Keeping Secrets

Tough isn't it? You know I was thinking about all the secrets I kept over the years either out of shame, guilt, fear, ego, and I am sure other psychological verbs that don't come to mind right now. The effort involved was just plain exhausting. Years of spending life in fear of one thing or another being discovered. The double life of lovers on the side, pornography stores, money spent on strippers, money spent on prostitutes and liquor at local bars looking for the next score. Worrying about the police picking me up and my secret life being revealed. Why did I keep those secrets? In retrospect I don't think I was used to living a different way. That is what I knew from a child covering up the abuse and my family covering for Dad's alcoholism, I grew up learning to keep secrets. So in my adult life I just naturally gravitated toward a double life because I knew I could control it, I had a handle on it. That was really not the case, all secrets get revealed at some point and God only knows whats going to happen when they do.

Lets face it, the secrets we keep as sex addicts are just down right ugly. That is what I want to focus on now. I was reading some stories in a 12 step book of recovery from sexual addiction and they told of secret lives, secret sex, family secrets, secret this, secret that, secret, secret, secret! Getting the feeling there is a pattern to your life to mine and ours to other sex addicts? Well there is.

That is the fuel for this addiction, secrets rule the lives of many. They (like in my life) dictate what we say, where we go, they force us to remember lies told, they create worry, pain, exhaustion, contempt, can build resentments, ruin others for the sake of the secret, provide exhileration and a high. They can also kill you. I have attempted suicide as a direct result of a double life and all the secrets I had within me. It was just too much to handle, I didn't know whether I was coming or going, scrambling to remember, scrambling to cover up, living in worry for years that things would get revealed or I would slip up and say something wrong that would expose me. All for absolutely nothing, my secrets did get revealed, I did confess, and I lost years of good quality life I will never get back because I spent all that time on my other life and covering the actions I took within that life. There was no greater pain than watching my wife be reduced to tears and feel betrayed by actions I took early in our relationship, and into the first few years of our marriage. That is one of those moments where you feel God should just take you out of the game, because you just screwed up big! The part I regret the most about all those secrets coming to light is not the fact they were revealed but the hurt it caused her. You can not put band aids on an internal wound of the heart. I would give my life to take back all the pain I have caused her with my choices. That is what secrets do to other people, and these secrets in sexual addiction are personal, very personal. They have the power to ruin hearts and destroy lives, and yet we keep on. Why? Because we are selfish. We want to keep doing what we are doing, or we don't want to face the consequences of our actions, we don't want to hurt others (but we also don't want to face seeing the hurt we cause). Any secret is primarily based in self, secrets have direct effects on one or more areas of lives and we protect them.

Jesus talks about secrets in a parable I used early in one of my blogs but I will share it again because God knows all we do, no matter how good we think we are. Luke 8:16-18; Jesus said, "No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or a basket, or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand where its light can be seen by everyone who enter the house. For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought into the light and made known to all. So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them." How true it is, even if we take a secret to the grave, that lets us know that it will be revealed beyond the grave. There is just no getting around it. What do we do about it? Step Five says: "we revealed to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." This is designed for repentance, relief, and admittance aloud to see the chaos we have created and have lived in. God does not want us to live with these secrets and go through emotional turmoil. Why should we? Has it done you any good to keep things inside? It hasn't me I can tell you that much. Granted my spouse doesn't know all my secrets, nor does she want to. But God, my counselor and other group members know them, as well as my elder board and you guys. They are not weights for me anymore. They have been told, they have been revealed, like I said, the fall out wasn't as bad as the hurt it caused, but we have healed or are in the process of doing so. Am I saying "go tell your spouse everything" of course not. That can do a lot of harm to another person. But get them out somehow, confession, repentance to God in prayer, tell a sponsor or fellow group member, tell your counselor. You just can't let them eat away at you like I did for so long. I do not want that for anyone. Do not be like me and get so many secrets locked inside you that you bust at the seams one day and ruin those close to you. Don't.

Remember what Jesus said "for those who hear and understand more will be revealed" He is inviting us to come clean and live a life with Him, and He will teach us and guide us. There will be a day when the secrets will disappear and no more will be made, that day is possible through a life with Christ. I am striving to reach that day, I may fail now and again but let me share with you a truism. My worst day with Christ is better than my best day with my addiction. What do you think I am going to keep picking? What are you going to pick?

My prayers are with you. Jason.

Jesus

Powerful name, powerful meaning, and so much hope in one name, Jesus. What happens when you hear His name? What thoughts arise and what feelings occur? Is it hope, security, love or is it offense? I want to share an incident that happened to me the other day. My truck had 5 bumper stickers going across the tail gate, two of them were Jesus specific and another spoke of Heaven. Those three stickers were torn off while I was at work. I came out to find my tail gate in that condition and I was saddened, because what must be unsettled in that person's heart to defile the name of Jesus Christ so intently? I couldn't even be mad, I just prayed for them. That is what Jesus would have done I am sure of it. It then dawned on me, the name of Jesus Christ still offends people to this day. Why?

There are so many names and titles for Him: King of kings, the most High, The lamb, Savior, Blessed Redeemer, the Author of Savation, Creator of the universe, Rescuer, Doctor, Philosopher, Teacher, Priest, and most importantly Friend. He is the one true son of God. Who was sent to Earth to pay the price for our sins and give us glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven. He performed miracles that have not or will ever be duplicated. He worked among His people, for His people, to be reunited with His people. John 21:25; Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written. What an amazing thought. Truly what can we find offensive about His life? We can't.

I was very excited to write this blog about Jesus, my mind went all kinds of directions, with scripture I could use, and tooting the Holy Horn. But you know of His works, and if you don't, you know what the Bible is and you can look all these things up yourself. However, I think we need to focus on just who He is and the reason He came to His Earth. The following scripture speaks to this: John 3:16-21; For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.  There is no judgement on those who believe in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in Gods one and only Son. And the Judgement is based on this fact: God's light came into the world, but the people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for thier sin will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. That is what we are promised from God Himself. Jesus was real, He was here, He died on a cross a criminals death, and rose and ascended into Heaven. His miracles happened, books have been written by His followers, He breathed the same air you and I do. He was and still is the most amazing man to ever live. He is God.

The amount of our sexual sin and other sins we commit in this addiction is vast. I know that my adultery, lust, greed, lies, and thefts that occured to make this addiction to sex work for me all these years is forgiven. That I truly turned my life over to Jesus Christ and I have seen Him work in my life. Me, a sinner of great magnitude, has had Jesus work in my heart and my life. He wants to do the same for you. Jesus promises that through Him we will not perish, He speaks of this Himself in Luke. Luke 24:46-47; Yes it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be procalimed in the authority of His name to all the nations, beginning in Jurusalem. There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.

I spoke of my moment when I came to Christ in my blog about "Help". It is that easy to begin having a relationship with Him. You just talk to Jesus, ask him for forgiveness, mean it (very important) and let the Holy Spirit in you come to life. The Spirit is what is sent to us as Jesus's advocate to work in our lives. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we can live an everlasting life of paradise without pain. If we believe.

This message is to implore all who read it, that Jesus Christ is our Savior and He loves us all individually and dearly. He will forgive your sins no matter how unforgivable you think you are. I was that guy for a long time, I thought I was unforgivable, that my sins were just to great. Since I have turned my life to Christ, I am less angry than I was, my nightmares about my abuse have stopped, my lust has been greatly reduced, I have seen financial help, gotten my wife back, learned to forgive more easily, people have said I seem more calmer, there is more life in my eyes, and when I have so chose to call on Him; I have never been alone, I think even when I haven't chose, He has been there for me. That is what belief and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can do for you to, perhaps even so much more. We just have to believe in our heart.

No one comes to the Father, except through Him. That is the law.

In wrapping this up let me say a prayer for you: Lord Jesus, there are so many hurting down here, we ask that the suffering we see in this addiction everyday can be lifted from those held captive to this disease. That Jesus, we are able to start a personal relationship with you. I pray Lord that all who read this message, that if they haven't called on yet, that they soon will. Jesus I pray for an entire group of people who are desperate and full of hopelessness, that they be covered in your blood and come to you. Jesus we pray this in your name. Amen.

Intimacy (What's That)

 Some may read that and say, "oooh! He said the "I" word". The more I think about this topic, the more that is how I feel about intimacy. It scares me. I have to wonder why and it all boils down to trust. I have a hard time trusting that my feelings are safe with another person. Therefore, I keep myself closed to even the one closest to me. I have fooled myself in the past few months since my wife and I remarried that I am achieving the intimacy level I have been looking to have with her. Sadly that is not the case. I am not even close to where I need to be with her, but am getting there.

I asked her the other day in preperation for this blog the following question, "Hey just so I don't get a bunch porn sites popping up when I put intimacy in the search engine, what would I type in to find out more about it?" Then she asks me a question in what sounded like a foreign language, "what type of intimacy are you looking to write about, emotional intimacy or sexual intimacy?" Baffled, I said, "I....didn't know there was a difference." She smiles in her thats cute sort of way and says, "of course you don't know", and begins to explain it to me. Which threw my whole outline for the subject out the window. However, it was very beneficial for me. The discussions that followed proved to be helpful in affirming I don't know the first thing about it. So I did some research and prayed about it.

In my prayers and discussions God revealed to me that achieving emotional intimacy with my wife is no different than prayer to Him. In my private moments with God I can be open, tearful, I can discuss my anxiety and fears, anger and frustrations, defeats and victories, proud moments and not so proud actions I may have taken that day. In doing so I am telling God who I am and how I feel about things. I trust Him (or as it was helped drawn out of me by my counselor, Do I even really trust Him?). With my wife I worry about telling her I am feeling a certain way without her getting hurt, my sexual issues may arise and I may worry about her feeling like I am not doing as good as I should be right now, I don't have to tell her exactly what is going on with me sexually but I do have to tell her I am struggling. I must share  the internal with her and quit showing an external mask of being ok. Which in turn creates a distance and I can't be fully present in my own home, with my own wife.

We as sexual addicts in particular are a very untrusting group of individuals. I know intimacy issues are not just for the addicted sexually folks, that a lot of people have intimacy issues for some reason or another. However, for us we tend to shut people out when it comes to be vulneable because lets be honest, if we were to expose ourselves and in an intimate exchange of communication we would have a harder time finding reason to act out. You can't run from something you put directly on the table. Therefore, from one addict to another, we tend to sabotage our own relationships for the sake of the addictive behavior. Conciously or subconciously at times we can not be exposed. We also have a very hard time thinking our way into positive living, which includes trust and vulnerability with our signifigant other because that is foreign country to us.

Now I will try to make my next point without rambling on and hopefully tie it up to the rest of the writing up till now. I began to inquire about what the link was between intimacy issues and sexual addiction. I found in some of my readings and recalling some stories in meetings that it is masturbation and fantasy life, which is a major block in emotional and sexual intimacy. Now keep in mind as I discuss this that I am having an issue with masturbation, which medically proven studies have shown have an adverse effect on memory. I sometimes forget conversations, days that I have had and very important points my wife has given me about who she is. Many conversations she has said, "don't you remember me saying.....?" No not really. Or it comes back after she says it. That in and of itself is an intimacy issue because she is being vulnerable and open with me, but my mind doesn't retain the information, which hurts her feelings, which in turn creates arguments, which makes me worry about having them, which keeps me closed, which creates an intimate block. Now with that being said, lets tie it up even closer, starting masturbation at an early age leads us to depend on ourselves for comfort. We end up using masturbation for sadness, anger, lonlieness, boredom, anxiety, financial troubles, tiredness, sexual release, hunger believe it or not. Basically anything we are feeling that we don't like feeling masturbation helps elieviate those issues. So we truly become more intimate with ourselves because it is ok to be vulnerable with ourselves because we get the support we need through masturbation. Therefore, we can't be as intimate with our spouse or even our God because we worry about him being disappointed in us. This is a proven problem in the world of a sex addict and as long as we are most intimate with ourselves we can't achieve the level of intimacy we need spiritually, emotionally or sexually.

I am by no means an expert on this issue (obviously). I am also not saying if we didn't masturbate or act out we would become instantly intimate. The question posed before us is this, what is it that keeps up closed off to being vulnerable sexually and emotionally to our signifigant others? It can be so many things to so many different people. However, in my journey on the road to a recovery lifestyle I am getting better at being more intimate with my wife and I use recovery tools and most importantly prayer to help me. You know what your intimacy issues are for the most part anyway, if not all of them. The question then becomes, do we want it? If so seek it, pray about it.

In conclusion, I will share a moment of my remarriage to my wife. We had at our ceremony what is called a cord ceremony. Three strands of Gold for God, purple for the man, and white representing the purity in the marriage of the woman. Our Pastor described this as a marriage trinity with God being the center of the marriage and the man and the woman loving eachother and God in an intimate way. It represented equality, closeness, and fairness. They were basically intimacy vows. I am not there yet but am working towards it.

Father in Heaven, we have spent years closed off and building walls around ourselves and not our relationships, that our protection has been for ourselves and not of our relationships, that our trust has been very warped by years of skeptisism, shame, remorse, regret, and feelings of inadequacy. We ask that you help us be us with the ones closest to us. Also Father that our relationship with you be more of what it should be like, rather than what we feel we are not entitled to with you. We pray for the healing of relationships and the rebuilding of trust both from us and too us. That our intimacy be what you designed it to be in our relationship to our loved ones. Father we pray this in the Precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

My prayers are with you. Jason.