on porn

this is a hard, awkward post, but that's what this blog is for, to share my heart, pieces of my story and other stories worth the share. 

i didn't really struggle with it. i wasn't an addict or anything. but the few scenes in movies i watched? o, my eyes were such a fascinated pair. i didn't go buy cds to view, or go to the internet in desperate search of bad scenes to watch. but i liked reading romance novels filled with perverse words that created bad scenes floating in my head. they made me think and visualize inappropriate images in my mind. written porn. just as wrong as the images floating on a screen. but somehow i just grew out of reading them by grace. 

romans 8:1

and then i was like 18 and there was a boy. he claimed to be into me. i wasn't really sold, but i started catching feelings and we ended up in a relationship. we danced around fire. he was really into watching porn and would want me to watch it with him. i'm gonna be real and admit i did watch a little, but felt really guilty during and after watching it. hints Holy Spirit convicting me of my sin, my wrong desire to entertain something disgusting which had the potential to grow into an addiction. God uprooted that unhealthy relationship out of my life. if i was serious about God in the first place, i wouldn't have gone into a relationship with a boy with deep porn and lust issues. but somehow, thankfully, i didn't get grossly into it. and i learned some lessons.

and with time, my interest in romance novels wore off. romance. pornography is so farrr from how God created real romance to be. porn is illusive, it leaves you wanting more and more when you ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit. it destroys and decays the human soul. it's a very wrong presentation of how intimacy should be. watching people performing sexual acts with eachother doesn't make you become a pro at it. it's wrong as a kid, teenager, as a young adult, and even wrong in marriage. porn fills up our heads with images and thoughts that are so carnal. God created sex for us to enjoy in the sanctity of marriage, but porn? so far from the beauty of sex. the thoughts and actions that porn can lead us to are places where our spirits can never thrive.

"you have heard that it was said, 'you shall not commit adultery.' but i tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. matthew 5:27-28

pornography is simply harmful to us and leaves us empty and depressed. but Jesus! He calls us to want Him, desire Him, to need Him, to allow Him to satisfy us, to fill up the emptiness we feel inside. He is the bread of life, the fountain that never runs dry. only He can satisfy. the more i desire and fill up my mind and time with Jesus, the more the junk of the world drift farther away from my thoughts and life.

"for this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the gentiles who do not know God." 1 thessalonians 4:3-5

"put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry." colossians 3:5

"those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." galatians 5:24

"if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 john 1:9

this was a tough post but i know the pieces of my story and the redemption of God in them are not meant to be kept hidden and silenced. that's what the enemy would want. but God spoke to me specifically during missions last year that all i've been through is my testimony and i need to share them.

"and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death." revelations 12:11

i want to share jimmy needham's testimony on his struggle with pornography. i hope it encourages someone out there struggling too.

{jimmy is one of my fav singers. i'll feature his songs in my music monday series soon}

have you struggled with porn before? how did you flee from it?

love you guys.

xoxo, delali.

linking up here.