Facing the Fire of a Husband's P Addiction

[Disillusioned]

[h=2]Facing the Fire of a Husband’s Porn Addiction[/h] http://www.covenanteyes.com/wp-conte...-Addiction.jpgTears. Every day. They saturated my pillows. George didn’t know I cried myself to sleep every night. He didn’t know I imagined those women all day and night, even in my dreams. He didn’t know the torment I went through because telling him only made it worse. So I suffered alone and grew more depressed by the day.
His porn struggle killed me. It absolutely burned me to ashes. But I am so thankful for the burning. I am so thankful that part of me has died. I am so thankful for George’s porn addiction. Yes, of course I wish it never happened. I wish for no sin in our lives, but the truth is, it looms. And because of George’s sin I have been transformed.
A big part of my healing was that I had to learn to see my suffering as something to embrace, instead of something to get rid of in the blink of an eye. The suffering is what changed me…when I stopped running.
I sort of liken it to a fire. Fires hurt, right? Of course. No one wants to be burned. But we need to be. In this world we are so accustomed to creating these “false selves.” We create a version of us that we want to be, but it’s not who we are. So we try to live up to this false self our entire lives. We don’t even know who we are anymore. So, God takes us through the fire. He allows us to be burned because he loves us too much to see our true selves weighed down by lies and masks.
It hurts IMMENSELY. But as each layer is burned off another layer of our masks will turn to ashes. Over time, it hurts less and less. Until finally, every layer is burned away and there it is…your true self, underneath all the layers, it’s so absolutely blindingly beautiful and bright and humble that the flames cannot even match it. The flames aren’t hot to burn you anymore. And your true self, that beautiful self underneath the layers of masks, becomes its own flame. It is so bright and powerful that the beauty of your own flame will then work to burn the layers off other people. And so on and so on.
It’s horribly painful. Horribly. You literally have to die to yourself. Old Ashley was horribly bitter, insecure, impatient, negative, self-centered, and not exactly the most enjoyable person to be around. That Ashley is fading as I stand in the fire, as uncomfortable as it is, and allow God’s light to burn off my masks. I’m still burning.
Those negative thoughts you dwell on may always plague you, but you don’t have to give into them. Just as a man who is recovering from lust must take his thoughts captive to Christ, so must you. Every instance you want to dwell on an image of a woman (covetousness) or a thought of what he did to you (self-centeredness and self-pity), give the thought to Christ, tell the thought it has no place in your mind, and worship God with all that you are, leaving no room for lies.
The more layers you burn off, the less these things will even come to your mind. You’ll be concerned with other things so much more that you just won’t think about it. But for now, it takes dedication, perseverance, and faithfulness. You have to stop these thoughts when they come up, instead of dwelling in them. It’s so easy to dwell and be in a state of self-pity, but it’s going to kill you. Instead of conversing and consenting to negative thoughts, keep them away from your mind and heart. When you are tempted, flee. You must embrace the pain and allow yourself to go through the flames. God is teaching you to not rely on your beauty. Your reliance on physical beauty is one of the many layers keeping you from being who your are. It’s keeping your flame dim. He wants you to look at Him and worship His beauty. It’s only through His beauty that any of us are beautiful anyway. Seek His beauty and allow your flame to grow bright.

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