I am going to take a risk and give you a brief look into the window of my life. Perhaps this will demonstrate to you how I got to be who I am, and why.
Experience has shown me that being vulnerable like this does not always work out the way I hope, as some people will not understand, others will criticize, and there are always those who merely see people like me as weak, and someone who needs to be taken out of the gene pool. I call this process, being a sacrificial lamb. I do it because there are far too few who are willing to open and honest about the pains and tribulations of this life. We have this stupid saying - what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. That probably works best in a gym, but there are events in life that can cripple you, and the reality is, it may take you years to get over the damage.
That being said, let's get on with it.
Having said that, I want to tell you about a dream I had recently.
Get your minds out of the gutter because we are NOT going there, however, I will talk as plainly and openly as I am comfortable.
As a teen, my sex education mainly came from my peers. One of those peers was a part of the Danish family who moved into the house across the street. That boy's father posted Playboy pinups from the late 1960s, on the walls of the garage; it also happened to be where the train set was. The train set was elaborate, with mountains, tunnels, and a small city that we worked on regularly; but then, there were the Playmates pinned to the walls.
As I look back and try to determine some of the times and events in which Satan and his band of demons/fallen angels might have got their hooks into me, this was undoubtedly one of them. There were other introductions to pornography from other sources, but I can assure you that none of them gave me an appropriate perspective of what reality is like, nor did it teach me how to be intimate with a woman.
So when I got married for the first time, not only was I a virgin, but I married a woman who had already done several laps around the block and had, unbeknownst to me, great expectations of how I should perform. The short of it, I could never live up to her expectations, and, she had no interest in teaching. Therefore, she went looking for greener grass on two occasions, and I only had enough grace in me to tolerate one of those excursions on her part.
A few things I need you to know.
"Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex." (Hebrews 13:4 MSG)
To be honest, I used the Message translation as it reflected what my heart wanted to tell you. The reality is, we often heard the KJV quoted, and it reads like this:
"Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled …"
My take away from the KJV was that what we did in our bedroom was fine in God's eyes.
(As long as there was agreement. Although the first wife never expressed much, aside from the fact that she did not want to make a baby with me. The second only said no to one thing, and I honored that – as I thought doing that was disgusting anyway.)
I am not kidding you when I say, an evangelist, who came to a church I was attending, said, you are sinning if you cannot see your wife's eyes. It is odd how you occasionally remember something after such an extended period of time. Perhaps this is simply evidence that everything we get involved in stays permanently emblazoned somewhere in our minds, including pornography.
So, now that I have told you a little of what makes me tick, what about that dream?
In the dream, I was once again about 35 and married to the second wife, the woman who enjoyed sex. Note: I am currently married to the third wife.
This irritating dream went on for hours and having got up in the middle of the night at one point, I thought, good, this stupid dream should come to an end. It did not, it merely got worse.
The wife said to me, I want to have sex that is over the top, and so I want to do a threesome, and she named off a person I know. Needless to say, I was appalled. I stuttered and stammered, but worst of all, I DID NOT SAY NO. Nothing happened.
As the dream progressed, she was driving the car and as we drove past some apartments, she said, we will be having sex with the couple that lives there, and she pointed to a specific apartment. I felt like I had been slugged in the gut, and again I am not saying NO. I had asked the wife how many sexual diseases could we get out of this endeavor; to this, she replied, only one that I know of. My head was screaming, are you crazy, but again, my mouth was saying nothing.
I have come to realize that dreams are often mixed with reality, and the truth was that she and I enjoyed sex immensely, so I could not understand where this was all coming from. The sick side of this was that my mind was toying with the idea, and my tendency to act out of co-dependency was clearly disrupting everything I stand for.
(I don't know if you realize it or not, but we are living in a world where people who have moral standards are, in some cases, brutally attacked.)
In the dream, some time passes, and we are now at a dinner party where most, if not all, of the people at this party, are from “the church." Their faces have come from a multitude of places in my life, but the PASTOR who was there in the room is one that I have physically had some interactions with over the years. (As a disclaimer, he has never been my Pastor, but I know him.)
Here, at this dinner party, my wife continues to push what should be called, a swingers club, where we will go to a different home each week and exchange partners for the evening, or maybe just all crawl into one big bed. Everything in me is screaming NO; and, the feeling that I was toying with was, I don't care if you are my wife or not, get out of our house. But again, I say nothing.
The Pastor at the party is now trying to motivate us all to take part in this sexual transaction and speaking highly of its benefits. There was a reference made to a tall, thin, older woman with gray hair; she, we were told, had excessive amounts of money, and how if we entertain her, we might get some of it.
(The realistic side of this person with money, is that some family members recently moved back to an inlaws home, with the sole purpose of being able to collect money from a man they don't care for. So, Satan used an additional monetary ploy to keep me hooked into the dream. We all have our weaknesses, and the enemy knows you too well. He will use those weaknesses against you.)
At the dinner party, almost immediately, one couple, although it was notable that it was primarily the woman, loudly said NO. She told her hesitant husband to get up, and out the door, they went. Another couple that we knew had refused to come to the meeting because of its theme.
Then the Pastor aggressively started verbally pushing me to agree.
Finally, regardless of who I offended, I shouted NO, very loudly; launched myself away from the table, and left the room in a rush, without my wife.
Things, aside from the obvious, that spoke to me.
Immediately the Holy Spirit began speaking to me about determination, commitment; and my right to say NO.
If you know me, then you understand that I despise religion. Religion, although having some benefits, has done little more than put me in bondage and fear; and the "approved" teachers filled my head with false and misleading information. Because of this, my understanding of God and His Son were damaged. I had to make a determined effort to throw all those twisted notions aside, and rebuild, based entirely upon scripture, my understanding of who God and His son was. Because of those efforts, I see myself as someone who found Jesus. And guess what else I found? Jesus is just like His Father - loving, merciful, and full of compassion.
Shortly after having had the disgusting dream, I watched a trailer, for a video about Iranian followers of Christ, which are mostly women. They have an understanding, that once they walk out the door of their homes that day, they may never come back because they may be grabbed and made to disappear. This gets especially ugly for the women, as capture almost always means that they are to be raped, beaten, and then killed by some convenient form.
If you are not aware of what is going on in the world, then you are like the Ostrich which buries it's head in the sand, hoping that the trouble will simply go away. It is NOT going away, and our time here on earth is growing short; the tribulations and fiery trials will only increase. True, we the church are holding back the Antichrist from coming on full force, but the day will come when the church is taken out of here, and the onslaught will become unbearable and unsurpassed in its horror.
How will you stand during that time that is coming if you have no backbone now?
Experience has shown me that being vulnerable like this does not always work out the way I hope, as some people will not understand, others will criticize, and there are always those who merely see people like me as weak, and someone who needs to be taken out of the gene pool. I call this process, being a sacrificial lamb. I do it because there are far too few who are willing to open and honest about the pains and tribulations of this life. We have this stupid saying - what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. That probably works best in a gym, but there are events in life that can cripple you, and the reality is, it may take you years to get over the damage.
That being said, let's get on with it.
Disclaimer - this
post is not for children or immature minds.
Get your minds out of the gutter because we are NOT going there, however, I will talk as plainly and openly as I am comfortable.
As a teen, my sex education mainly came from my peers. One of those peers was a part of the Danish family who moved into the house across the street. That boy's father posted Playboy pinups from the late 1960s, on the walls of the garage; it also happened to be where the train set was. The train set was elaborate, with mountains, tunnels, and a small city that we worked on regularly; but then, there were the Playmates pinned to the walls.
As I look back and try to determine some of the times and events in which Satan and his band of demons/fallen angels might have got their hooks into me, this was undoubtedly one of them. There were other introductions to pornography from other sources, but I can assure you that none of them gave me an appropriate perspective of what reality is like, nor did it teach me how to be intimate with a woman.
So when I got married for the first time, not only was I a virgin, but I married a woman who had already done several laps around the block and had, unbeknownst to me, great expectations of how I should perform. The short of it, I could never live up to her expectations, and, she had no interest in teaching. Therefore, she went looking for greener grass on two occasions, and I only had enough grace in me to tolerate one of those excursions on her part.
A few things I need you to know.
- Religion can be nothing short of evil at times, and religious teachings were passed along that made sex seem like everything you were doing, even if it was with your own spouse, seem dirty. Distorted information will mess with your mind, and I walked away from that first marriage thinking that I was damaged and unable to perform. So, don’t get me wrong and stay away sane people at church, merely keep them out of your bedroom.
- People, along with the help of demons, will try to cripple you. I will give some of these people the benefit of the doubt, and say that I do not believe their intent was not to damage or disable, but it was certainly meant to serve as control and restraint techniques. I say that with the background understanding that we - the church, tend to preach hell, fire, and brimstone, much like Television Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart used to do; and yet, two of his massive failures came through his usage of prostitutes. How odd that those who often scream the loudest about sin, do so because they are struggling the most. That crippling effect made its way into my sex life and my mind. Simply put, I have struggled with self-esteem for as long as I can remember, and the primary thing that has helped to overcome the struggles associated with poor self-esteem has been an intense relationship with Jesus Christ.
"Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex." (Hebrews 13:4 MSG)
To be honest, I used the Message translation as it reflected what my heart wanted to tell you. The reality is, we often heard the KJV quoted, and it reads like this:
"Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled …"
My take away from the KJV was that what we did in our bedroom was fine in God's eyes.
(As long as there was agreement. Although the first wife never expressed much, aside from the fact that she did not want to make a baby with me. The second only said no to one thing, and I honored that – as I thought doing that was disgusting anyway.)
I am not kidding you when I say, an evangelist, who came to a church I was attending, said, you are sinning if you cannot see your wife's eyes. It is odd how you occasionally remember something after such an extended period of time. Perhaps this is simply evidence that everything we get involved in stays permanently emblazoned somewhere in our minds, including pornography.
So, now that I have told you a little of what makes me tick, what about that dream?
In the dream, I was once again about 35 and married to the second wife, the woman who enjoyed sex. Note: I am currently married to the third wife.
This irritating dream went on for hours and having got up in the middle of the night at one point, I thought, good, this stupid dream should come to an end. It did not, it merely got worse.
The wife said to me, I want to have sex that is over the top, and so I want to do a threesome, and she named off a person I know. Needless to say, I was appalled. I stuttered and stammered, but worst of all, I DID NOT SAY NO. Nothing happened.
As the dream progressed, she was driving the car and as we drove past some apartments, she said, we will be having sex with the couple that lives there, and she pointed to a specific apartment. I felt like I had been slugged in the gut, and again I am not saying NO. I had asked the wife how many sexual diseases could we get out of this endeavor; to this, she replied, only one that I know of. My head was screaming, are you crazy, but again, my mouth was saying nothing.
I have come to realize that dreams are often mixed with reality, and the truth was that she and I enjoyed sex immensely, so I could not understand where this was all coming from. The sick side of this was that my mind was toying with the idea, and my tendency to act out of co-dependency was clearly disrupting everything I stand for.
(I don't know if you realize it or not, but we are living in a world where people who have moral standards are, in some cases, brutally attacked.)
In the dream, some time passes, and we are now at a dinner party where most, if not all, of the people at this party, are from “the church." Their faces have come from a multitude of places in my life, but the PASTOR who was there in the room is one that I have physically had some interactions with over the years. (As a disclaimer, he has never been my Pastor, but I know him.)
Here, at this dinner party, my wife continues to push what should be called, a swingers club, where we will go to a different home each week and exchange partners for the evening, or maybe just all crawl into one big bed. Everything in me is screaming NO; and, the feeling that I was toying with was, I don't care if you are my wife or not, get out of our house. But again, I say nothing.
The Pastor at the party is now trying to motivate us all to take part in this sexual transaction and speaking highly of its benefits. There was a reference made to a tall, thin, older woman with gray hair; she, we were told, had excessive amounts of money, and how if we entertain her, we might get some of it.
(The realistic side of this person with money, is that some family members recently moved back to an inlaws home, with the sole purpose of being able to collect money from a man they don't care for. So, Satan used an additional monetary ploy to keep me hooked into the dream. We all have our weaknesses, and the enemy knows you too well. He will use those weaknesses against you.)
At the dinner party, almost immediately, one couple, although it was notable that it was primarily the woman, loudly said NO. She told her hesitant husband to get up, and out the door, they went. Another couple that we knew had refused to come to the meeting because of its theme.
Then the Pastor aggressively started verbally pushing me to agree.
Finally, regardless of who I offended, I shouted NO, very loudly; launched myself away from the table, and left the room in a rush, without my wife.
Things, aside from the obvious, that spoke to me.
- I have lived for far too long in co-dependency. Co-dependency is where you allow the feelings of others to control how you think and feel, and this painful dream was mired in it.
- When I was younger, I had a book called When I say NO, I feel guilty. I may never get past feeling that way, but I am getting better at it all the time. I almost wish I could wear a shirt that says, “I am telling you - when I said no, I meant it.” "So, if you push me, trying to get me to cave to whatever the nonsense is, I may take the anger level up to at least a seven on the rage scale, and at level seven, the angry, green monster is coming out."
- There is a more profound, more sickening thing going on here. For most of my life, I have caved to peer pressure and not stood my ground; especially where my own moral standards are concerned. And, there was a strong sense of disgust as I realized that I was entertaining thoughts of relinquishing my moral standard merely to comply with a wife that enjoyed sex. You see, what we did, as a couple, in our bedroom, was our business, but what she was asking for moved into the realm of perversion, and that is not happening in my world.
Immediately the Holy Spirit began speaking to me about determination, commitment; and my right to say NO.
If you know me, then you understand that I despise religion. Religion, although having some benefits, has done little more than put me in bondage and fear; and the "approved" teachers filled my head with false and misleading information. Because of this, my understanding of God and His Son were damaged. I had to make a determined effort to throw all those twisted notions aside, and rebuild, based entirely upon scripture, my understanding of who God and His son was. Because of those efforts, I see myself as someone who found Jesus. And guess what else I found? Jesus is just like His Father - loving, merciful, and full of compassion.
Shortly after having had the disgusting dream, I watched a trailer, for a video about Iranian followers of Christ, which are mostly women. They have an understanding, that once they walk out the door of their homes that day, they may never come back because they may be grabbed and made to disappear. This gets especially ugly for the women, as capture almost always means that they are to be raped, beaten, and then killed by some convenient form.
If you are not aware of what is going on in the world, then you are like the Ostrich which buries it's head in the sand, hoping that the trouble will simply go away. It is NOT going away, and our time here on earth is growing short; the tribulations and fiery trials will only increase. True, we the church are holding back the Antichrist from coming on full force, but the day will come when the church is taken out of here, and the onslaught will become unbearable and unsurpassed in its horror.
How will you stand during that time that is coming if you have no backbone now?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to make a relevant comment. If approved, it will be posted.