Double Life

Today is a day where work is being paid off. I am being given a second chance to do things right. Many have said to me, "it is truley a miracle she is even talking to you and not off with someone else." She herself has said she had a chance to pursue someone different and was tempted to do so. That she was ready to move on. She very well could have and would have been perfectly justified in pursuing another man. However, she held on and waited to see what God was building in a little efficiency apartment in the ghetto side of town. He was building a man with a purpose and teaching me to love Christ, myself and my soon to be wife again. He worked through the day and all through the night. He worked weekends and holidays without fail. His work isn't done and I'm not foolish enough to think it is. But His new creation is ready to be transported to a different facility.

The marriage that I entered into was not presented to the Kingdom honestly. It was not fully disclosed to those close to it. I manipulated my way in and gave limited amounts of information to her so she wouldn't say no to marrying me the first time. She didn't know I was still married during our engagement and didn't know I didn't get divorced from my first wife till 3 months before our scheduled wedding date. There were a lot of things that she was not told, lies that flowed out of my mouth like one big river of deception. As well as not knowing she had a husband living two different lives under one roof. I literally picked my addiction over her sometimes and gave my loyalty to lust instead of my wife. Anger and resentment manifested itself over a period of time and I did everything I could legal and sometimes illegal to make myself feel better.

Now don't get me wrong through it all I loved her dearly. Still do. But my fellow addicts as you know, love to us can be a double edged sword sometimes. It is the one thing that helps us feel normal. To love and be loved. Its natural. However, sometimes when it interfers with our addiction, one side of that sword can cut us deep and cause a major pain and damage. Yet we go out and not only try to fill the emptiness we feel, but also try to numb the pain of confusion, anger, resentment, shame, unworthiness and failure. Then when it is all done or we are fighting not acting out, we rely on the other side of sword to keep us safe and protect us. Yes we want our cake and eat it to. Thats what was so hard about being married before and why I acted out in the ways I did, sometimes I didn't know what side of sword was which. Thats gets confusing at times for me anyway. Sometimes it felt like I was swinging that sword around in the air. Just like the kid playing in the back yard, pretending to be someone he is not.

Double lives are horribly painful and extremly difficult. For me I walked in world I did not feel apart of. The goodness available was not available to me. I felt like a thief for many years that has broke into a heart and stole happiness. To myself, I had an inner battle of knowing who I want to be, who I was deep down and the surface me who was the great pretender. I did experience happiness, I really did. Just somedays as I said, I felt like a thief getting it.

I have had the oppurtunity since I asked Christ to be my savior to sit back and observe life and go after happiness guilt free. For example tonight I was picking up dinner from a little place downtown. I walked out into the chilly, damp night with my hot food in my hands and was just struck right in my heart by what I saw. To many, the Christmas decorations that lined the streets are really nothing. I get that. Not to me tonight though. I witnessed the meanings behind them. These are things that represent family, Love, a time to celebrate God and this is the time of year where children remind us it is ok to beleive in something. That is what those decorations meant to me. I praise God for reminding me these are the good things He offers to me, and wants me to have. That despite my addiction to sex and the sins Lust has caused me to perform, that he still wants it for me and for us all. God gave us Hope, Faith, and Love the three true gifts that we will recieve this year from our God. He wants to keep giving those gifts till we have an abundant supply. Even then he will want us to have more.

Jesus took the beatings for our sins, his blood washed away the evil we have done and caused, and he merely asks we believe in him and repent for our sins. It is by his sacrifice we are saved and will live forever in a Kingdom where all its residents love us and we can love them back. That is a gift that can never be taken away and a debt that we can never repay.

Repentance is not the "R" word, it gets a bad wrap and offends quite a few people. But let us take a look at it differently. Jesus says "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" you can find this in the sermon on the mount texts. I dont have my Bible in front of me or I would quote where exactly. But he meant wash yourselfs of sins you have done, not only once but many times. I believe this is meant to keep us from building shame in ourselves which steers us away from the Kingdom and the good it has to offer. The Kingdom is available on Earth. So just like you take a shower everyday and wash away the old dirt from the day before, Jesus wants us to wash away the spiritual dirt on a regular basis. He only asks we try not to get as dirty next time. That is what repentance is all about, its making ourselves clean enough to stand in the presence of God and bring him Glory through our actions that are a result of the Spirit he places within us.

So you see how a double life and not loving honestly can keep you away from His goodness and love. satan thrives on double lives. That son of pickle eater sits backs and thumbs his nose at God himself when he turns someone and ruins another. Just like sheep in a field, satan can heard us torward doing bad and return us to the pasture before the shepard even realizes we wandered off. (I.e. covering your tracks with a loved one). Think about where you at and whether or not you want to live a life filled with good or a double life filled with bad. I know you don't want to, but just know that it is possible to live different. Jesus will help you, support groups will help you, I will help you, Pastors, Priests, counselors, you name it help is available. Don't do it as long as I did, please save yourselfs from that hell. Simply pray the prayer I did or your own version of it, "Jesus be my Savior, I am tired and can't do it anymore. I ask for forgiveness of my sins and ask you to work in life. I believe through you, I can and will be saved, I ask this in your name."

My prayers are with you. Jason.

Care for a "Refreshment" anyone?

I'm scared. Scared that my message will get lost. I've shared a lot of who I am, where I've come from and what I've done. And I have a lot more to share. But I don't want the ultimate message to get lost. So here is the "refresher": The message is that I'm a recovering sex addict who's a new creation in Christ. He is helping me and it needs to get talked about. I feel this is the message he has given me to spread. That with him all things are possible. After many prayerful nights, I firmly believe that God is using my life for His purpose through not just this blog, but through reaching out to others who are suffering from sex addiction. I am a recovering sex addict with an active addiction of over 31 years.

God kept talking to me as my 2nd marriage collapsed and my life in general collapsed around me. I refused to listen and just did not want to do what he was calling me to do. His calling to me was to help others with this addiction to sex. After my life before me disappeared, due to my own choices, I finally decided to start a Sex Addicts Anonymous group. I set out and tried to find a meeting place. Guess what happened then? C'mon, guess? Yes! I was stereotyped "the dirty bookshop child molester". I ran into resistance with Churches, community organizations, as well as insurance companies when trying to get a Liability certificate to hold a meeting. Even the public library didn't want us to be in their building (which is ironic- they didn't want a group for those seeking recovery from this illness, however, they will allow ANYONE to visit ANY website, including illegal porn sites. But they were more worried about having a group seeking recovery. Funny). Fools, don't they know they were dealing with the God of the universe. When He has a purpose in mind, God is unstoppable by Liability certificates and stereotypes; His Will Be Done. This was and is, His group. Finally, one person said "we (the community) need this" and provided me space. To that man I say, "thank you".

Yes, we do need an open forum for this disease, whether be in person or on the Internet like this. This addiction needs to be talked about openly. It sits in offices, living rooms, bedrooms, computers, motel rooms all around the world, slowly and effectively destroying souls. There is an elephant in the room. And it needs to be named for what it is; sexual addiction. It is present and needs talked about. That is why I am doing this. I am trying to encourage others to have the courage to get better.

The national average, just among christian men alone, is about 1 in 3 suffer from some sort of sexual addiction and 1 out of 5 christian women suffer from the same. That is just the Christian community. Agnostics, Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, Scientologists, Atheists, and those with any other religious affiliation suffer from this disease. We need to have an open dialogue on this.

I have revealed extra marital affairs, masturbation, porn shops, strip clubs, prostitutes, same sex sex, and Internet addiction as all being a problem. For years, I believed there was no hope. Others I have met express the same hopelessness. But hope is here now in a God that loves and forgives us. Hope is here in a living God that is forever faithful even when we are not. Seek out Hope, seek His mercy, His love and His forgiveness. Together, we can claim healing and victory over this devastating disease.

It is my hope to spread the word of Jesus Christ and give him the credit and the glory for all that comes out of this. He has given me the gift of a second chance to do my marriage right, and with his words, hopefully inspire recovery in others So to the Lord Jesus I say, "Jesus thank you for providing me with the opportunity to speak about this and an opportunity to find hope and healing in this journey of recovery. I pray others will find you and hope in your grace to heal their wounds from the destruction of this disease, having the courage to begin their own journey of recovery."

I have been there, to the dangerous levels this disease can take you to and obviously came out alive and able to tell the tale. This is why I write this. I pray for you to get better, truly better. Jesus loves us and wishes nothing but the best for us. And as he said in In Matthew 9:37-38 "It is not the healthy that need doctors, but the sick. But go and learn what this means. I desire Mercy not sacrifice. For I have come to call the sinners not the righteous." He will be there for you in the night or wherever you are at. Remember help is a prayer away.

Let God be the engineer today.

Isaiah 65:1 the Lord says: "I was ready to respond but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found but no one was looking for me. I said here I am here I am! to a nation that did not call on my name." He goes on to talk further about his people and the hurt that he feels about it. His words turn to anger later in the passage and then like the true God he is, the chapter ends in Mercy. He knows there are righteous people and seeks not to destroy his true servants.

This my friends is the message that will save us from ourselves. God wants us to call on him, he clearly states he needs us, he needs to help us, he screams at us here I am! He wants us to be with him and need him. We need to know that God will love us and he wants to love us through our troubles.

I must admit today's message was a bit foggy as to what to talk about. However, it makes sense to me now. I was reading my guest writers message and the hurt that I caused. The pain was so clear. The worry so defined and the anger so evident. That passage from Isaiah could have been my guest writer talking about me. And in the end of that message just like God, mercy prevails because I am loved.

Yes everything they said is true and accurate. But I must admit reading the desperation and remembering the times she did those things was just very hard. She would say I want you to FIGHT for me! But I was fighting for my addiction. That train was not going to slow down, because as much as I tried to hit the brakes on it, I would then stand on the throttle much more. That was a very accurate picture. Yet through it all she still loves me. God has given me another chance and so has she. So I am going to take them and try to do it right.

I am letting God work on me and I am craving his work. He his the Truth, the Light and the Way. God has demonstrated to me many times that I have called on Him and he was there. He is not going anywhere now. He has found me as I have found him and He will stay with me. Call on him, he is yelling to you Here I am! Here I am! Find him and be lost no more.

You guys know as well as I do, that this addiction will ruin you and every relationship you have. You got the other side of the story. The loved ones in your life are trying to do the same things she did with me. Recognize it, seize the moments and call on Jesus to be your Savior, like my counselor said me, "once you are in the family buddy you are in. There is no getting out." Translation, Jesus isn't gonna forsake you, he will transform you.

IT is possible, it is your choice and it will change you. Do you want it? Ask for it. God will be there and will answer you. Just don't let the train build speed because it always wrecks when it goes to fast and it destroys a lot when it does.

The Other Side

Today's guest writer is a very dear friend and love of my life...my other side if you will.

There have been many times when I would speak to myself or to close friends and family, telling them, "this is not the path I would have chosen (had I known where it was going to lead)". I would say loving a sex addict is one of the hardest things to do, but it's not. Loving an addict is quite easy. They're not much different than you or I. They laugh, they cry, they hurt, they bleed, they get angry, they empathize, and sometimes, they even love you back. But they do these things in their own special way. Until they choose recovery, it is often done in an attempt to manipulate you and life to get what they want and so that they are not taken out of their comfort zone. I say this with the blessing of my love, my sex addict. He will be the first to say that while parts of what he gave me of himself were genuine and as sincere as he was capable of at the time, most things were to manipulate. Ouch! Those are not the words people long to hear being whispered in their ears.

By nature, all addictions are selfish. There is no room for anyone else in them. Any and every outsider to the addiction itself is a threat and therefore, must be protected against. With this in mind, the addict will do many things to self preserve: lie, cheat, sneak, manipulate, commit fraud, cover, and then lie, cheat, sneak, manipulate, commit fraud, and cover some more. An active addict does not pause long enough to look at the other side of their addiction- how it is impacting those around them.

Living on the other side can be horrific. It is the proverbial watching a train wreck and not being able to do anything to stop it. We try to stop it, but we fail. Because we do not comprehend that this disease is a fast moving locomotive that will flatten and disintegrate anything in it's path. We think "I'll scream so loud it will have to stop", or "I'll throw something at it to get it's attention; then it will listen to me and hear that what I'm saying makes sense. Then it will stop", or "I'll just stand in front of it, surely if it loves me, it will stop before it hits me". As we read these sentences and picture ourselves trying to stop a train, we chuckle. "Well the train can't hear you over it's engine", or "Throwing something at it will be as effective at throwing a gnat at it!", or "Who steps in front of a charging locomotive?!". We understand reading this that these ideas are nothing if not more than a bit ridiculous. And yet, how many of us have done this with the addict.
* "HOW COULD YOU SPEND $200 ON PORN?!!!!?" we yell hoping the louder we speak, the more they will hear and stop.

*"That's fine, go ahead and spend your time on the Internet, I'm going to dinner with my friend Kirk/Kathy, that just moved back to town" we say in hopes that this will catch his/her attention and get them to realize what they are doing.

*"I got rid of the computer, cable, and froze all of our bank accounts. Anything you need from now on will have to go through me first. I'm doing this for your own good. We are going to beat this addiction together" and we expect this will solve the problem, but instead we've only created a small speed bump. Any addict worth his weight in gold will find a way to get their fix.

So what do we do when we are watching a disease claim our loved one, destroy our relationships, and create chaos, if we have no way to stop it? We pray.

We pray. First, for ourselves. We pray for God's guidance and to hold us so close we can see and hear nothing else but Him.

Second, we pray for our hearts. That God will not let anger, bitterness, and spite take root in our heart, and that he would allow us to feel what we need in order to heal.

Third, we pray for forgiveness, for ourselves. We must acknowledge areas of sin in our own lives before we can even fathom looking at the sins of others. And healing from sexual addiction, on both sides, is going to require owning up to our own sins, asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness. We can not do that if our own hearts are unclean. God clearly lays this out for us in John 8: 7: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." In Romans 3:23, we are reminded "we have all sinned and fall short of His glory".

Fourth, we pray that God and His Holy Spirit will guide us through forgiving others, specifically, the sex addict in our life. We are called to love as Christ has loved us, and to forgive as we have been forgiven (Luke 6:37-"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."). But this is not forgiving someone for accidentally bumping into on the elevator, or forgiving someone a harsh tone. This kind of big, life altering, supernatural forgiveness can only come from knowing God's forgiveness for your sins, and asking Him to pass it on through you.

I did not know the man I married. I knew who he wanted me to know him as. I knew him as a loving, gentle, honest, hardworking, generous man who had been divorced for sometime and had a horrible memory. What I didn't know is that I was the other woman. I didn't know he was living with his wife and she just happened to not be home the night he brought me to his apartment for dinner. I didn't know that mere seconds after leaving the side of his hospital bed, his wife was coming in behind me. I didn't know that he knew where all the drug dealers and prostitutes worked because he frequented them; I assumed he was telling me the truth and it was because of his years driving a metro bus and living in the big city. I didn't know he was married for the first 25 months of the 28 months we dated before our wedding day. There were many other painful realizations to come. This, was the other side of his addiction. The part that hurt me. And I was ANGRY!

But God worked in my heart and I have forgiven him. I forgive him for the lies, betrayal, manipulation, behavior, and lack of regard for my well being. He wanted a way out, and God gave him me. Not a path I would have chosen on purpose, but a path I now walk with honor. God knitted me in my mother's womb to be what my love needed. Then, He gave me life experiences to strengthen me and give me what I would need to love. And when I thought He had forsaken me, He gave me hope for a future beyond what I ever asked for. Because He forgave me, because He loved me- I am able to love and forgive from the other side. And I am so glad that's where I am.

(Wall)y World!

Today is the 20th anniversary of The Berlin Wall coming down. I remember watching that on tv and just the awe that people including myself had, knowing we are witnessing a piece of world history that will change lives forever. Now it is just a memory to the old and a history story to the young. But lives are changed now.

The same thing is happening in Jerusalem there is wall now separating people and keeping families apart. The same city that Christ himself walked into and gave his life freely to save mankind from ourselves. Now is a political city that segregates on nationality and religion. I read an article about the Jewish and Muslims walking the streets of old Jerusalem honoring and retracing the steps of Christ. That they are seeking him and they are being persecuted for it. I don't know a lot behind the reasons this course of action was taken with this wall, but yes people need passports from the other side of the west bank to enter the city.

These are walls you can see but what about the ones you can't? Lets face facts we are Addicts.

We have engineered some of the strongest walls in history. We put up walls to keep out God, people and emotions. We live under the assumption that if these walls are compromised we must protect them at all cost. And we do. These walls are deceptively nurturing, safe, and familiar. My walls protected me from abuse and the pain that went along with it. They went up when presented with controversy or honesty. Any emotions that were felt that weren't pleasant, I started to wall them up and shut them off. This is how we live, protection of ourselves and our addictions. My walls at times, if you put them on a map, would look like a city. I had so many things to protect against, so many feelings to keep out, and so many people to shut out that I constructed a virtual fortress. So I thought. God was stronger than any wall I ever put up. Jesus walked up to some of my walls and blew them down with his words. I eventually got to the point where I got tired of him blowing down my walls and just asked him inside. I'm so glad I did that because my city is much prettier without all those walls in the way.

I am not saying that I have no walls left; some are still standing and sometimes I run to get bricks to start building again. But thankfully Jesus says to me, "alright you can build it, I will let you but I am gonna talk to you while you do it" and that stops me from wanting to build that wall again. Other days he walks with me to the ones that are still standing and helps take a few bricks down.

What walls do you have up? So what areas of your life do you have walled up? What goes on behind those walls? Do you feel good about what happens within them? I think the answer to that last question is you probably don't feel good about it. I never did. The battle to preserve and protect got more draining and stressful. Jesus is standing outside to be let in. He is not going to poll vault himself in there. But take it from a guy who has been building walls for years, it is much more peaceful to let Him in and to let others in. It is impossible for a city of 1 to survive and flourish. Let those who love you in. You might be surprised. That is your decision, of course, but it has made a significant difference in my life to allow visitors inside the walls. It has made a significant difference to let Jesus inside my walls and allow him to blow them down or help me dismantle them.

I won't lie, it is scary and it is hard. But it is very rewarding. Like I said, I am not perfect, far from it, but I am trying. My walls did me more harm than good and the cost I and others in my life paid was great. Those walls do NOT come without a substantial price. Ask God for his help to take them down. Try it- you might like it. Isn't that one of our credos as addicts anyway? Try something different and see what happens. Cities of 1 die quick and their memories fade fast.

.....and the greatest of these is love.

The bible says God gave us three gifts: Faith, Hope and Love, and the greatest of these is Love. This is very true, love is the Greatest gift ever. Whether it be from God, your significant other, a child, your family or even the dog. We as humans beings desire this the most. A lot of us search so long and hard for it, that it can steer away from being the greatest gift to being the worst nightmare you can imagine. It seems to me that if you talk with a sex addict, they will mention at some point in the conversation not feeling loved or having a very hard time loving somebody.
It is inevitable that this point causes some of their actions (mine included).

I didn't feel loved for a good majority of my life. I knew I was loved but I didn't feel loved. Confusing? I thought so. Till I realized I didn't feel loved because I didn't think I was worthy of love. This feeling caused me to seek out love I could feel good about. This is where its gets more confusing. A majority of people not just sex addicts struggle with love quite a bit. We have our own versions of it; what it should be like, who it should be with, the way that person is supposed to act, the things we are supposed to be told by people who love us. If it doesn't match what are mind has we don't feel it. That person(s) may say "I love you" but it just isn't being felt.

Then we have the other side of the coin where we don't know how to love. It scares the heck out of us. In loving we are vulnerable, accountable, responsible, and tied to. Those are very very scary words to an addict. That is just NOT going to do. We want Burger King love; our way right away. This develops control issues, lies, and secrets. We will dictate who love us and what they know so they will love us the way we want. In doing so we can love them back under a veil of what we have set as the rules in a relationship. That is how we love.

In continuing with our dysfunctional life there are those to who just will not love anyone or be loved. Because they worry of the hurts they cause people or have just plain given up on feeling worthy of love. That leads to all the bad situations we as sex addicts place ourselves in as well.

So whether we don't feel loved, can't love, are searching for love, or feel we shouldn't be loved at all, we all can relate somehow to any part of this. My story touchs on every single aspect I have talked about at one point or another. Causing the major dysfunction I have lived in for years. But let me tell you guys something that should be a comfort to you: "God so loved the world he gave his only son" John 3:16 God knows how to love you, he wants to love you, he doesn't care who you think you are, what you have done, who you have been with, what gender you are, what financial status you have, or even what your social status is. He loves everyone from the President to the junkie! And he loves them both the same. It took me over 37 years to wrap my head around this, but now I want EVERYONE TO KNOW THE TRUTH! We are loved perfectly by only one being in the entire universe. The God who created every single molecule that formed a universe unmeasurable by any human instrument, knows who YOU are, where you live, what your room looks like and knows your heart better than you do. Than we all do. Search for his love, start loving him. HE accepts you for who you are and is so very in love with you.

Rejoice my fellow addicts we have found what we have needed. The only thing we will ever need till time is no more for us; GODS' LOVE. Cultivate that relationship. I can't begin to tell you how much my accepting Gods' love has done for me. I want the same for you. Accept the perfect love that is so clearly laid at your feet. Love is available to you, you are Gods child.

Whatever trips your "trigger"

Sex addiction is clinically classified as a "Process Addiction". I learned this because I spent 42 days in a treatment facility working on my sexual addiction as well as drug and alcohol issues. But in my sex addiction treatment I was informed what a process addiction is. It starts with a trigger. Triggers can be emotions, memories, people, pictures, objects.....the list can keep going. Essentially triggers are what ever sets you off into to destructive patterns. Once we feel it we have to have it. We start to plan, we begin to set things in place that will cover us, we start to act, we become so focused that life is about the gratification of that need. We really get a lot out of this feeling. Almost like we want to feed off it. It is the obtaining that creates a bigger high than actually getting it. For me it was all the steps leading to sex. After awhile it wasn't necessarily even the sex because it all felt the same for the most part. However, after the sex, or obtaining the porn, or going to that club..I was still left with me. Just more ashamed and feeling more desperate which in turn caused me to want to get the high going again to avoid feeling those negative feelings. Thus the "Process" started all over again.

Tonight I watched a video tape of VH1's celebrity sex rehab. I got triggered and I had a hard time staying focused on what the problems of the people were. I remember getting angry with them for showing the images they did. I thought to myself "are you kidding me?...You can cover images with a computer all you want, I still know what it is". Then the people showing their personal lives before rehab. The sex parties, the toys. I thought "C'MON!" It is a wonderful idea they have and I truly hope that the participants get alot out of the treatment they receive. I just thought alot of the content, the commercials, and the PG Porn was in rather poor taste. This disease takes alot from the average individual not just the celebrities. I would like to see true revealing symptoms that all can relate to and get something from for their own recovery.

Just be careful of your triggers. Because if you don't the whole world can come down on you quick in a great deal of ways. Whether it be just negative emotions or full blown acting out. They are dangerous and need to be labeled and watched for. I failed tonight and it caused me to act in such a way that was counter productive to my recovery.

The world is out there full of triggers. Triggers that will take us down if we choose to pull them. The truth is, God created sex and all if it's wonders. But with this gift, he also gave us boundaries in which to engage in it, the last thing we should do when attempting to enjoy this gift is shoot our foot by pulling our "trigger". We can honor God and bring glory to His Kingdom by walking away from our triggers and seeking His deliverance.

What has your temple weathered?

The bible says our bodies are the temples for the Holy Spirit. That we must keep the temple sacred. For the longest time, as naive as it sounds, I didn't understand as most didn't when he said it, " I will rebuild the Temple in three days". The temple was his body as he rose again on third day. Giving us new life and those who believe, everlasting life! That was greatest gift ever given to man. So what has your Temple been through?

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says: Run from sexual sin. No other sin clearly affects the body as this one does For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of Holy Spirit in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself for God bought you at a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

That is a hard thing to keep in mind while our addiction to Sex flows through our veins and we seek the gratification we so desperately want. Yes I have been there. My addiction to sex has put my Temple through a great many storms.

I have thought hard about the consequences endured to 30 years of sexual addiction. My Temple needs cleaned and cleared out. The clinical, legal, physical and emotional consequences I have suffered have been: Lost jobs, screwed up relationships, put my self in risk of jail by stealing money and soliciting prostitutes, I have betrayed many close to me, divorce, had depression, felt hopeless and attempted suicide 4 times. I had money stolen from me by force and by threat of force. I have ruined myself financially, had anger and anxiety issues, very low self esteem and body hatred. I lived in fear of STD's and put others at risk of getting ST D's, sexual identity problems, control issues, family problems and I even have injured myself through various forms of new masturbation.

Spiritually my Temple has been affected as well: I have felt set apart from the Kingdom, unworthy of God's love. Anger at God. I have lived in fear of hell ( if I die today where I am going ?) those type of thoughts. I have felt dirty in Church and felt envious of others for the well put togetherness. I have had times where I couldn't pray because I felt unworthy to talk to God. My Spirit has experienced selfishness and self righteousness. I thought to myself I have broke all but 1 of the big ten commandments and broke all the 7 deadly sins. My Temple thought for the longest time it stand a chance. So I filled it with Garbage. My Temple was a sexual cess pool and it literally choked the spiritual life right out of it. I even tried at one point making deals with the devil to justify what I was doing. I felt I didn't stand a chance with Heaven may as well get a good spot in hell. I have said things to satan like, "if you give me this I will be in debt to you. (mortal danger) scary stuff folks.

We are here for a short time, one time to get it right. God has given us an instruction manual on how to do it. We face a fierce and determined enemy who will kill you and wants to so badly. Our disease is the weapon he is using against us. But all things are possible through Jesus Christ. The work he is doing in me is amazing to me. The craziness is fading, the habits are changing, the desires he is taking away one at time. Sexual addiction is powerful, determined, and very very misleading. Stand strong stay close to God. The days where it is harder or temptation is to great stand CLOSER! Your not going to succeed every time its just the odds. But the further you walk with Jesus the more victories you have over satan then he does over you. It will get better.

SO open your Temple back up to the rightful owner; God. Put extra guards on duty to keep satan out of your Temple. Restore it to the beautiful place God made. I will struggle and fight with you and for you. My battle still goes on but my victories are greater and my Temple is cleaner.