I’m currently on vacation at the beach. I’m staying right on the boardwalk on 2nd St. in Ocean City, MD. What that means is it’s 10:30pm, and the boardwalk is still packed with people on a Tuesday night. So, needless to say, it’s a busy place. I love it here because it’s my home beach, the one I enjoy most. But it’s the first vacation I’ve ever taken alone. There are tons of memories here regarding my last two marriages. I’m a people-watcher, and just seeing all these young kids (early 20’s) walking hand in hand, thinking life couldn’t get any better than this - boy, I remember feeling that way with various women over the years. But it just seems like a distant memory now, overshadowed by multiple divorces, and failed romance time and time again. I was so broken back then, and way too stupid to know how awesome those times really were. Instead, I picked and poked at whomever I was with and drove them crazy with my narcissistic ways. Yeah, I wasn’t great at picking very good women, but I sure didn’t help matters any. I just couldn’t live and let live. I died over every hill, and it wore each woman down to a nub.
Watching these young couples laugh and tease each other reminds me of the innocence that existed in those younger days. I’d give anything to go back knowing what I know now and do it all over again. But, that’s not reality. Boy, what a clumsy walk this life is. It just seems like yesterday that everything was okay. I was happily married - for what I thought - was the third and final time. But, yet again, it somehow slipped through my fingers, even in the face of enormous growth and 7-years of back-breaking effort. Sometimes, I’m just lost as to how it all fell apart, but it did.
So instead of acting out and running into the arms of whatever whore I could find (like I had done so many times in the past), I’ve since chosen to FINALLY do something different. I’ve connected with support groups and leaned into my friends around me. God knows I’ve had my battles, but I’m still a post-divorce virgin. Meaning I haven’t had sex with anyone since my ex-wife. I think I just got sick of the sexual rollercoaster, and hence, decided to get off the ride and leave the amusement park. The old up and downs of the past just aren't as satisfying as before. They just leave me sick to my stomach and dizzy. Maybe I’ve finally realized that making the same mistakes over and over and expecting a different result is actually absolute insanity! It amazes me, looking back, how I just kept trying over and over, falling in the same mud each time. I’ve given up so much at the alter of sexual idolatry. And honestly, I feel like I’ve lost entire years. And I'm referring to the good years of my life which I'll never get back. I’ll be 50 this year, and definitely don’t have the sex appeal I used to have. Most of which is because I’ve lost the player/rebel persona, and I don’t really care to be the bad boy anymore. You can’t be those things when your heart is healthy and full of loving desire to help those around you. Recovery changes your brain chemistry the same way addiction does. When it changed in me, I literally lost a part of who I was. A bad part that was the womanizer-bad-boy who was always laying traps and snares for the beautiful women around me. That guy could spin a web of bullshit and sexual tension with the best of them. He didn’t care about anything or anyone except his next orgasm. That was the dangerous part. Once he got you to his alter of sex (his bed), he would cast a demonic spell of pleasure over a woman’s body. A spell they rarely said no to a second time. It’s all built on lies, and I could feel a demonic anointing over me in those times of raw desire. I can remember my original recovery counselor breaking out the anointing oil in one of our early sessions because I had said that to her. She prayed over me that day, and it broke some kind of bondage in my spirit. Afterwards, I was free from that satanic control. I remember leaving that session like I had been stripped naked, bathed in God's grace, and reclothed. I was shell shocked for at least a day or so after that. That was almost ten years ago, and I can remember it like it happened five minutes ago.
I’m so glad I’m not that guy anymore. Sometimes, I really don’t know who I am. My reactions to things and situations surprise even me sometimes. I’m not the same, and old things have truly passed away. Or at least that’s how it seems. Who knows, maybe I’ll fall clean off the wagon and into total relapse tomorrow? Lol. I make no promises anymore because I get sick of letting people down. But I will say this: My track record doesn’t look horrible. Yeah, it’s clumsy and I definitely stumble, but I don’t fall on my face much anymore. And right now, I’m free to do whatever sexual evil my heart desires…but I don’t. My heart desires true love and connection versus empty, soulless sex like an animal. I want to be loved, I deserve to be loved and will not compromise on that again. Sure, there’re times I see a beautiful woman and my mind starts to race. But somehow, and I’m still trying to figure this out, I find myself wondering what burden of suffering she may be carrying, or I start thinking about how she’s a mother to an innocent kid or daughter to a loving father. I think about my adult daughters and how much I love them. Somewhere there’s a father that loves her that much. These things have come from almost a decade of trying to unravel my view of women, as an instrument of my personal pleasure, and instead have prayed for God to reveal to me who these human beings are as people Jesus died for. I remember asking God to allow me to see women as he sees them. I wanted to earn the right to be friends with females without a cloud of sexual tension around me all the time. God did that and more!
God also started revealing to me how my sex appeal came off as the "creepy uncle" that hugged you a little too long. NOT the cool, smooth stud I thought I was in my head. It’s embarrassing to even mention... Boy, nothing will defuse your pride quicker than realizing you're the laughingstock within some of the cliques of women you thought you were playing. I might as well have been wearing a polyester suit and a pimp cane… Once I realized this, I started to change quickly. But it was still a process.
Unfortunately, the world is full of loose woman weighed down by the lusts of this world, and they enjoy eating up all the playa bad-boy stuff. I’ll never forget the first time I read 2nd Timothy 3:6:
“For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts”. I was the guy working my way into gullible women’s homes and leading them away by their lustful desires. You must realize that was very uncomfortable but very eye opening for me. It was a game-changer. It just took me ten years to figure out how to crawl out of that mindset. The locust were still robbing me during my recovery, and my last divorce was the latest harvest to fall victim to its decay. I still lament all that, the pain is still fresh and tender. But, I’m surviving and even thriving some days. It’s getting easier with each day…even when those days are full of tears and suffering. It’s all part of God's plan, and anything other than absolute surrender and trust will only put me on a road back to distorted thinking and bondage. The locust stop here! Or at least I hope they do. Lol. God knows I’m trying and growing. I just get tired of trying and growing and want to fast forward to the season of blessing. But, I’m learning patience along the way as well. In Joel 2:25 God promises to restore what the locust stole from me. I have no idea how that’s going to happen at this age, but it’s not for me to figure out. That sort of thing is above my pay grade. I just need to trust and believe, you know, the good fight of faith…
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