My Acceptable Fast

My loins are aching, my heart is aching.  It has been a week since I last had any sexual release.  The lesser temptation is to succumb to internet pornography.  Or perhaps masturbation without pornography.  The greater temptation is to ignore my feelings and go and do work.  I know if I gave in to the greater temptation, my need for a sexual release will come back to bite me, hard.  Why? Because if I just ignore it, I am going into isolation.  Not calling out for help when I need it.

And I do need it.

My wife does not want to have sex with me.  Anything remotely sexual will set off past trauma.  Even in her dreams she is being traumatized.  Today, she tells me that she is feeling sick, so sick she could not read to the kids.  I sent her off to bed with a hug, and an empty feeling.  No, not "no feelings," but a feeling of "empty."  Like a eunuch, with his manhood cut off.

The last time I was very sober (or pure, or not acting out — there never seems to be a good word for it), I remember that I had forgotten what my sexual organ looked or felt like.  I went for months without masturbating or paying any attention to it other than to wash or to urinate.  It was a wierd feeling, not to be intimate with your friend down there when you have known him so well–sometimes several times a day–for so many decades.  But what I was able to do in my purity (I’ll use the terms interchangeably) was turn to God.  I was able to pray on command with no sense of guilt or remorse.  And it was rewarding to be able to do that because I was regularly helping other guys with their own walk in sexual purity.

I don’t have regular sexual purity groups to run.  Have not in over half a year now.  The result of which is that my journey in purity feels empty, purposeless.

But I know it’s not purposeless.  It is better to be pure than to allow lust to control my life.  God WILL bring people into my life whom I am called to help.  I need to trust that this journey I make has a greater purpose than just to suffer and to know His suffering; that it has some practical value.  Hmm.  Actually, sexual purity does have practical value even if I am not running a sexual purity group.  I am a more ready and armed servant of God.  I am useful in His kingdom on command, without feeling like I need to first repent and get right with God.

I need to pray more.  Turn my physical and emotion aches into prayer to God.  Draw close to Him.  Consider this my "acceptable fast."