After a five year battle, I finally opened my heart to a loved one concerning pornography. It was the scariest and most freeing conversation I have ever had.
I became ensnared by porn in high school. Sexual sin ran the show for a while and I fell away. I also became ensnared by the idea that I wasn't good enough to get better. That somehow, my sin had spoiled salvation. I wasn’t a real Catholic, I would never be good enough for Prince Charming or even Jesus Himself. I thought that God probably didn’t want me.
We are not our worst struggles; you are not your porn habit. You are beloved. God delights in you. Because I believe that, here I hope to offer some different ways that you might approach your struggle with pornography based on my own struggle with pornography and through my experience over the last seven years teaching high school and walking with many students through this struggle in their own lives.
As long as it feels good and there’s consent, does it need any boundaries? Labels? Conventional standards? Please, that is so backwards. This is 2017, right?
But then, when people say and do things that are so obviously wrong and offensive, we’re shocked and offended.
I, the girl with a reputation for being a model Catholic, had been struggling with masturbation and pornography for years.
I was making some serious growth in overcoming this sin, and Jesus showed me nothing but a welcoming embrace each time I ran to His loving arms when falling, no matter how guilty and ashamed I felt.
If you're the girl that sits in your room all alone and beats yourself up, either physically, mentally or both, because you think you are the only girl with a problem with pornography and masturbation -- this is for you.
Being a man means that we put down whatever we feel in order to more adequately serve others, but more importantly, more adequately serve God.
The Jesus I forgot wasn’t there to condemn me; the Jesus I forgot was -- is -- merciful and good, and wills my good.
