Bringing the dead to life again

So I recently was diagnosed with major blockages in my coronary arteries.  I was essentially a dead man walking.  I had a condition that was going to kill me....and I was clueless.  I happily (well sometimes) went thru life blissfully unaware.

But slowly the condition came to limit what I could do.  So I just did less.  I accepted that.  I "intended" to do better, to get in shape, and believed I had time to do so before anything serious happened.

Thankfully I was made aware of my condition before it ended my life.  I went in last Thursday for a cardiac stent procedure to relieve the blockages in my heart.  I no longer have a bad heart, it has been fixed.

Much like Salvation.  As a sinner I went thru life thinking I was fine, blissfully unaware that I had a condition that would inevitably kill me.  But Jesus came and offered to fix my heart.  That should be it, I am fixed, healed, alive, life is easy now.

Hold the phone.

Life for me today (less than a week after the procedure) feels harder.  I struggle with intense anxiety, phantom pains, and a compendium of associated symptoms.  But see thats the rub, it "feels" harder.  In reality, my heart is fixed, it has more flow, it is not trying to kill me...but my mind has yet to grasp the amazingness of my rescue!

I fear, I worry.  I cling to things that will not preserve my life.  How much of a mirror to my spiritual walk!  My heart has been fixed, my life has been saved, I am a child of God...yet I live, oftentimes, as one who is still dying.

So my prayer today is to live in the reality of my salvation, not in the shadow of my old condition!

Shameover

shame·o·ver

/SHāmˌōvər/

shame = 
a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.

hangover = 
1.the disagreeable physical aftereffects of drunkenness, such as aheadache or stomach disorder, usually felt several hours aftercessation of drinking.
2.something remaining behind from a former period or state of affairs.
3.any aftermath of or lingering effect from a distressing experience:


My neighbor coined a phrase (or he heard somewhere else).  Shameover.  It was the awful feeling he had when he woke up in the morning and realized how much money he had spent at the strip club.  But it can apply to any of the things we do/pursue in life that we know aren't good for us, are not in line with the who we think/know we should be.

I am still working thru the shame of realizing the ways in which i have not only allowed lust and sin into my life but entertained it.  I enjoyed its presence.  I kept telling myself things wouldn't go further....but they always do.  And each new line that is crossed (or re-crossed) is adding to the shameover.

It's really only when I am willing to admit what I have done (sharing with another) that I can begin to 'cure' the shameover.  The real 'cure' is in Christ, admitting my guilt to Him and asking for forgiveness but, for me, if that is all the farther it goes the shameover hangs on.

The first step is recognizing you have a shameover...admit to yourself what is the cause of it.

Then we can begin the process of curing our shameover by admitting the source of our shame to Christ and trusted others...and work towards not getting drunk on our pet sin again.

There's no quick cure for a shameover!

Limited Resources

It's hard to admit that you are overextended physically, financially, and emotionally.

We only have so much time, money and emotional energy to commit to life and all it entails.  But I have been spending mine like drunken Navy man on shore leave!

Money is somewhat easier to track and see where it's gone....but time?  emotion?  How does one measure that...how do you determine where you should be spending it?

I am not sure I know the answer to that question.

The well is running dry.  Something has to give.

Disintegration

Really hit a rough patch this week. So my struggle isn't my only issue and I have found that when I am having a rough time in other areas of life the pornography and acting out is worse. So looking at my life honestly I have to admit that I am a wreck. Personally, spiritually, and financially. My lack of discipline in all of these areas is the chaos that feeds/justifies my addiction and contributes to the feelings of hopelessness. But I am not hopeless, nor am I helpless, I am also not alone. My choices are what got me here. Every dirty dish, I own. I made that...and when I decided it was easier to toss it in the sink instead of deal with it...that small mess grows.I have a good job, I just spend more than I make...apparently. I am always tired when i get home because I dont' exercise enough. But finding the energy to exercise when you come home to the same chaos everyday....it's not easy. All of us here face similar struggles I am sure. Mine are not the worst. I just have to work on it. one dish, one bill, one load of laundry at a time. I can't recover in only one area of my life....I have to recover my life in whole. God came to make us whole, to integrate what was dis-integrated.

Reboot

I work in IT.

When your computer bogs down, starts throwing errors, or gets all mucked up from too much porn.

Reboot.

Rebooting resets the computer to it's normal state, clears out the current memory, and can give you a chance to fix whatever the initial issue was.

What it won't do is fix hardware problems, or bad programming.  That takes skilled help, it takes effort, it means that you have to go in a clean out whats causing the problem.

Sometimes your computer has to crash before you admit you need to reboot.

I crashed.  And am in desperate need of a reboot.

Hope for the journey

I think we mistakenly assume that Christ in us means we will feel these wonderful urges to only do good and bad things will suddenly be unappealing. Or that somehow our actions have bearing on our eternal position in Christ. We either have asked Jesus to be our Savior or we havent. If so, the rest of life is "working out our salvation with fear and trembling" which, to me, means...trying to figure out the ramifications of being saved while still living in my sinful body here on earth. Our eternal destination is set with God in Heaven, but we have a few miles to walk here before we get Home. We are imperfect creatures, saved, and destined for future perfection in Christ. 

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12

 
Be encouraged, God has not abandoned us.

Unregenerate Bastard?

There's been some discussion of late about 'unregenerate christians'

those with no fruit, or those living in habitual sin.

 

So even tho I am in Christ and saved by Grace, there's an expectation of growth, or some development, maturity. Trying to wrap my head around the idea of grace without using it as a license to keep sinning and simply claim that I just "unable" to get victory in this area

 

....maybe its just that I am 'unwilling' to submit to the amount of pain necesary to see that battle won.

 

There is still the reality that I am living in a sinful body, I am not yet perfected, I will always have a sin nature.  But will i always give in to it so easily?

 

Porn has been my struggle since college, lust was even years before that.

More than half of my life i have been hamstrung in one way or another with this...even if only for its power to contribute to my insecurity in my relationship with my Heavenly Father.

 

I am grateful for Gods faithfullness in the midst of my faithlessness :)

All is not lost, and God is not finished with me yet...but yikes its hard not to get a lil' down about it once in a while!

What's in a Touch?

Sitting close to someone. A brush of the leg or the arm. Cuddling.

What could possibly be wrong with that? We didn't kiss, there was nothing "sexual" about it.

I beg to differ.

This is an area in my life in which I have struggled...ok, still struggle to set boundaries and stick to them. As someone with SSA, I find myself pulled, as if by gravity, to guys around me. Their looks, their humor, their sense of self-confidence....any one of those is enough to set off the radar and make me turn my head. Could be a stranger, but more often it is a friend. Someone I have known or met thru other circles in my life. But ever since I was a teenager I can remember actively pursuing "touch" with or without permission. To clarify, this is about intentional touch, touch that I initiated, or prolonged.

Sounds awful, doesn't it. But it's okay, right? Because I wasn't touching them sexually...

So what do I mean when I say "actively pursuing touch"? Let me give you some examples; In highschool I remember sliding down in my desk so my knee would just touch the guy in front of me, if he didn't move...well, he must be saying its okay, right? Another time, I sat next to a foreign exchange student in some boring school play and let my hand rest against the outside of his thigh...for the entire play! I even had experiences while I was camping of people rolling close to me in their sleep, and I made sure to not move, and not wake them...just so it would last.

It gets worse.

I have had a habit of sexual jokes, but some of it involved physical antics. Butt-slapping, pretend caresses, passionate embraces, rubbing up against people...all in the name of humor. But was it all just a joke?

What about giving a backrub? Come on, everyone likes a backrub! Nothing wrong with that!

Not so fast.

I have given alot of backrubs. I'm trained in First Aid, and am almost always the "go to" guy on trips (camping, canoeing, climbing) for ailments and aches. I simply want to help. Or do I?

Here's the ugly part.

While the above listed actions could be rationalized away as not crossing any major legal or moral boundaries. Is that the truest telling of the story? What is it about me that is compelled, like a moth to the flame, to touch those around me? And no, all touch is not bad. But if I am honest in me there is almost this vampire-like habit of getting what I "need" from unsuspecting people around me. It's about the condition of my heart. Am I seeking touch from a place of health and balance? Or am I vampire seeking the warmth that only others seem to possess?

Harsh. I know.

If I am ever to get better at relating to the people around me (attractive or not) then I had best be brutally honest about my motivations. I believe that God made me a caring, empathetic person. And healthy 'care-taking' is gift and blessing to those around you. But if I am focusing on how what I do for them will improve our friendship, or I have thoughts of how "our friendship is more special" because of what they allow me to do for them. Or even the simple fact that they do not experience touch in the same way or view it with the same significance as I do, am I being honest by keeping them in the dark? Would they allow the touch if they could see how it affects me? (And I not talking just erections here, the most serious of connections we make outside of physical{sexual} intimacy is emotional.) So for me to pretend that it has no effect on me puts me in a precarious position, lust is crouching at the door, ready to pounce.

Matt 5:27 "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 28 but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Jesus said it's not about how far I go with him/her...it's about the motivation of my heart.

So these are the questions I need to ask myself:

Why am I going there?
What needs am I attempting to get filled?
Would an emotionally healthy person (who knows my struggles) be okay with this?*
Would I do this in front of other Christians (that I look up to?)

*(just because someone might be okay with it does not automatically make it right)

Do I crave touch? You bet. Is it ok for me to take it whenever, wherever, and however I want?

No. I need to trust that God has a plan to meet those perceived needs I have in ways that don't compromise healthy boundaries.

Can I look at healthy males and simply mimic what they do? Maybe, maybe not. Why? Because a healthy, straight guy isn't attracted to the guy he's touching...I am, and that makes all the difference. It isn't about them, it's about how this affects me.

Disease or Choice?

The power of addiction cannot be adequately appraised until addiction is understood as a misguided enactment of our quest for right relationship with God.

Kent Dunnington. Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice (Strategic Initiatives in Evangelical Theology) (Kindle Locations 81-82). Kindle Edition.

This brick house of a statement is found in the preface of this book that I have only just started reading. Obviously the topic is of personal interest for me, being both Christian and Addict. If my addictive behaviors are simply sinful choices....then I am just a bad person who chooses to sin continuously. But if they are an 'addiction', something that I am afflicted with, then perhaps I have no choice in the matter - or if I do have a choice it is so unfair a fight as to make Don Quixote seem sane in believing he can joust a windmill.

As Dunnigton suggests, the truth lies closer to the middle. It looks like a pretty technical read, but its high time I pursued more than just sugar-coated recovery and begun to expose the insides to the light of truth.

Sexual sin is a heart that doesn’t trust God.

"Sexual sin basically says, “I can’t trust God to meet these needs. I can’t trust God to provide these needs in the way that he chooses, therefore, I need to go outside of his provision” —whether that’s through the internet and looking at women in ways you should never look at them, masturbation, sleeping around—it’s really saying, “You’re not true, God. I can’t trust you to be good. I have these desires and urges in the moment, and I need to go take care of them because I can’t trust you to.” So I think that’s really the heart of sexual sin. It’s a heart that doesn’t trust God. It’s a heart that, instead of worshipping the God who is trustworthy, who knows our every need, and who’s good to provide what we really need, we commit idolatry and say, “I need to worship sex instead of you, God."  (from Dave Bruska)

Ran across this today.  And it hit me like a ton of brinks.  Not that I haven't come to the same conclusion before, but simply because it re-reminds me that I have issues...specifically a trust issue.


I don't trust God.

Holy crap.

The God who made the Universe, the God who designed DNA, laminin, quarks, black holes,  the God who knew me in my mothers womb, the God who sent his ONLY Son to die for my sins, the God who has relentlessly pursued me with his grace....THAT's the guy I don't trust?


Well, I usually say that I trust God...but what I say and what I do don't always line up.  So I have to see again that my repeated return to lust as a coping mechanism robs God of his rightful place in my life.  His place is as Provider, Sustainer, Healer, Counselor, Friend, and Savior.  I have let lust come in and occupy most/all of those roles in some fashion or another.

What’s difficult about sexual sin is it has a unique shame factor to it. It’s just a downward spiral. And what happens when you commit sexual sin is you typically withdraw from the things you need the most, whether that’s first and foremost Jesus, and his people, and so, it’s just a downward spiral, it’s a really downward spiral. But it’s an issue of the heart. And the good news is Jesus changes hearts. (also from Dave Bruska)

Thank God for Good News.

And now...the rest of the story.

My Testimony

I was a sensitive, emotional kid. The second son of a young couple who divorced by the time I was 4 years old. Mom did the best she could as a single-mom in the late 70’s, working 2^nd and 3^rd shift jobs. We saw our Dad about one weekend a month; he was always faithful in picking us up, and eager to spend time with us when we were staying with him. Both of my Grandfathers had passed away by the time I was seven. My older brother and I were not close and I don’t remember having any significant male friends during those years. Mom worked very hard but, in struggling to deal with her own issues, was not emotionally available to me.

At around 10 years old both my Mom and my Dad got remarried. My step-Mother and my step-Father were caring people who treated me the same as any natural parent would. I looked to my new step-father for the male affection that I had been starved of so far in life. And while he cared and provided for his new family; he did not seem to understand me. I was talkative, not sports oriented, read a lot of books, and generally found odd bits of information fascinating…almost as fascinating as being able to share those newfound bits with the adults around me. In Junior High, I struggled to be accepted in the small Christian school I was attending. I struggled at home to live up to the expectations of becoming a good Christian boy. And in the midst of this, I also struggled with a growing sexual interest in the guys around me.

Escapism and fantasy were not foreign concepts to me. I had learned to utilize them to occupy myself in the years since the divorce. I could play endlessly with Lego’s, read books till I was nearly cross-eyed, and dream about far-away places for hours. I can’t tell you a specific date or instance that I remember as the ‘turning point’ in my sexual development, but my craving for male affirmation, coupled with the sexual discoveries of puberty, has fueled my struggle with same-sex attraction ever since.

I identified as a Christian from 5^th grade on but still wondered how I could think and/or do the stuff I was doing and actually be a Christian. My desperate need for approval even colored how I approached God. I never internalized that I was accepted just as I was, not because of what I did. My stated beliefs were that God is all-loving, all-powerful, kind, and accepts me just as I am. My operational beliefs told me that I needed to be good in order to have God really bless me, that the things I struggled with were ‘different’, and that God did not view them the same as other sins.

Jr. and Sr. High were not my most memorable years. Suffice it to say, I was not popular, and my attempts at sports were not encouraging. Even though I was involved in theater, and attended our church youth group, I never felt fully accepted. I was very alone and desperately wanted NOT to be. The thought patterns, experiences, and habits formed during that time hardened into deeply imbedded attractions, patterns of coping, and a set of false beliefs that would undermine any efforts of self-will to overcome.

After graduating high school, I attended a very conservative, Christian college in Virginia. I had hoped that something I could learn or do there would be the key to overcoming these un-wanted attractions. Despite those high hopes, my lusting and struggles continued the entire time. For my sophomore year, I left Virginia and attended UW-Milwaukee. I was diagnosed with clinical depression during that same year. I turned again to lust, fantasy, and sex (with other guys) to escape the reality that life was hard, and I wasn’t able to handle it on my own.

The following year I began attending a large church, a church where I would eventually find some connection, get involved in peer ministries, and even become a volunteer youth leader. As a youth leader, I thought I had found my calling, my purpose in life. The un-cool kid was now the cool guy to hang out with. I was able to connect, to relate, to listen, and to speak. And as I did well in ministry, the affirmations flowed. I began to think that this is what would make God and others proud of me.

Even though I had stopped having sex, my struggles with pornography and masturbation continued, and I dare not tell anyone. I could and did share about other stuff, but I always withheld that last bit of information, the true nature of my struggle. I agonized over it; cried over it, pleaded with God to heal me, take it away, take me away, something, anything! But still the attraction remained. Here I was trying to do HIS work, what I thought HE asked me to, what others told me I was ‘gifted’ for, and yet He appeared unwilling to heal me of this. This hated part of me that I was sure would cause everyone to reject me once they found out. So I hid; I kept silent, and I continued to die inside.

My inner life was in chaos. Attempting to bear the weight of it alone; the shame, guilt, fear, self-loathing – was all too much. I wanted to perform well, to please God and the people around me. I wanted to be accepted and loved in a way that touched the deep longings I felt inside, but didn’t know how. For many years I believed that I was a failure as a “Christian”, I obviously didn’t pray enough, love God enough, or try hard enough. The chaos continued; depression, addiction to pornography, and hopelessness characterized my life; the severity of which I hid from nearly everyone. The depths of my failures, the crushing weight of shame, and the full story of how God has worked to draw me close to Him again would take hours to share. But I will at least tell you how God has brought me here, sharing my story with you.

In the summer of 2006 I attended a men’s group where I learned the name of a counselor. That counselor encouraged me to pursue recovery in a 12 step group for sexual addiction; he later pointed me towards an Exodus affiliated ministry (now called The Grace Place) to receive support in my struggle with SSA. It is within those safe environments that I have begun to accept that I am a beloved man of God who happens to struggle with SSA. That, as a young kid, I tried to satisfy legitimate emotional and spiritual needs in ways that I could never have known would further entrench this struggle in my life. It is through acceptance of my condition, and the hope that God can and does work – even in this area - that has turned the tide in my life.

Am I “healed”? No. I am still "in process", but even on its’ worst days…this is far better than the shell of a life I used to live. I don’t have all the answers; why do I still struggle, will I ever be married, will I struggle with this my whole life? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I have to place my trust in the only one who has the power to raise the dead to life again. If death is no obstacle for Him, then I can have hope that my struggles are not either.

"Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free.' Acts 7:33-34a (NIV)

God sees our oppression, God hears our groaning, and God has come to set us free. Freedom, for me, is not the absence of SSA. It is that I am now free to admit that this is my struggle. That I am now free to share that fact with others. And that I now know that this struggle does not define me, nor does it disqualify me from all of the love, grace, and forgiveness that God has pre-apportioned for my life.

Escape Artist

So I'm realizing some consistent traits that are part of the template of how I do life. This is not completely new, nor especially earth-shattering but it's what I'm thinking about today and I want to write it down.

Obviously my current struggle with lust is a huge factor in my day to day life. In the early days of the Program (Sexaholics Anonymous) a person usually comes to realize that sex, pornography, and masturbation are not the issue, they are symptoms of the issue, the issue is lust. And lust is definitely an issue for me. But I'm seeing that lust is not ultimately what I 'want', lust is what I use to get what I want.

What do I want? I want to "feel good".

As I look back at life I see this pattern feeling bad and then escaping into fantasy. It was/is all sorts of fantasy; books, daydreaming, money, power, adventure, social, sexual.....almost anything to escape the reality of where I was at that moment. It's no wonder that once I discovered lust I used it consistently...it was cheap, powerful, and (seemingly) very effective at achieving my unspoken #1 priority of "Feel Good".

So if my main priority in life is to "feel good", I can see why I struggle so hard with sobriety and consistency in my walk with Christ. I pursue sobriety because I'm supposed to feel better when I'm sober. I think (at some levels) I pursue Christ and Christian life because the hope is that it will make me feel better, that life will in fact be better. But when sobriety or Christianity doesn't produce the more immediate results of "feeling better" I let go and turn to the one thing that appeared to make me feel better, for a little bit at least, fantasy.

So my prayer today is, "God please help me to live the life I have been given, not the life I wish I had."

Characteristics of the sensitive soul:

• They are very emotionally sensitive and are deeply moved by the emotions of others around them.
• They are inherently drawn toward beauty, structure, order, symmetry, intimate relating, color, texture, expression of feelings, and the natural and spiritual worlds around them.
• They have a tendency to believe they are somehow connected to everything around them and often feel they effect or can impact their world both in subtle and grand ways.
• They sometimes are viewed as self-absorbed and even egocentric or selfish by others.
• They are intuitive feelers and deep thinkers.
• They often contemplate things deeply and for days and can be strongly moved by
• subtleties that others would not recognize.
• They see detail and notice nuance more than others.
• They are moved with strong emotions of passion, desire, pain, hurt, and love.
• They often are highly sensitive to feelings in general and can sometimes be overwhelmed by highly stimulating situations where the stimuli are coming from multiple sources at the same time.
• They are often loners and enjoy spending large amounts of time alone.
• They often escape to alternative realities they create or ones that have been created through video games, movies, or reading books.
• They are highly creative and desire an outlet to express their creativity

excerpted from LivingHope.org "Parenting the Sensitive Soul"

On regrets, and Ap. Paul

I deal (poorly, most times) with regret for how my attitudes and addiction has affected (or potentially affected) the people around me and ministries I've been in. One thought that God dropped in my lap in the middle of a counseling session this past Friday was about the Apostle Paul...he hunted and killed Christians for a living! That was his mission in life. How much regret did he have to deal with once Christ revealed Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus? How did he not think every time he met a new Christian, "Did I kill your father, mother, brother, or friend? How can I look you in the eye and say 'follow me - as I follow Christ'? I(Paul) cannot undo the damage done by my sin and rebellion." Yet God choose him, anyway. What did they talk about in the desert? I can only surmise that Paul's confidence in the completeness of forgiveness, the sovereignty of God, and power of grace understood allowed him to move forward in obedience to preach the Gospel despite his past.

I need to dig into this issue more....or is it that I just need to accept this as true and move forward in that knowledge? Hmmm

Headed to Exodus Freedom Conference 2010

Yah, it's been crazy here, alot of which is my own fault. I leave Tuesday to goto the Freedom Conference! I'm excited, nervous, and hopeful. It's really crazy how this process works, the times when it seems the least is happening or I feel less engaged...God is setting the stage for something to happen or be shown to me.

Thru various means God has been showing me how my view of "recovery" and of "healing" is skewed. Deep inside I want a recovery and healing that 'fixes' it completely. No residue, no regrets from the past, no more mess...but that essentially means I want God to erase the memory of what has happened. And that erases the record of His mercy, grace, love, forgiveness, strength, patience, and ability to take what man intends for evil and use it to His glory.

Mankin the Sponkey

I think one of the bigger issues for me with lust is that I am still more than willing to "go there" in my head. 'mankin the sponkey' isn't the issue...its a symptom of the issue. And the problem is I am willing to go there, hang out, come back, chill....but its only when I do something physical that I feel bad and have to admit I've lost my sobriety. It's like losing control of my car 10 miles back, but I didn't officially have an "accident" until I hit a tree. I have had some painful (emotional) experiences lately that have brought some more of the issue to the forefront, as a result I've started seeing my counselor more often and we have begun to dig back into the manure pile of stuff that has assisted me on my journey here.

One of the other issues that really contributes to this is unforgiveness...namely by me - for me. I feel (incorrectly) like I have failed in ways that it is impossible to really forget. Which while contrary to the Gospel and Christs message of grace...is a point I still struggle with - I know it in my head, but the operational belief is still that I have err'd in ways that disqualify me from holding my head up and living life without always attempting to "make up for" the past.

Wordle?

So here is a copy of my Wordle...What is a Wordle? I'm not sure, but near as I can tell its a graphical representation of emphasis. It takes the text you enter and based on repeats and such displays it. This wordle below is based on my blog. I need to look more at it, but it seems pretty accurate to what I tend to write about.

The Manhattan Declaration

"We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God’s intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to "a more excellent way."
excerpt from The Manhattan Declaration

I read this and thought that it was a good summation of the stance I hold regarding the struggles in my own life. But even moreso, I hope that it can become the stance that the greater Church, at large, can adopt in relating to those who struggle, and even fall.

The ISM factor

Came across a website today...have been feeling sorta low due to a question that was posed to me (that echo's my own questions),

"So you've been at this like 3 years, what is keeping you from having longer sobriety, what is holding you back?"

When I think of the spot I'm in, the amazing amounts of resources I have access to (quality counseling, the number of available meetings, my safe living arrangements) I can't list one specific factor that I would say holds me back...expect "me", I hold me back.

Well I ran into this page that really described how I feel and the situation I find myself in,

The God given balance of my instincts for security, survival, ambition, safety, and protection is threatened;

I exhibit childishness, grandiosity, emotional immaturity and belligerent denial;

The symptoms associated with this maladjustment are manifest in and exacerbated by self-centered fear, and my perception of and reaction to self-centered fear compounds my unmanageability;

The results of my distorted thinking culminate in the deterioration and corruption of my system of beliefs and personal values, which spirals into a gradual, often imperceptible descent into "spiritual depression."

I appear of my power and unaided resources incapable of rationally and reasonably overriding my mind and emotions, the results of which I expose and express in obsessive, compulsive, impulsive, and excessive desires and drives in daily living.

My unrestrained excessive desires gradually develop into demands, resulting in self-defeating behavior that is injurious to myself and others. My behavior engages feelings of guilt, remorse and shame; I feel resentment, self pity and fear.

My self-centered'ness exacerbates feelings of separation. This intensified separation leads me to be consumed with and baffled by feelings of difference, which is to suggest I don’t fit in, belong, or feel a part of; I feel separate from others; I feel abnormal and I often wonder (to myself) "what’s wrong with me, I feel different."

I am maladjusted to life. I vacillate between feelings of inferiority and superiority. I live defensively and guarded. I feel restless, irritable and discontent with life. I am ill-at-ease and subject to self-delusion. I seek consciously or unconsciously an effect which will afford me a sense of relief extemporaneously. Without relief and a solution, I condemn myself to live a continuous, unending frustration of self-will, with an obsessive desire (and drive) to act, feel, and be normal.

So now the key is to accept that this is where I'm at, emotionally at the level of an adolescent. And my addiction is in full-effect as it relates to these things.

Calling a spade...a spade

When do we not call a spade a spade....when we think it might hurt someone's feelings.

In his blog, Love is an Orientation, Andrew's guest blogger Jon shared about his church going, gay family.

What I sense more from the comments to this post(and others) is that "love" and "acceptance" are the highest expressions of Christ that we can emulate. I dont' think that is true. Christ's love drove Him to bridge the gap so that we might gain "acceptance" with our Heavenly Father.

The heart of the debate and I think even the start of any bridge-building must come from a settling of the issue (within ones own heart) as to wether or not "gay is okay". If homosexuality is not a sin, then no one has any right to deny a gay couple anything. They are fully and equally yoked as any straight couple.

But if being gay is not a God-approved expression of love between the same-sexes. Then by what authority is equality demanded, expected, or even offered? We accept the person, just as they are, but we do not need to accept their beleifs in order to love them as Christ loves us.