Hey! That's personal!

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Well, I've received my first question from a reader, so I'll answer:

"In one of your posts you mentioned that you were exposed to porn as a boy. has this affected you as an adult? In our computer age, so many of our kids are getting an eye full of this and it terrifies me"

First of all, my sexuality is not only my private concern it is also (and exclusively) my wife's private concern.  So I won't be breaching that subject.  I will say this.  I refuse to participate in pornography.  Like any addiction, you must say "yes" to pornography in your being for it to have a foothold within you.  I approach our culture's general usage of sensuality the same way I approach the usage of alcohol.  I refuse to have even one drink and I avoid nearly every situation where alcohol is near.  I cannot say with certainty that if I started drinking that I would stop.  I will not put myself in a position to find out.

I approach sensuality the same way.  I refuse to put myself in a position to be tested.  Those testings will come without me waving them over saying, "Hey! You with the big stick! Come hit me in the head a bunch."

In the same way Meth uses your own physiology against you, so does pornography to the male brain.  It takes a powerful stimulant and runs rampant, ruining a person's heart.  It is better to never do it once and it takes a miracle, literally, to recover. 

A man who was very influential in helping me over early wounds was Don Crossland.  I went to a series of seminars he held a Belmont Church in Nashville in the 80's.  He spoke of "shame" and how victims tend to identify with and embrace the shame they have gone through.  They begin to believe they caused the woundings others have inflicted upon them.  They even begin to love them, much like Golem loved the Ring of Power in LOTR.  He used Romans 1:25 often, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie..." stating that it is subtle and happens all the time, we embrace and own the opposite of God's purposes and truth, calling it "right" when it is the opposite of right.

That was when I got angry at some of the parts of my past, especially some things that I had assumed were normal (seeing pornography) when actually it was shameful, demeaning, and damaging.  It was a great release and one of those milestones in my life that propelled me further with the Lord.

chris