I wrote down a bit of a testimonial a few weeks back with regards to the women's retreat I attended. I decided to repost, and maybe reflect a little on what it really means in the long run.
For definitions sake, RP is role-playing, done in written format. Its a bit like collaborative fiction writing, with each person playing a character, or several characters, and they interact as the plot, whatever it may be, goes forward. Now, onward.
I've made no bones about the fact that I'm a Christian. Granted, I don't insert it into every conversation I've ever had, nor do I quote scripture constantly, but following Jesus informs who I am as a person. In the past few years, that influence has waned. And that's not something I'm proud of. I look at my life and I see a lot of time wasted. Not RPing. Don't think that's what I mean. I mean I've wasted the time I spend with God, the time that should be devoted to learning about Him. I go to church, I try and attend a bible study (when not in class), I teach sunday school. By virtue of all those things, I should be fine, right? Well, I'm not.
I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense. I'm trying to build myself up to admitting what I need to say here, and its frankly really difficult. Yes, these are words typed on the page, but trying to find the proper expression for a... confession if you will, just as difficult as saying a confession (I respect you Catholics who do so - I can't imagine doing it).
For about two years now I've been struggling with an addiction to pornography. There, I said it. Not so hard, right? Only, it doesn't encapsulate the despair, the anger, the distorted way I came to see myself and how it ate away at me inside. I won't argue the semantics of its morality here - suffice it to say I don't think its alright, but that's for another entry - when it draws you away from living your life, and sucks you dry of the emotion and time you can/should be giving to the people around you, its not healthy.
I went to a recovery program for six months last year on Thursday nights. It went a long way towards equipping me to face this addiction, but it didn't fix it. I knew then, same as I know now, what would fix it. Nothing less the the healing power of Jesus. I was able to confront some peripheral demons at this group, which was all a good thing, because its like the straw that breaks the camel's back, the simplest thing will suck you down again. But I was still clinging to the bulk of my addiction.
At that point, maybe two people knew about this. One was a lady from church (I told God if someone asked, I'd finally tell, and she was the one he put in my life for that), and the other was a dear friend from college whom I hadn't seen for a long time (telling someone when you can't see the look in their eyes, either pity or imagined condemnation is so much easier). I was working things out with God, facing the root of what was going on in my life, seeing the distortion for what it was, but I was still holding fast to it.
Its such a hard thing to describe, why I would hold on, but I'll try. The distorted view I had of myself, of seeing myself as only being good for this, only being able to connect to an image on the screen rather than a real person, all that false intimacy, well, its easier than real intimacy for one. For another, by defaulting to that, I didn't have to make hard decisions, and do hard things. Its a small part of why my thesis isn't done. Its a hard scary thing to me. Porn, while ugly at times, is hitting the pleasure centers in my brain, which feels good, and who doesn't want to surround themselves with things that feel good? But like any artificial high, there is a low. I'd walk away from it hating myself, hating that I wasn't strong enough to break free from it and say no.
Alright, bringing us back to present. This weekend was the women's retreat at my church. The theme? 'I Choose Joy.' Oddly enough, I didn't really want to go. I don't as a whole like what some people equate with Joy. Folks, Joy isn't Happiness. Happiness is fleeting. It depends on you and your emotions reacting to something. So I might be happy to get a certain book one day, but it won't make me happy the next time. It has to be something new to make me happy. Get what I mean? But Joy.... joy is like the lightness of being when you find God. Joy is the utter peace you have when you let go of trying to control your life and you let God guide your steps. Thats joy.
So clearly Joy wasn't something I was having as much luck with as I wanted. I'd never admit as such, but I thought that by being a Christian I had to have joy in my life somewhere. Even if I wasn't sure where. But I got gently nagged by people far wiser than me and I went.
It was a lovely time, let me just say. We sang worship music, ate good food, I got to spend time with women I normally don't talk to (not because I don't like them, but because we 'run in different circles', kind of thing), and go shopping. Very girly weekend on the whole.
Saturday af the end of the speaker's talk, she asked if anyone wanted an annointing of the Holy Spirit. This caught my attention, because I always believed that if you accepted Christ into your life, then you'd been annointed. Apparently not so. Least not in all cases. Several people were receiving prayer, and I was trying to pray for them, but I just.... couldn't. I backed off to a spot by myself, and before you knew it, I was crying. Now, you have to understand, I don't cry. Most of the time I'm physically incapable of it. I can count on one hand the number of times in the past year I've cried. This...it was more than any of them. I could feel the scream building in my throat and I bit it back because I was certain if I let it out, I would have sounded like an animal in pain. As it was, I couldn't breathe and I just wept for at least 10 minutes straight.
In my direct experience with God, I learn the most through metaphors that come to me. I don't think I come up with them, because I'm just not that good at it. I think its God. I saw two metaphors in my head during all this. One was of a pitcher pouring water into another container, and when it was poured out of the second container, instead of being clear and clean like it was when it went in, it was murky, muddied and gross.
The second image was more abstract. It was the fact that my joy was locked away in a clear box, and I could see it and understand it, but I didn't HAVE it. And both those images were distressing, but liberating. So I let it all go. I let go of my fear and my sickness that kept me clinging to my addiction. I can't begin to describe what that feels like. I was still weeping for who knows how much longer, but it was cleansing, like a load had been lifted.
And I told you all that to explain RP retirement, didn't I? Well, in the matter of addictions, RP is definitely one of them. And because its so easy to take on a different persona, and write/do things that person would do, its easy to get sucked back into this addiction if I have in my head two young healthy males for characters. You know? I miss them and the folks I RPed with already, but I was utterly convicted to change this part of my life to aid in this healing. Because it is a healing. Before there was shame, and guilt, and self-hatred. Now, there's hope. And that is HUGE for me. I'm not a particularly hopeful person by nature. I'm too pessimistic for that. But with God's annointing I have hope. I memorized Romans 12:12 - "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer." And now, after all this time. I understand that.
Do I think I'll mess up? Maybe. I certainly don't feel the tug of war in my soul that I did. Really that might have been why I cried, because I could feel a rending of the sickness from my spirit. And now I feel surprisingly empty and light. But not hollow. Definitely not hollow.
So I did a huge cleanup of my other, more long term blog on LJ. I cleared out a lot of communities, all RP game stuff. Anything that might prove a temptation. Some of it is probably ok, but I'm drawing a hard line for myself, because I'd rather overreact than not. I want to live free and grasping at God's blessing than live captive and clinging to the chains that bind me. I'm not reading fic anymore. I don't know when I'll write fic (I deleted my fic here, so unless I archived it at Coloured Grey or in an exchange comm, its not posted. Likewise, my involvement in fanfic comms is going to be nil until a time comes when it feels....safe, I guess. I don't know when that will be, but I'm trusting this was the right thing to do.
For definitions sake, RP is role-playing, done in written format. Its a bit like collaborative fiction writing, with each person playing a character, or several characters, and they interact as the plot, whatever it may be, goes forward. Now, onward.
I've made no bones about the fact that I'm a Christian. Granted, I don't insert it into every conversation I've ever had, nor do I quote scripture constantly, but following Jesus informs who I am as a person. In the past few years, that influence has waned. And that's not something I'm proud of. I look at my life and I see a lot of time wasted. Not RPing. Don't think that's what I mean. I mean I've wasted the time I spend with God, the time that should be devoted to learning about Him. I go to church, I try and attend a bible study (when not in class), I teach sunday school. By virtue of all those things, I should be fine, right? Well, I'm not.
I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense. I'm trying to build myself up to admitting what I need to say here, and its frankly really difficult. Yes, these are words typed on the page, but trying to find the proper expression for a... confession if you will, just as difficult as saying a confession (I respect you Catholics who do so - I can't imagine doing it).
For about two years now I've been struggling with an addiction to pornography. There, I said it. Not so hard, right? Only, it doesn't encapsulate the despair, the anger, the distorted way I came to see myself and how it ate away at me inside. I won't argue the semantics of its morality here - suffice it to say I don't think its alright, but that's for another entry - when it draws you away from living your life, and sucks you dry of the emotion and time you can/should be giving to the people around you, its not healthy.
I went to a recovery program for six months last year on Thursday nights. It went a long way towards equipping me to face this addiction, but it didn't fix it. I knew then, same as I know now, what would fix it. Nothing less the the healing power of Jesus. I was able to confront some peripheral demons at this group, which was all a good thing, because its like the straw that breaks the camel's back, the simplest thing will suck you down again. But I was still clinging to the bulk of my addiction.
At that point, maybe two people knew about this. One was a lady from church (I told God if someone asked, I'd finally tell, and she was the one he put in my life for that), and the other was a dear friend from college whom I hadn't seen for a long time (telling someone when you can't see the look in their eyes, either pity or imagined condemnation is so much easier). I was working things out with God, facing the root of what was going on in my life, seeing the distortion for what it was, but I was still holding fast to it.
Its such a hard thing to describe, why I would hold on, but I'll try. The distorted view I had of myself, of seeing myself as only being good for this, only being able to connect to an image on the screen rather than a real person, all that false intimacy, well, its easier than real intimacy for one. For another, by defaulting to that, I didn't have to make hard decisions, and do hard things. Its a small part of why my thesis isn't done. Its a hard scary thing to me. Porn, while ugly at times, is hitting the pleasure centers in my brain, which feels good, and who doesn't want to surround themselves with things that feel good? But like any artificial high, there is a low. I'd walk away from it hating myself, hating that I wasn't strong enough to break free from it and say no.
Alright, bringing us back to present. This weekend was the women's retreat at my church. The theme? 'I Choose Joy.' Oddly enough, I didn't really want to go. I don't as a whole like what some people equate with Joy. Folks, Joy isn't Happiness. Happiness is fleeting. It depends on you and your emotions reacting to something. So I might be happy to get a certain book one day, but it won't make me happy the next time. It has to be something new to make me happy. Get what I mean? But Joy.... joy is like the lightness of being when you find God. Joy is the utter peace you have when you let go of trying to control your life and you let God guide your steps. Thats joy.
So clearly Joy wasn't something I was having as much luck with as I wanted. I'd never admit as such, but I thought that by being a Christian I had to have joy in my life somewhere. Even if I wasn't sure where. But I got gently nagged by people far wiser than me and I went.
It was a lovely time, let me just say. We sang worship music, ate good food, I got to spend time with women I normally don't talk to (not because I don't like them, but because we 'run in different circles', kind of thing), and go shopping. Very girly weekend on the whole.
Saturday af the end of the speaker's talk, she asked if anyone wanted an annointing of the Holy Spirit. This caught my attention, because I always believed that if you accepted Christ into your life, then you'd been annointed. Apparently not so. Least not in all cases. Several people were receiving prayer, and I was trying to pray for them, but I just.... couldn't. I backed off to a spot by myself, and before you knew it, I was crying. Now, you have to understand, I don't cry. Most of the time I'm physically incapable of it. I can count on one hand the number of times in the past year I've cried. This...it was more than any of them. I could feel the scream building in my throat and I bit it back because I was certain if I let it out, I would have sounded like an animal in pain. As it was, I couldn't breathe and I just wept for at least 10 minutes straight.
In my direct experience with God, I learn the most through metaphors that come to me. I don't think I come up with them, because I'm just not that good at it. I think its God. I saw two metaphors in my head during all this. One was of a pitcher pouring water into another container, and when it was poured out of the second container, instead of being clear and clean like it was when it went in, it was murky, muddied and gross.
The second image was more abstract. It was the fact that my joy was locked away in a clear box, and I could see it and understand it, but I didn't HAVE it. And both those images were distressing, but liberating. So I let it all go. I let go of my fear and my sickness that kept me clinging to my addiction. I can't begin to describe what that feels like. I was still weeping for who knows how much longer, but it was cleansing, like a load had been lifted.
And I told you all that to explain RP retirement, didn't I? Well, in the matter of addictions, RP is definitely one of them. And because its so easy to take on a different persona, and write/do things that person would do, its easy to get sucked back into this addiction if I have in my head two young healthy males for characters. You know? I miss them and the folks I RPed with already, but I was utterly convicted to change this part of my life to aid in this healing. Because it is a healing. Before there was shame, and guilt, and self-hatred. Now, there's hope. And that is HUGE for me. I'm not a particularly hopeful person by nature. I'm too pessimistic for that. But with God's annointing I have hope. I memorized Romans 12:12 - "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer." And now, after all this time. I understand that.
Do I think I'll mess up? Maybe. I certainly don't feel the tug of war in my soul that I did. Really that might have been why I cried, because I could feel a rending of the sickness from my spirit. And now I feel surprisingly empty and light. But not hollow. Definitely not hollow.
So I did a huge cleanup of my other, more long term blog on LJ. I cleared out a lot of communities, all RP game stuff. Anything that might prove a temptation. Some of it is probably ok, but I'm drawing a hard line for myself, because I'd rather overreact than not. I want to live free and grasping at God's blessing than live captive and clinging to the chains that bind me. I'm not reading fic anymore. I don't know when I'll write fic (I deleted my fic here, so unless I archived it at Coloured Grey or in an exchange comm, its not posted. Likewise, my involvement in fanfic comms is going to be nil until a time comes when it feels....safe, I guess. I don't know when that will be, but I'm trusting this was the right thing to do.
******************
Its been a few weeks now. I'm well into 'withdrawl' if you will, and have had some problems, some moments where I feel the urge to just read something that will make me feel good, or see something, and I run. I am still scared, though. Running is still something I can do in my own strength. Facing temptation and saying NO isn't something I can do. I talked at the retreat with one of the women in my room about it, and she gave some practical advice. Get up, do something different. And for the most part, that's worked. I'm reading more now, but away from the computer. I spend less time online than I have in ages. And I don't miss it. Mostly. But the circle I built, of online friends, feels....less. And thats sad to me, because of the fact that in collaboration in writing, I found some people who appreciated me as me, not as a Godly woman, or as a great worker, or anything other than the girl who is sometimes funny, sometimes serious, can talk light or deep, and wants to be real.
So, I'm more real, I suppose. More open. I've talked to several people about what I said at the retreat, been approached and confided in someone else's struggles even - that was hard. Because I can't hardly begin to see restoration in myself, so I'm certainly not strong enough to carry anyone else, in any other way besides prayer. I'm still humbled by it all, and by what I know God is doing through this, but I'm also still shaken, not quite standing. And I want to. I want to stand for all that He has done for me and for the world. I guess that's the next step.
