Waging War With My Thoughts

God works through every person differently. My journey has been rather like walking through a desert: hot, dry, and seemingly lifeless. However, when I turn around my footsteps are bursting with growth and life.

I grew up in a loving home where my parents sought to point me toward Christ. They guarded my media intake and were always working to form me in a Christian life. I had many strong skills, but I lacked one: controlling and managing thoughts. So, when I encountered intrusive thoughts of a sexual nature, I just perceived they were there because I wanted them.

Masturbation followed soon after.

I was tempted daily, and as things got worse and I got older, they started occurring multiple times a day, and I didn't even try to resist. I had a vague idea that this wasn't good for me—an idea that solidified as I got older and learned more about sex, neurons, and brain development—but it was never enough for me to stop. I prayed for forgiveness after every time, but I also knew that what I needed was to stop.

No one had any idea—I didn't tell anyone about this. I was continually curious about what sexuality should be like. So I started looking for Christian resources on it and—although a lot of those resources were very well intentioned—they assumed I was focused outwardly with my sexuality instead of my interior disposition toward it. 

Meanwhile, all my temptation was turned inwards and consumed me. The resources assumed they needed to warn me about promiscuity in dating, but the real fight was with my own thought patterns. And they only made my shame worse.

From the outside, I looked like I was doing fine, and in some ways I was. 

I had a great relationship with my family; I was doing well in school; I had plans and ideas about what I wanted my future to look like. I didn't sneak out or smoke or drink or have any interest in the above. I read my Bible daily and could discuss and comprehend what I read. But interiorally I was trapped by a war in my head I couldn’t escape.

However, at the same time, God began watering seeds He planted during my childhood. He awakened an interest in my faith and I began seeking out talks, books, and other resources on my own, outside of what I encountered in my everyday environment. Even during the time I was the most trapped in my addiction, God was still working. 

As I got older, I was able to resist temptation about half the time. I stopped going places where I was likely to encounter porn; I stopped taking naps because I knew that would lead me to temptation; I started playing video games in the afternoon to keep my hands busy. Slowly, achingly slowly over years, I started resisting temptation more and more often. I had a brief 18-month sobriety period when I was 22, but—just when I thought I would be free forever—I fell again, and so continued the war.

I spent the next six years fighting quietly, privately. Sometimes I resisted temptation, sometimes I couldn't. The rate at which I fell slowly dwindled, but never smoothly. Around 26 or so I put extra effort into cleaning up my media intake, and that helped a little, but I was still falling about once a month.

In August of 2021, I moved to a new town and shortly after started receiving visions during worship at church. This was not normal for me, but for a period of six to eight months, every Sunday during worship I would get a vision of myself and Jesus. He was showing me that He knew about all my sins, brokenness, and addictions, and He was pursuing me anyway.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but those were healing visions. I believe Jesus worked enough healing for me through those months to begin recovery. 

I finally told my therapist about my addiction in 2022. She offered several resources she was familiar with, but they were all for men who were addicted to porn and masturbation. And if they had anything at all for women, they were support groups for women whose husbands struggled. I felt even more alone.

June of 2023, I told God I was ready to give up, but the very next week I heard someone online talking about a recovery group for women called Magdala.

Now, given my previous experiences with people talking about female sexuality, I was suspicious. I watched and listened to every podcast and interview the founder had ever done, and I was really impressed. 

I signed up for an online small group that started in October 2023 and when we finished, I wasn’t addicted anymore. And the healing continued still after. 

God has faithfully continued healing me. Today, I moderate my own Magdala small group, am actively looking for a husband, and still conquer times of temptation with God's help.

The Lord was looking out for me the whole time, always calling me deeper into His heart. Through it all—no matter how deep the addiction ran, no matter how explicit or dangerous or harmful my fantasies got—God never abandoned me. He never left my side, even in the depths of my mental depravity.

Whatever deserts I walk through in future, I know God claims every single thing I have thought and done in my life. He knows where I’ve been, He knows where I’m going.

He is not scared; He is not ashamed; He calls me deeper into His love each day. 

He has not rejected me before and He never will. I am here because He loves me deeply and continues to call me out of my brokenness and into the fullness of life.