Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2012 10:55:44 GMT -7
My name is Sam. I'm 19 and I have been struggling with pornography ever since I was introduced to it in 8th or 9th grade.
I always knew it was wrong as I have grown up in a Christian home. I would do it to escape and relax, thinking I was never hurting anyone... boy was I wrong. Before I go on, please remember a small detail about me that I will get to towards the end. I have had problems with ingrown toenails ever since 9th grade. Ok, back to the story.
So I get to 12th grade and I meet the girl of my dreams. Beautiful, a Christian, a Virgin (like me!), and so many other great things. She came out of nowhere,a true answer to prayer I thought and still think to this day.
After I met her I completely quit pornography. It was fantastic! Life was liberating, no longer did I subject myself to that filth!!! I had such a gorgeous girlfriend, why did I need all of those fake girls? Well, I thought my girlfriend alone could keep me from ever looking at it again. I was very very wrong.
I started looking at it again a week before I went to a Christian summer camp with my girlfriend. I didn't look at it there, but I felt convicted after an evening sermon to finally come clean and tell her everything about me that she didn't know dealing with my addiction. I told her, we cried, and I thought I was finally done with it. I was wrong, again.
I kept at it and would tell her sometimes, but it was just too painful to see how upset and disappointed she got. I eventually quit telling her and it just got worse and worse. I got to the point where I would look at it almost 3-4 times a week. During this time my relationship got worse and worse as well since I was letting Satan get very involved with my life. Everytime I would look at it I got a small voice inside my head that would say 'Sam, stop looking at this or I'm going to take her away'. I didn't listen. We stopped going to church together and our relationship just got really dead. We fought all the time and I started to think about breaking it off because something wasn't right. I didn't think that something was me.
Finally, the relationship got too much to handle. That was June 1st 2012. My girlfriend told me that she just didn't know what to do anymore and if we needed to split up or not. So, I told her we should pray and fast the two days before church and by Sunday see what God wanted for us. (Note: I told her I had been lying to her about all the porn a few days before this. I hadn't looked at anything for about a week at that time.)
We prayed and fasted together, but didn't hang out. By Sunday when she picked me up for church she was already so different. So happy and full of joy. It was a girlfriend I hadn't seen in a long time. Once at church, the message was about God's power to restore relationships. Well, we took that as the go ahead and started to trust God and build our relationships back up with Him. Everything was going perfect, but only two days later she broke up with me for reasons unknown. Never a why, never a reason for splitting up after she saw God starting to work on us when we gave it up to Him.
However, since then God has given me such hope and faith from signs and such beautiful answered prayers about her return. Too many signs and answered prayers to write down haha! I have been given peace about that since God has told me everything will be okay with her, even though I messed up big time. He has given me such mercy and grace and continues to soften my girlfriends heart. It's awesome, but anyways, back to the message.
God took my girlfriend away to open my eyes. Without the breakup I would still be looking at pornography and worse of all I would not have the relationship with God that I have now. I would never have known how much I hurt her and I would have never have learned from God what to do to become a better boyfriend, and well just a better human being. It has been a blessing! Incredibly hard, but a blessing none the less.
And for anyone doubting God's ability of restoration of your life away from pornography, get this: When I started looking at porn, I got my first ingrown toenail that I needed to get removed by a doctor. As I kept looking at porn, my toenail kept getting infected. I did everything right. I cut it right, kept it in good shape, but it would keep getting red and infected. I have had at least 15-20 surgeries on both of my big toes. Each infection would always start a day or so after I started looking at porn again. I am one rare patient with my toe doctor. So rare that he has only had one other patient with a condition similar to me. However that other patient got it fixed eventually. After 5-6 years, it never got fixed by any doctor. They even cut out the matrix out of both toenails (the thing that grows the nail)and it still grew back!!!
So, when I stopped looking at porn a week before the breakup, I kept it up. I kept not looking at it. So what happened? My infection in my toe started to go away. Wait, how??? How in the world could an ingrown nail ungrow?
God of course. 
My infection went away completely and I saw no doctors at all.
A month later I slipped up two days in a row looking at some stuff and my infection came back. I stopped looking and made an effort and my toe is currently healing again. If that doesn't make any doubters believe, I don't know what will. God has shown me his powers of restoration!
Porn is terrible. It's a disease. It is an invention of the devil to make men stray from their only true God. My best advice is to drop it and never look back. Come back to your Lord and ask for forgiveness from Him and everyone you have hurt. Never. Look. Back. Remember everyone that it IS possible to escape. Just trust in the Lord your God and He will help you!
I am not perfect and still occasionally slip up. It's a hard process, but I just wanted to share with you all what God can do when we give up Satan and embrace the light.
Sincerely,
Sam P.
I always knew it was wrong as I have grown up in a Christian home. I would do it to escape and relax, thinking I was never hurting anyone... boy was I wrong. Before I go on, please remember a small detail about me that I will get to towards the end. I have had problems with ingrown toenails ever since 9th grade. Ok, back to the story.
So I get to 12th grade and I meet the girl of my dreams. Beautiful, a Christian, a Virgin (like me!), and so many other great things. She came out of nowhere,a true answer to prayer I thought and still think to this day.
After I met her I completely quit pornography. It was fantastic! Life was liberating, no longer did I subject myself to that filth!!! I had such a gorgeous girlfriend, why did I need all of those fake girls? Well, I thought my girlfriend alone could keep me from ever looking at it again. I was very very wrong.
I started looking at it again a week before I went to a Christian summer camp with my girlfriend. I didn't look at it there, but I felt convicted after an evening sermon to finally come clean and tell her everything about me that she didn't know dealing with my addiction. I told her, we cried, and I thought I was finally done with it. I was wrong, again.
I kept at it and would tell her sometimes, but it was just too painful to see how upset and disappointed she got. I eventually quit telling her and it just got worse and worse. I got to the point where I would look at it almost 3-4 times a week. During this time my relationship got worse and worse as well since I was letting Satan get very involved with my life. Everytime I would look at it I got a small voice inside my head that would say 'Sam, stop looking at this or I'm going to take her away'. I didn't listen. We stopped going to church together and our relationship just got really dead. We fought all the time and I started to think about breaking it off because something wasn't right. I didn't think that something was me.
Finally, the relationship got too much to handle. That was June 1st 2012. My girlfriend told me that she just didn't know what to do anymore and if we needed to split up or not. So, I told her we should pray and fast the two days before church and by Sunday see what God wanted for us. (Note: I told her I had been lying to her about all the porn a few days before this. I hadn't looked at anything for about a week at that time.)
We prayed and fasted together, but didn't hang out. By Sunday when she picked me up for church she was already so different. So happy and full of joy. It was a girlfriend I hadn't seen in a long time. Once at church, the message was about God's power to restore relationships. Well, we took that as the go ahead and started to trust God and build our relationships back up with Him. Everything was going perfect, but only two days later she broke up with me for reasons unknown. Never a why, never a reason for splitting up after she saw God starting to work on us when we gave it up to Him.
However, since then God has given me such hope and faith from signs and such beautiful answered prayers about her return. Too many signs and answered prayers to write down haha! I have been given peace about that since God has told me everything will be okay with her, even though I messed up big time. He has given me such mercy and grace and continues to soften my girlfriends heart. It's awesome, but anyways, back to the message.
God took my girlfriend away to open my eyes. Without the breakup I would still be looking at pornography and worse of all I would not have the relationship with God that I have now. I would never have known how much I hurt her and I would have never have learned from God what to do to become a better boyfriend, and well just a better human being. It has been a blessing! Incredibly hard, but a blessing none the less.
And for anyone doubting God's ability of restoration of your life away from pornography, get this: When I started looking at porn, I got my first ingrown toenail that I needed to get removed by a doctor. As I kept looking at porn, my toenail kept getting infected. I did everything right. I cut it right, kept it in good shape, but it would keep getting red and infected. I have had at least 15-20 surgeries on both of my big toes. Each infection would always start a day or so after I started looking at porn again. I am one rare patient with my toe doctor. So rare that he has only had one other patient with a condition similar to me. However that other patient got it fixed eventually. After 5-6 years, it never got fixed by any doctor. They even cut out the matrix out of both toenails (the thing that grows the nail)and it still grew back!!!
So, when I stopped looking at porn a week before the breakup, I kept it up. I kept not looking at it. So what happened? My infection in my toe started to go away. Wait, how??? How in the world could an ingrown nail ungrow?
God of course. 
My infection went away completely and I saw no doctors at all. A month later I slipped up two days in a row looking at some stuff and my infection came back. I stopped looking and made an effort and my toe is currently healing again. If that doesn't make any doubters believe, I don't know what will. God has shown me his powers of restoration!
Porn is terrible. It's a disease. It is an invention of the devil to make men stray from their only true God. My best advice is to drop it and never look back. Come back to your Lord and ask for forgiveness from Him and everyone you have hurt. Never. Look. Back. Remember everyone that it IS possible to escape. Just trust in the Lord your God and He will help you!
I am not perfect and still occasionally slip up. It's a hard process, but I just wanted to share with you all what God can do when we give up Satan and embrace the light.
Sincerely,
Sam P.