I am a Pastor’s wife and mother of 4 children. Over the years, I have had the opportunity in joining my husband while doing marriage counseling. When the Lord moved us to NC, I no longer had the thought of, “I wonder if anyone in our church struggles with pornography”. Instead, my thinking was, “I wonder how many men are struggling ... and who are they”. As my husband began working with one young married couple my heart was truly broken for this couple.
Their story was devastating but yet, I honestly struggled with loving this man. I didn’t understand why he didn’t just STOP looking at the garbage. I was tired of my husband getting texts / phone calls from this guy admitting that he had “fallen -- AGAIN”. Around this time I received an email from the AFA recommending the Conquer Series to help stop pornography addiction. I showed my husband but nothing was really said about it.
I decided to keep the email in my inbox for a while. Months later, my husband received yet another text from the young man he was working with. He had fallen after 6 months of being clean. I again showed my husband the email and asked if he would prayerfully consider purchasing the series. He told me to go ahead and order it. Once it arrived, the two of us would watch the DVDs at night after our children had gone to bed. After watching several, my husband approached the young man from our church and told him about the program and asked him if he would be interested.
Was he ever! They began meeting once a week. After watching the sessions where they explained exactly what happens to the brain after watching porn, my eyes were truly opened. These men could not just make a ecision to “stop” and then be done. They truly had to rewire their thinking / brains through the help of the Holy Spirit. It was then that I realized I could... and SHOULD love these men who were struggling. I told my husband how the series was helping me and that I felt that he should consider bringing the men’s wives in with them for the series explaining the brain effects of porn.
He took my advice and it was helpful to this couple. My husband is beginning this series with yet another young man this week. We continue to pray that God will bring to light the men who need / want help and that He will allow us to walk this journey with them. I whole heatedly recommend these series to the women as well. My husband also plans to use these DVDs as a one on one Bible Study with our boys. If they can see the devastation BEFORE they are exposed and gripped by the garbage, we will see victory in their lives as well.
Thank you for your ministry!
Published with the writer’s permission and reproduced as written, apart from the removal of contact details.