Similes & Metaphors

There are a few things I'd like to share.

First, this is a thought I had while trying to stay away from pornography and having troubles. This is what it felt like for me to try and try and fail each and every time:

Imagine you own a cake factory, a beautiful factory with a marvelous oven. You make amazing, beautiful cakes to enjoy and to share. Then one day you find this secret setting for your oven that bakes the cakes and other sweets so marvelously and gorgeously and much faster than any other setting, in fact this setting makes the best, most perfect delights you have ever seen; there is nothing to rival it in all your life. You begin to use this setting only tentatively at first, not wanting to over use it and possibly break it. Each of these cakes brings you great happiness and satisfaction, and the sweets the secret setting even more so. As time goes on you begin to use the setting more and more often until the majority of your creations are being made with this wonderful setting. Your oven is now mostly producing product from this setting, with nearly 95% or more sweets being made with it, the lesser settings just will not do; their creations are vile and repulsive in comparison to the secret setting. Then one day, a cake you were baking explodes while being baked on the secret setting, with cake batter and other ingredients flying EVERYWHERE in your beautiful, immaculate kitchen. The batter from this setting gets incredibly hot and sticks to the walls and the floor surprisingly tight. You immediately then off your oven and set about cleaning up the batter and baking mess, trying to salvage as much as possible. With success you resume your baking duties but avoiding the secret setting for a time, hoping to avoid a further meltdown. Sadly, the cakes and sweets you are making now just don't measure up to the grand and awe inspiring creations from the secret setting. You dare to use it one more time, after all so ,much time has passed, it must be safe. You make a wonderful and amazing cake, a castle of a cake, with great success on the secret setting. You feel more confident that things are back to normal and you resume use of the secret setting to make the most marvelous creations yet, with each one more grand than the next. Yet again one day, the oven overheats and the cake gets everywhere. Again you repeat the process of cleaning and limiting use. 

    Eventually, the secret setting always explode always creates disaster and havoc. Your walls and floor and beginning to look more like cake and other sweets. They refuse to be cleaned anymore. Your oven now is stuck making things on the secret setting and cannot be turned off. Its as if it has taken on a life of its own and now create cakes twisted and foul smelling, yet the production never ceasing. This still brings wonder into your eyes, but you begin to worry and despair that you will never be able to stop it. Even unplugged it continues on in some horrible machination of life, taunting you to stop it. So you do the only thing you can do... You grab your cleaning tools and set about clearing away the mess. Your mop and broom cease to be useful, as the floor is mostly cake batter, ruined and soggy. You try a vacuum only to have it erupt in flames as the motor burns out. Your are left with a flat bladed chisel and a hammer. Slowly, painfully you begin to chip away at the filth and refuse clinging to the walls and floor, slowly clearing away a spot at a time. Sadly, just as soon as you clear away a small section, the oven regurgitates a steaming pile of batter, covering your progress as if on purpose. You continue at this futile attempt to clean and recover again only to be thwarted by the infernal oven. It seems no amount of work on your part is working, your once thriving business of cakes and sweets has been ruined, with all knowing you have fallen into disarray and dishonor, none daring to venture into your shop. 

   The point of this little metaphor is to know, and remember  that you have a whole CASTLE for your use! You have other rooms to go into, you can stop worrying about the possessed oven and go enjoy other parts of your house. Go throw a party in the ballroom, go tend to your plants in the green house. The oven will eventually go out. The more time and energy we waste in trying to clean up after it or condemn it for being the way it is will only end up feeding it more. The more attention we give it the more power it has over us. Leave the oven and go enjoy your castle!

Railroad

No person can be derailed from his course without his consent. No sinner is doomed to travel only the path that Satan lays for him. That path can be changed at anytime by a strong and consistent righteous desire. There is always a way out of the path of sin and that has been provided by Jesus. because of his sacrifice and his care over us, we can change at anytime during our train ride of life. We are not bound by sin. We are not doomed by Satan's desires. That is one of the great lies he tries to foist on us.
     Ultimately the Lord's desire for us is to travel the path, the rails that his son, Jesus Christ, set down to guide us to him. He is the great liberator. He will deliver from sin and death.

The wonderful plan

Just recently I've had some experiences about the atonement and the love, the incomprehensible love of the Savior and of God. I have obtained a witness of just how great and deep and unfailing that love is. Never had I comprehended the kind of love they have for me. In a talk given by elder Jeffrey r. Holland hr talks about the fact that Jesus had to go through a period of time where the spirit was whithdrwan from him so that hr could know with painful exactness what we mortals face on a daily basis, that is the loss or void of the holy spirit. That brief moment in time when the father withdrew his spirit have all of us the love and the comfort and compassion we could ever need. Because he walked alone and wrought the atonement alone we will never be alone. He truly has suffered all we have and has bourn our sorrows and carried our griefs. He knows, intimately, all our sufferings and because of that can lift us up when we feel hopeless and helpless and completely worthless. His light is forever and cannot be dimmed, there is always hope and love but a short prayer away. He never leaves us.

Though I do not know many things, I know this: that because he lives we too can live. His love is everlasting and his compassion knows no bounds. His miraculous atonement can cleans us and heal us of all sin, it can make us whole again. He will not leave us alone or helpless. I know this to be absolutely true. God's love is eternal.

Here are some amazing talks that have helped me GREATLY in my battle for repentance and forgiveness:

1 - Safety for the Soul

2 - None Were with Him

I hope they help you. Whether you are battling this addiction yourself or are companion to one such, they will help you find peace.

Meeting

Another meeting. Thursday nights are taken up by the addiction recovery program. Simple, yet beautiful. The mix of people who ate struggling with this addiction is amazing. From teens to the elderly. Satan truly knows no bounds. At first I went out of obligation, I 'had to'. Now I go because I want to. The spirit can be felt here, even among us sinners. It is a wonderful place of healing and hope. These men who come from all walks of life show love and forgiveness and have a common understanding of how unearthly difficult this addiction is.

Other thoughts I've had this week: The american society easily sets up chances for failure. It is toxic, unforgiving, faithless and cynical. Women are simply objects to desire, objects to own and use. It is easy to get lost in it.

Hugs

She embraced me, or rather had me embrace her tonight after I got off work. It was he first really 'intimate' thing she has desired of me since this all started. That hug meant a lot. This night has seen the opening up, ever so slightly, indicating she is wanting my company. That to me is amazing and I'm grateful we, as a couple, are making small steps.
    On the whole there has been more emotion and love on both our parts in these past few days. I feel so small and humble thinking that she still loves me. I enjoy that thought greatly. I want to love her and want her to love me. Though I hesitate, afraid of new wounds. So does she. We both hold a part of ourselves back hoping to keep away the scars.
     Healing from such a systemic addiction as pornography takes time. I had not thought it would take so much time. Now I am glad, grateful that it does. Else how would I know to savor these emotions and trials? How could the Lord sculpt me without a hammer and chisel? As Switchfoot says "we are bruised and broken masterpieces/but we did not paint ourselves". We all bear scars of divine origin. God will shape us whether we ask him to or not, whether we welcome it or not, he will mold us into the people he needs and wants us to be. I never asked for this trial, yet I have it. I wish I could root out forever the evil desires of my heart for lustful things (and not just porn), yet I suffer them. That is how a better me and you is formed. One slow, painful chisel 'stroke' at a time.
    

Paces

She told me she loves me for the first time months last night. I'm trying not to read to much into that. It is nice to know she cares, even if its deep down and hidden. It just 'slipped out' after I prayed and during the prayer was able to feel sorrow and remorse for the times of trouble I had brought upon us.

I shall leave you with a neat cloud formation I saw while driving to work. Enjoy the beauty of God's great earth!

Cascade

I got caught.

That's how it all started in the first place; my recovery. My wife knew of my past pornography use, even before we married. We talked openly about our past struggles, yet I fell back into the trap. I don't think I ever 'got over' the pornography addiction I had while a teen and young adult. I somehow got through a two year mission, but was slowly seduced by the 'dark side' through video games and public media (and to be completely honest, just everyday life, some women/girls let it all hang out too easily) and slipped back into the addiction. My wife and I struggled with slip ups here and there for some fours years before I started going to the ARP. All through that time it was never treated as an addiction, just a character weakness, a 'problem' that needed addressing. Nothing more. I kept thinking, 'I just need to try harder, play less computer, watch less TV, maybe we need to have sex more often' and other such nonsense. Pornography use has nothing to be with sex, lack or overabundance thereof. Its a mental disease, a true addiction.

I freely admit that I got caught. Its what I need to change, it spurred me to realize I was heading down a deep, dark and deadly path. I could not see it on my own. I believe the lord set events in motion to help me come back to the truth, back to the gospel. Back to him.

So as odd as it may sound, I'm grateful that these events have taken place. The bitter, sin-wracked soul that I was was plucked, arrebatado, from sin. I've always liked that word. It means plucked, picked, so to save is to pluck from danger and sin.

So far...

I think for me at this point, the hardest thing is not the addiction, its the relationships. Its managing the blame and the hurt and the alienation. How do you just pick up the pieces of your broken life and go on? You can't just pretend it never happened, or that its not that big a deal. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not all that ready to even try mending the shattered beyond repair relationship I have with my wife. I don't even know where to begin. There is no trust between us and love, if any, is mostly gone. I sit and despair over it because I am so lost for what to do. Maybe I'm just not at the point of repair quite yet...

I've been going now to the addiction recovery classes for about 3.5 months. Classes are great and the steps of the program are so what I needed. They give me hope. I must admit that I am not very good at studying the manual as I should/ought/want to. But I can attest to the fact that it works and its makes me feel so good when I do. Step 4 is by far the hardest for me so far. My memory is fuzzy and weak in some areas and I never know when I should be 'done' with my list. Or maybe, I worry, that I haven't included enough (after all, I am SUCH a horrible person) and other such things. It seems like a never ending step. So, Yea, there I am. Semi-stuck with the program.

I could not have come so far without the help of the amazing counselor I'm seeing at LDS family services. He has been the most loving, kind supporting and above all patient person with me! Without his help, I would not be here, er, well, where I am in regards to my repentance and personal progress.

I (start a lot of sentences with 'I') didn't really know what to write tonight. So sorry for any jumps. I'm trying to compile a timeline of sorts to post, chronicling how this addiction started for me and all the other fun stuff that went around it.

Bottom line, I'm still struggling with my personal values and desires. I still don't know exactly what my personal motivation is for even going through this program. For I want forgiveness, do I want reconciliation, do I want peace, do I need relief? I think these are all good starting places, but most of all, what is my final destination? Where do in want to be after all this is done? Where is the addiction recovery program taking me and do I want to be there? That for me is the ultimate question.

A short intro

Hello, its late. I didn't really intend to create this blog. I, uh, feel rather afraid and almost ashamed writing on such a tender subject. Its still young for me. Still fresh. My wounds are healing, but its coming at a cost I did not anticipate, nor could in ever seen.

I make reference to the great fight I've had with pornography(I love how that word isn't in the dictionary for my mobile, not even a single version of it.) Over the past half of my life, almost 15 years. I'm now 28! Sobering really.

The idea came from my wife, and some other women, at an LDS addiction recovery meeting. And honestly now that I am writing this it feels, ... Better. Natural. I only hope I can share some stories and experiences that may help some other caught in the web of porn.

This complete update will need to wait until later on, as I need to be going to bed and sleeping and other such trivial things.