A Troubled Heart

That last post, the one about pornography, was difficult to write. My thanks, iOLANDEMELODY of YouTube, for your frank discussion on pornography and its destructive power. (She’s an extraordinary person and is blessed with a kind and giving spirit, and that’s how I want to be).

The essay I wrote took research and the exposure of my guilt in engaging in the sins of the flesh. While it’s true that I worked hard and suffered from the post, I have been left with a troubled heart. I’ve dwelt so on the horrors that Linda Boreman (Lovelace) and so many others endured that I have felt helpless and hopeless.

Sometimes, we think we have learned something, and we find that we learned nothing at all. Other times, we learn a truth that will stay with us forever, something good… or something terrible.

When it comes to porn, all of it is terrible.

Slavery, open adultery, and all manner of sexual sin should make us sick and repulsed and leave us never wanting to see it again.

Everything that is not of the spirit is of the flesh, and everything of the flesh that is a sin harms the body and the soul.

I learned things I dared not print. Things far too horrible to inflict upon you, my brothers and sisters. Sometimes, the less said, the better I get through. Now, I don’t get likes. Nor do I expect them. I don’t get many views. Well, I don’t expect those, either. All that I can hope to do is to help others. And so I felt moved to write that post. I didn’t spend much time editing. I wanted to post it and put it behind me.

But I can’t.

Learning that it’s already like the “days of Noah” was a revelation I was not ready for.

Regarding that, I don’t want you to worry. If you are saved in Christ, you have no need to fear.

It’s just that so much of what I endured as a child came back to me, heavy and heartbreaking.

However… I am here to remind both of us, you and me, that no matter who hurt and abused us, they ³sßwill face God and The Son one day and, on that day, they will suffer.

That means it’s God who will repay. Not us. It is our duty to God and ourselves to honor Him and confess our sins to him. And to not be weasels, blaming our parents or attackers, but speak of our sins later in life as if only we are to blame. Because that’s the hard, cold truth. The acts of those who hurt us must be dealt with in counseling both with a therapist and a trustworthy pastor. We must get rid of anger, blame, and hate. Those things become fixations, obsessions, and, ultimately, lead us away from peace, from closeness with God, and to the seeking of revenge, which will never help you but is a terrible sin.

I used to hate my parents. But we’re not to hate. The Bible tells us to love those who hate us. God gave us a spirit of peace and love, not of fear and hate; the latter being inspired by Satan.

That blog truly hurt me. Ever since, I’ve been dissociative and distant, not just from myself but mostly from reality. I can’t control that. When I left my card in the slot of an ATM machine, I clearly dissociated, somewhere I can’t remember, reliving bad things. I walked away from the machine while it was still beeping.

But it’s okay. Even that taught me a lesson: proceed with caution. You and I want to change the world. Then reality creeps in, leading to doubt. We have forgotten our mission and yielded in defeat.

Are we really going to give up so easily? I’m not.

Mental illness makes life very difficult. When I asked my doctor to change my diagnosis from PTSD to CPTSD, she didn’t even know what it was. She looked it up. It was a telehealth appointment, and I could see her searching and reading. As I began to tell her some of the things that I was going through, she looked as if she was torn over whether I had been holding back or if I had made it up.

Clearly, United States health care is way behind.

But in the following video you can see why mental health is very important to your spiritual life. Trauma gets in the way, like it does with other things, but worse. It gives the powers of evil a means and a weapon to tempt and torment a Christian in many ways.

Pornography is one. Committing sins of the flesh are some of the most deadly ones. Husbands here in this country have been found out by their wives to have been seeing another woman for years and even fathering children with her. Adultery violates one of the Ten Commandments. Worse, Christ told us not to even look at another with appraising, lustful eyes. Doing that is still like sinning in real life.

I was drowning in porn. My posts were riddled with expletives. That didn’t make them any less true, but people do subtract points from your presentation for it. I claimed that I was a Christian, but not a very good one. I’ve come up with some excuses in my time, lies to cover all sorts of things. But that one was particularly evil. It came from the knowledge that I was a believer but not a walker in faith or truth. It showed that I was unwilling to turn away from sin. I wasn’t even going to try.

What a harsh judgment awaits we who profess faith but act contrary to the scripture?

It would be too much for me.

People play with evil. They believe that witchcraft is harmless and a legitimate religion. Some say they only use “white magic.”

Well, there is no white magic. It’s all drawn upon the powers of darkness. People play with ouija boards like they’re harmless. Until something gets inside their house that makes them regret it.

Demons are real. They’re everywhere, although on the spiritual plane, but they are allowed to afflict us. If you don’t believe in them, you’ve made a mistake. They are never to be underestimated. Satan is real. His favorite trick is to make people not believe in him or in Hell. People let guilt not interfere in their sinful ways because he isn’t real.

Except,  he is. He knows already what he’s doomed for,  but he won’t give up. His goal is to get between us and the Lord and make you his cell mate in Hell. He knows he can’t win. He’s just so purely evil that your soul is a prize to him. He will stop at nothing to pull you down from grace.

Too many people indulge in sins of the flesh, ignoring the consequences. I don’t want to be one of them. Do you?

There is, at the end of this day, however, hope to mend a troubled heart. Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” because we have the final decision and power to handle temptation and all the challenges life throws at us.

He also said, “In this world ye will have tribulations, but be brave; I have conquered the world.”

It’s up to us. I will pray about what happened to me during and after writing that porn essay. I can’t stop porn, and that’s not my fault. But I can speak up about how evil it is and about addiction and Hell. As for the victims of the industry, it’s too late to pray for the dead, but the living, they can be saved.