I'M NOT THE SAME PERSON ANYMORE
Anonymous

I guess my testimony starts when I became a Christian, although I was raised a Christian in a good Christian home. That is not to say that I have actively pursued my relationship with God since birth. I have not.

I have recommitted my life to Christ probably a billion times in the past 17 years. Most of my struggles and temptations have been in the area of sexual impurity. From the deep root of sexual sin, other sin-shoots have branched off. But the three areas that have been the biggest struggles in my life are homosexuality, masturbation, and my lack of devotions.
It all started when I was about five years old. My cousin, who was close in age, and his family lived with us while his father attended police school. My cousin and I soon started to do stupid things, such as looking at each other naked, until his mother caught us. I do not know why we did it, but I believe that, just as God has a plan for me, so does satan. I believe satan wants me to be a homosexual.

I tried to forget what had happened and move on. For I while, I was able to do that.

At about age seven, I had my first exposure to pornography when I looked through a copy of Playboy at my neighbor’s house. At that young age, I had some understanding of what I was looking at, but very little. I did know, however, that I liked what I saw. This was the only incident until about four years later.

I was about eleven years old when things really started to take off in the wrong direction. An evangelist came to our church. During one of his sermons, he mentioned his struggle with pornography in the past. At the end of the service, he called me up to the front because he had a prophecy for me. Ever since that night, I have struggled with pornography.

One night, while lying in bed letting my mind run wild, I began fantasizing about having sex with a girl. I tried to go through the motions of sex, which is hard to do by yourself, and I stumbled across masturbation. I had no idea what I was doing; all I knew is that it felt really, really good.

I recall one night when I thought, “If I can do this thinking about girls, I should be able to do this thinking about guys.” So I did. Before long I was masturbating only while fantasizing about guys. And it has been a major struggle ever since. It’s not that I do not find girls attractive. I do. I am not gay, I just have gay thoughts. That might sound weird, but it is true.
One night, a couple years later, while spending the night at my best friend’s house, my friend showed me a box of Hustler magazines that he had found. We spent the whole night looking at them. The next time I was at his house, we started doing really disgusting things to each other. We did just about everything with each other, except having actual sex. THANK GOD! Again, I do not know why I did it. I guess I just let my sexual nature get hold of me, and it would not let go. After a time of doing this every time we were together, I became so disgusted with myself that I could not take it anymore. In addition, my mother, who can always tell when something is going on in my life that should not be, got me to tell her everything that had happened. I stopped going over to my friend’s house.

Meanwhile, our family went on vacation. While we were gone, our pastor began making false accusations against my parents – from the pulpit. This became a big mess. Shortly after we returned home, we left the church. This whole ordeal raised questions in my mind, such as, “Is everything I have learned about God a lie?” and, “Why did God let my family get hurt like this?”

When we finally found another church, we did not get involved as we had in the previous church. My parents did not want to get hurt again. We went to Sunday morning services, but that was all. This did not help my spiritual growth.

When I was about 15, my brother gave me a cell phone that could access the internet. For hours every night I would look at homosexual pornography. Then I would masturbate. My parents found out because of the huge phone bills, so they had another talk with me and took away the cell phone. However, I continued to masturbate nightly. And when I was home alone, I would go on the internet and look up porn. My mom would always know what I had done, so we would have another talk, I would repent and get right with God – and it would last a few days, at best.

Today, I am working on getting up early every morning and praying, and then doing my devotions at night so I am not tempted to masturbate. I can now manage to go a week without it. Before my senior year began this year, I told God that I was done with all the sexual sins, and I would do my best to stop fooling around and to pursue my relationship with Him above everything else. This year has been incredible. For the most part, God has definitely been in the center of it. I started a guys’ study group, The Buddy Study. We have been studying Every Young Man’s Battle. We have also been really accountable to each other, asking the tough questions and giving honest answers. The most difficult thing I have had to do in leading this study group was to tell the people in my accountability group everything that I have struggled with sexually. But that helped my group to be more open and honest about what they have been through.

I have grown so much this year, I feel as though I am not the same person any more. I still struggle with a lot of temptations, but I see improvement. With God’s help, I plan to be completely free.