Relationships | Urban Faith

I was a Christian woman addicted to porn

by Sarah Gerald | Jun 22, 2017 | Headline News, Relationships | 5 comments

The first memory I have of watching pornography is when I was 11 years old. It’s amazing that I didn’t even have the vocabulary to describe what I was witnessing, yet the innocence of my brain and body were gone in an instant.

I didn’t know it then, but my body and mind were awakened to a world of sexual stimulants that I was never made to endure. According to an article by the New York Times, 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to online pornography during their adolescence. This is an issue that goes beyond the church walls.

Porn addiction is more than mere videos or online seductions. Pornography is defined as the “printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.”

It can be easy to say, “Well, since I don’t watch these videos or go to these websites, I don’t have a problem.” Wrong. How many times have I written off the absurdly graphic sexual encounters described in various books as pure literature or even worse, entertainment? They are stimulants that create a very real reaction.

My sexual education came from an awkward 5th grade class, an even more awkward 8th grade health class, pornography, and friends who were sexually active. The only times I can remember hearing about sex in church were once in a Sunday School class where the teacher said she could tell just by looking who has had sex, and a few relationship/marriage talks.

As the good Christian girl, I pledged to stay abstinent until marriage. However, my seemingly perfect chastity was made murky by the secret I kept.

When I was 19, I had an encounter with God that changed my life. Long story short, I decided enough was enough and I had to give my life to Jesus—my entire life. I knew I would be different from that moment on. I mean, Jesus had my heart so all of my bad habits left immediately, right? Wrong.

A few months after that, I found myself in a room by myself watching porn. Although something had changed… I realized there was a pattern for why and when I watched porn.

Shame. Fear. Control.

There’s an amazing ministry called Restoring the Foundations. They are trained to identify and help mend different hurts one collects as a byproduct of being a human.

One of the things they examine is the cycle of shame, fear, and control. The cycle goes something like this: A person feels shame for something they’ve done, they’re afraid of being discovered, so they try to control the situation themselves.

The clearest example of this is Adam and Eve in Genesis. They ate the fruit they were told not to eat, they were ashamed, they were fearful of being discovered, so they tried to control the situation by fashioning for themselves makeshift clothes to cover their nakedness.

Shame, as opposed to guilt, attaches itself to a person’s identity. It’s the difference between saying “I made a mistake” and saying “I am a mistake.” This is how I approached pornography.

There would be a trigger, mainly an emotional trigger, something that made me feel lonely or afraid. Then, I would engage with porn. Afterwards, I was ashamed.

I wasn’t the good girl everyone thought I was. I tried to control the situation myself. I tried so hard to be perfect on the outside to veil the mess that was inside. I could only control the situation until another emotional trigger set the cycle off over and over again. This pattern also illuminated that porn was just the symptom of a bigger problem.

Where do we go from here?

Learn your triggers. After I recognized the triggers that sent me running to the counterfeit embrace pornography offers, I could preempt my reaction to run to porn. Instead, I ran to God.
Ask for help. This will never get old. The thing about shame is, it breeds in darkness. It festers in your deepest thoughts. It feeds off of the lies you believe about yourself. Identify safe people you can ask for help. You weren’t made to live life alone. Above all, ask God for help. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. That’s a pretty stacked deck.
Accept the fact that you are loved. I elevated the shame I felt over the truth of God. According to Him, nothing can separate me from His love that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8). According to Him, I am chosen. According to Him, I am forgiven.

For more statistics and help with combating porn addiction, visit fightthenewdrug.org.

6 Things to Do While Waiting for Your Boaz

by Amber Travis | Feb 9, 2016 | Relationships | 1 comment

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, which can sometimes be difficult for single women who are still waiting for their “Boaz” to come along and sweep them off their feet. The story of Ruth and Boaz is arguably one of the greatest and most popular love stories in the Bible. It’s the story of Ruth, whose heart was broken after the death of her husband but healed by her faith in God. Ruth met the wealthy and kind Boaz while working in his field to “glean behind the harvesters” (Ruth 2). In addition to being protective of Ruth, Boaz admired her loyalty to her mother-in-law and her love for the Lord. As hardworking women of God, so many of us often dream of meeting our hard-working, loving—and sometimes wealthy—Boaz, but what are we doing in the meantime? Here are several things you could be doing while waiting on your own Boaz to arrive:

Complete Unfinished Projects

We all have them. Whether it’s that book you’ve been meaning to write or the new business you’ve been planning to launch, now is the perfect time to regain your focus and get it done.

Enjoy Time with Family and Friends

While in a relationship, it is so easy to spend all of your free time with your partner, leaving little room for time with family and friends. Call up your loved ones for a fun movie night, an impromptu girls night, or even a weekend road trip. Tomorrow isn’t promised, so spend those precious moments with your loved ones while you can.

Personal and Professional Development

There is always room for personal and professional growth, so why not start now? Sit down and make a list of all of your personal and professional goals. Perhaps your goals include going back to school to get your college degree, strengthening your relationship with God, receiving some sort of certification in your industry, or losing weight. Whatever your goal is, it is important that you also write down the list of tasks that must be completed in order to achieve those goals.

Read a Book

Yeah, we know. This may sound like an easy task, but in this day and age, taking time to sit down and read a book is easier said than done. Not only does reading serve as a stress reliever from our day-to-day lives, but it also allows us to educate ourselves on a variety of topics that we may have never taken the time to explore had we not been single.

Spend Time with Yourself

When was the last time you took yourself out to dinner? What about going to see a movie alone? Perhaps you should give it a try. Spending quality time alone is actually a great way to build self-confidence in addition to changing your mindset about needing a partner in order to have fun.

Take Time to Explore What You Really Want

Before jumping into your next relationship, now may be a good time to sit down and really figure out what it is that you really want in a partner. There’s a reason why none of your past relationships worked out, so perhaps it’s time to hit “pause” and really figure out what it is that you not only want in a partner, but what you actually need in a man.