It has been some time since I last updated this site. I have had the opportunity to add some crusade prayers but have done little else. It would be easy to suggest that my addiction has fled from my life but this would be a lie. As with all addicts, or ‘occasional porn’ users, my battle is ongoing. Some days are easy and others are not. I am human and I am weak. I love God and I hate sin but my prison bars always come back to haunt me…
I constantly ask for other members to stay in touch but I understand that is not easy. This Fellowship is ‘a hope’. The reality for most of us remains hidden in shame and solitary battles. Unfortunately, this is the reason that sin wins so easily over our ‘real’ desire to please God. We want to rid ourselves of the pain that short term sexual relief brings us but we are weak. We have a need to share our success with others but the constant failures keep us mute. We are afraid that we will be judged harder than we do ourselves. We are shamed into silence.
So let me make a confession.
I have fallen many times throughout this Fellowship. Everytime this has happened I have stopped looking at the site. I begin the old cycle of self deception. I promise myself that ‘tomorrow’ I will get back on my cross and make contact with other members – but I don’t. I usually sin more. In truth, the sinning continues until such time I am faced with the prospect of Mass – as if it was a bad thing? Thankfully, that still has the power to force me into the confessional…and bring me back to life. Then I start again.
I think it is the relentlessness of temptation that causes me such turmoil, weariness and sometimes – despair. I get tired, I get beset by other problems – I want to feel normal. You know what I mean. That ‘normal’ we see everytime an upstanding and ‘good’ member of the church does something we admire. This ‘normal’ person becomes our thorn as we ask ourselves why we haven’t been given the same advantages and Graces? This is just another lie we tell ourselves to avoid the truth. Everyone faces daily crosses – we just don’t see them.
So I ask all of you to make one effort at submitting a written contribution during this lockdown. Anything that is relevant to you and your daily fight. I have asked countless times but I do understand why it is so hard. So let me reassure you – you feel better when you write and you feel stronger when you know it is being read by others. Start becoming bigger than your failures and be an example through your humility and desire to share with others…
And in other news…
The BBC has reported that an international group of signatories have called upon major credit card companies to boycott the pornography industry. Paypal has already refused to allow its use for pornography subscriptions after a number of exploitation cases have come to courts. The article is worth reading so I have included the link.
In essence it is a salient reminder that these pornography providers cannot be certain they are showing ‘legal’ products. There are still real cases of underage and criminal related material becoming available on the public sites. Lack of knowledge is not a defence when the police come knocking at your door.
The prison may become real…
Yours in Jesus, Mary and Joseph
SA James
