I have always struggled with sexual behavior, viewing, pornography, and objectifying women. I believe this gave birth sometime during my army career and when my wife was raped by my Platoon Sergeant. What followed shortly afterward was very traumatic and changed the way I viewed sex and relationships. I looked at women as trophies or notches on a belt and slept with over 30 woman and a dozen more prostitutes. This reckless and immoral behavior damaged any future relationships and marriages. More importantly, it damaged my relationship with God.
I surrendered my life last year, and like most men, (and few women for that fact) condemned themselves as the worst sinners in the world and could never be forgiven by God-and certainly could never forgive themselves. I asked God to show me how I could break from these corroded chains that have held me bondage for most of my life. I was led to discover the Conquer Series. I didn’t expect much but decided to order it and give it a try.
The Conquer series (a set of DVDs) was the answer to my prayers. I felt for once in my life I could conquer this. I discovered through watching the DVDs (as well as comprehensive internet research) that pornography plaques our church even more than people realize-even more than our churches want to recognize and therefore reluctant to address it.
The statistic shows that more than 70 percent of Christians and over 50 percent of Pastors view pornography on a regular basis. It must be like, Galatians 5:9 “a little yeast leavens the whole lump” (Body of Christ). The Lord put in my heart to take my affliction and be the source to others and provide a light of hope for these people drowning in pornography and other sexually immoral behavior. I decided to host a small group and invited people to attend. I had more than enough people expressed interest in the group; which might indicate that many like me have been searching for relief. Unfortunately, I had to limit the group to eight participants; otherwise it might not be as successful. These eight men would become intimate strangers.
When our group met for the first time, we decided not to use our real names. We agreed to be as transparent as we could because healing won’t occur without getting these hidden secrets—that have robbed us of our lives—out into the open. Before each session, we had a group prayer chain. I thought this would be the best way to create a bond and to unite us as brothers in Christ.
I am not going to go into too much detail about the group sessions unless you should subscribe to Sinking Ships Behavior Analysis and Coaching Services and all details will be revealed; including, the anonymous heartbreaking and compelling stories. I do want to say there was a wide range of emotions from crying, to anger, to one person leaving the group, but he returned thirty minutes later.
We met for eight weeks to review the materials outlined in the program. When the final group session ended; we decided that we would never see each other again so that we could adequately heal. It was hard to part company because, during our time together, we shared secrets that nobody; including family and closest friends had ever known. The group never judged. We became best friends yet had to return to our former state of complete strangers to move forward. In the DVD it was recommended to have accountability partners. However, we decided as a group that we would select our own. Some of the members chose close friends and even members because they wanted someone close (proximity) to help them on their journey to recovery. Surprisingly, most stated that they would organize groups to continue to provide healing to their local churches.
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