No shades of grey here:

Porn is real. It is affecting us, destroying many, and breaking apart lives with its destructive power. I will be blogging about this subject during the month of January and February so my blogs will be an open and honest talk about what God says about this subject that very few people want to approach...sex. God created it. We know it is good. So how has it gotten so bad? 

    "We want to be very clear: your sexual desire is not wrong. God created you to be sexual. Your body and your mind are wired to long for sexual pleasure and intimacy. Unfortunately, many religious messages separate being a sexual woman from being a spiritual woman. Instead of encouraging you to seek God’s plan for your sexuality, you’re left with only worldly outlets to fulfill your longings.” (Pulling Back the Shades; p. 25)

We need to understand that God CREATED us to be sexual...thus...to ENJOY sex. Did I just say that? Am I even allowed to say that?! But it is truth! God gave us boundaries that are for our good...sex is to be enjoyed in marriage. However pornography has entered into so many of our marriages now....

     

It seems like churches shy away completely from even mentioning the word pornography. Why? Is it not something that is sweeping across our nation totally destroying everything in its path? I think a big part of it is because we have become afraid of the words, " Don't do." We haven't defined what pornography is and because of grace we are afraid to tell anyone that they shouldn't do something. Because we will immediately get called," self-righteous", "judgmental", "harsh", "legalistic" and more "flavorful" words as well. But standing on God's Truth as Truth is never wrong. I personally know how devastating pornography can be. I have dealt and talked with many, many teens and young people and even older married couples who have had their lives devastated by pornography....but we are still afraid to talk about it...well....no more. If we don't start a conversation about this issue then it will continue to grow and infect and destroy. I want that to stop with me. I want to boldly speak about this, even when it makes my face blush or my heart beat with nervousness....because it matters! It truly matters. I want my daughters to know what pornography is and define it clearly for them...whether in a book or a movie or a conversation. Pornography is real. It exist. It is in our churches, our schools, our homes, our life....why are we so easily turning our head the other way as it destroys us and our loved ones?

I think that part of the problem is that we don't have a clear definition of pornography to stand on. Many times one person may view something as pornographic and someone else doesn't think it is even close. So what is the definition of pornography: this comes from the merriam-webster dictionary:

1. printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.

   synonyms:

   erotica, pornographic material, dirty books;

If we have a clear definition of what pornography is then we can truly evaluate whether what we are reading, listening to, watching, ect...is falling into that category. The other thing I think we need to ask ourselves is this....why...why do we want to read, watch,  listen to this? Does it satisfy something in us that cannot be satisfied without it? I have done alot of research on this topic and I have come to learn that by watching even small amounts of pornography releases a chemical in your brain called," Dopamine" which basically tells our brain what is enjoyable....it can give you a feeling of being "high" so to speak. But then those same levels that were so high, crash down resulting in depression like behavior but each time you watch, read, ect..with porn you will need more and more to get the same "high" feeling which also means those feelings of depression and loneliness get worse and worse in between "views" until finally you are so filled with loneliness that and depression that you can go into deep despair....so then back to my original question....Why?
      As women I think many times we hold a double standard. We don't mind "reading" porn and calling it a romance novel, but we would never want our husbands watching what we are reading...another thing I feel we need to think about is how this is talked about in our churches. If it even is....statistically 90% of all men sitting in a church struggle in some way with porn and yet we rarely if ever hear it talked about. It is like knowing someone has their shirt on fire but refusing to tell them because you are afraid they may get upset with you...so we would rather they just get burned or killed...but at least they are not upset, right? I know that sounds silly but think about it...isn't that what we are doing by not talking about pornography when it has been proven over and over again within our churches that it is a HUGE struggle. Shame and fear keep people silent...so what if we threw open those doors and took away the silence? What if we started Bible Studies and accountability groups and we talked openly about this struggle...because it is real....and many of us bear the scars of it already...
 I recently had a friend say to me that to call intercourse or sex the same as making love or intimacy is just wrong...its like saying that  being boiled by oil and anointed by oil are the same thing...because they both involve oil. But one will kill you and one will revive you. That is such a good point! We cannot ever let pornography into our marriages...and expect anything other than loss to come from it. Loss of intimacy. Loss of the gift of being completely satisfied with our spouses. Loss of freedom to love each other in ways that involve no shame or fear. Loss of so much more than we can ever imagine. 
       When I first started blogging about my husband and I's journey through addictions, God brought amazing beautiful people into my life that bear deep scars from this very thing. Some of those wounds still haven't healed and Dannah Gresh says," the quickest way to a heart is through a wound"...and she's right. We can reach down into someone's deepest heart.,...the part of them that aches with frustration and fear...shame and loneliness...uncertainty if anyone will understand and still love them.  And we can show them the truth. The truth of God's pursuit of them. The truth of God's redemption and redeeming grace. We can shout it out to all the world that you CAN have a beautiful, passion-filled marriage without pornography having any place there. You can be deeply in love with your spouse and stand beside them hand in hand through each journey because of the covenant that we made with God on our wedding day. We can offer them the beautiful, satisfying, overwhelming HOPE of Christ. 

      I will no longer be able to sit by and watch my brothers and sisters in Christ struggle and be silent. I won't do it. I will take a stand and I will fight for our marriages. Billy Graham once said,"Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone...except God." And he is right as well. But I pray that isn't how our churches are...I pray that we will speak boldly the truth that can set people free! Many of the young people I have talked with honestly have no idea that it is wrong to read a romance novel that goes into a deep sexual scene, or that by watching a movie that has explicit nudity or sex scenes in it is slowly but surely a slow fade away from the heart of our Father. How can they know unless we teach them? Many of them have never thought that having sex outside of marriage is really THAT big of a deal....and they never will know, unless we tell them. We need to make a stand on this. We need them to understand that pornography is devastating....and that there is a way to become free...because out of those teens...more than half are already addicted to porn. 
   God created sex. God created a husband and wife to enjoy sex with each other. He created us to be creative and passionate and satisfied with each other in the most intimate way possible...and satan has worked very hard to corrupt that beautiful gift. I won't just stand by and let him...I will fight. Will you?