I am not the man I should be
It is late at night now and I am at home nearing the end of my spring break. It has been a decently eventful break but even amongst all of the catching up with loved ones I still managed to learn a couple things about this addiction of mine.
One small lesson that I learned (the hard way) is that I did not far enough extend the preventative rule that I had established earlier. I made the rule that I would not use the computers at school which provided me with no protection or accountability. Unfortunately, I did not extend that decree to parents home computer. The temptation proved too great.
Thus I am now extending that rule to include any unprotected computer unless there is someone nearby to keep my on my toes.
The other thing that I learned this week is that my struggles with sexual sin are not only limited to what I do. Over this spring break I was granted the privilege to see much of my lovely girlfriend (something that has become a rare treat with the distance between home and school). I had a wonderful time with her but I must admit something. I struggle with maintaining the line between what is and is not an appropriate way to touch her and I know that I have crossed that line more than once.
We are not yet married so this is a big deal. Honoring her and maintaining her purity is a very important matter and a goal I want to achieve. Thus I have asked her to keep me more accountable in those matters and even be hard on me about it if necessary. I know I will need help with that and I am so thankful for her grace and willingness to stand by me and support me. I truly do love her.
It is amazing what you can learn when not even at school. I should take breaks more often.
Don’t rely on your girlfriend to hold you accountable (that is, to say “no” when you cross a line). Sure, she should say no, but you are essentially putting her in the position of being responsible for keeping you from misbehaving. Problem is that girls get tempted and “carried away” in the moment too. Really, you both need outside accountability on this kind of thing from a mature Christian couple. One good way to avoid crossing “the line” is avoid being alone together (except in public, which then by definition you really aren’t alone!). I recommend boundless.org for some good articles on this kind of thing.
Yes, I do believe you are right. With this whole thing I think I was trying to more get at that we should be decisive about what are boundaries are with each other. You have good advice about staying accountable but the two of us really needed to establish what standard we needed to stay accountable too first.
I think the whole “not being alone thing” would help a lot, just that in itself. But yeah. I could say a lot more but I don’t particularly want to do that on some site that I have no idea who reads it and what not. So the end.