Making a break

   I finally made a break I needed last night with some stuff I needed to get rid of. I won't go into detail, but it was some things that made resisting porn more difficult. And it was a struggle to get rid of it.

  We have big plastic garbage container on wheels that we have to take up to the end of our driveway the night before the garbage goes, as they go very early in the morning. My dad had taken it up earlier in the evening, and it had snowed since then. Around 11:30, I bagged up the stuff I needed to get rid of, and walked up and threw it in the container. As I walked back down the driveway and saw my footprints, the thought occurred to me that my parents would see them today and may wonder why I had walked up the driveway late at night. I muttered that it would be nice if it would snow some more, and went in the house. I looked outside later, and it was snowing. It didn't snow enough to completely cover my footprints, but they weren't as obvious this morning..... maybe it was God, and maybe it was coincidence, but it was cool anyway.

  I will admit I was tempted to go dig the bag out of the trash, and there have been times in the past when I have done that, but the question kept going through my mind "what do you want worse, that stuff that helps hold me captive to sin, or God?" Even when I went to bed, I felt like I was giving up a part of me. Sounds weird, but true.

  Just before I started typing this blog, I went up to bring the trash container down, hoping the garbage had gone, and when I opened the lid to see an empty container, I felt a sense of relief, not loss. Sure, I could go out and buy the things again, but its one thing to have them in my house and another to have them in an adult bookstore.

  Other than giving into porn a few times, things have been going pretty well. I am learning that God is patient, and that I need to be patient with myself. I'm not going to turn into a super saint overnight - well, I may never turn into a "super" saint, but in the past I have expected too much too soon. I have come to realize its a process, and it may be slower than I'd like, but God isn't going to throw me out for not progressing to a Bill Graham status fast enough, or ever. I'm me, not Billy Graham.

  I almost hesitate to put it into writing, for I am sure it could become a major battle again, but I am finally starting to grasp that God loves me, and get the idea of grace, and that it applies to me.

  Its possible that I mentioned this already, but there have been many times that I have repented and tried to get back on my feet, only to fall to porn. I'd repent, fall again. By the time it happened a few times, I was defeated and would often give up.

  See, I wasn't getting the forgotten part of God forgiving me. I'd fall to porn a second or third time, and felt God was standing there impatiently looking at the other times I had fallen, and thinking "Again? Come on, aren't you ever going to stop?" But I am just getting the reality that if, God forbid, I'd fall to porn tonight, He wouldn't remember the times this week and last week that I fell. Yeah, I think I did mention this in a previous blog. Oh well.

  I'm not naïve. I know there are battles ahead. Porn is hard to quit. Looking and lusting his hard to quit. The sex? Its been a few months already, so not as hard, though the desire for it is still there. The battles will come, but I have more confidence in God's love and grace than I have had before. I don't want to fall again, but if I do, I am confident He will instantly forgive me without me groveling or convincing Him to do so.

  And I believe it helps that I am doing this for the right reasons. I didn't come crawling to God because I was so miserable and guilty - not that I didn't feel guilt. I didn't come because I was scared into it and wanted a get out of hell free card. I came because my views of God had changed enough that I wanted a relationship with Him.

  As always, I can use a lot of prayer. Thanks