topic. He's the only One who I've shared every detail with. And He's the One who's been the most loving, most gentle, and most clear when He's talked to me about it: "What you're doing is real, and it needs to stop."

Honestly, that's what bothers me the most about masturbation: It comes between me and God. I can't have this crap in my life anymore. It hurts the relationship that matters to me the most: my relationship with my Father. When I'm tottering on the edge of the pit, when I'm just about to give in to temptation, my Father often says, "I'll leave you two alone."

No. I don't want my Perfect Gentleman of a Father to leave me alone while I wallow anymore. I don't want Him to leave. I want to stop. I don't want this addiction. I want Him. I don't care how mercifully he dumps His grace on me afterwards. I don't care how beautifully He ministers to the deep places in my heart when it's over. I don't want Him to step aside anymore. I don't want Him to be in second place. I want Him to be first. I don't want to worship something else. I want to worship Him.

So, with tears in my eyes while I type this, I don't care if the demons know how to read English or not. They aren't welcome in my life anymore. I don't care if my flesh is stubborn and doesn't want to kick the bucket on its crucifixion tree. I'm not going to feed it anymore. I don't care what kind of statistics are involved in overcoming addictions, and I don't want to just be another testimony. I just want my Father.

I want Him to hold me in His arms until the stupid temptation goes away. I want to enjoy His company unabashedly, unashamedly, uninterruptedly. I don't care about religious or traditional protocols, ministries, or institutions. I care about not destroying the relationship that He and I have been working so hard and so long to build -- the relationship that means more to me than anything else in this world ever could.

So, with all due respect, reader, I couldn't care less what you think about me. But I appreciate you taking the time to read through this, and I hope that maybe my story gives you a tiny little glimmer of hope: I'm an imperfect human, and God doesn't zap people off the face of the earth for being imperfect humans. He longs to draw them into His loving, healing embrace.

And I long to stay there.