I really feel like I want to share my testimony with you, I’ll keep it short. I am writing from Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), South Africa, I am part of a church called Harvest Christian Church. Two years ago one of my buddies decided to host a Conquer group, it was around August 2020, 5/6 months into our Pandemic lockdown and I think his heart was, ‘how can guys be okay, with all the isolation at the moment,’ because this will naturally cause a man to get up to nonsense.
He was so right, but my pornography and lust addiction was on and off since the end of 2009 :-( so I think the pandemic lockdown just made it ‘easier’ to isolate, be secluded and get up to no good. Our group got off to a weird start, there was a city-wide power outage and so we actually postponed the launch night until one of the guys offered up his place, that had power, but it was about 30min to go to get there and we all, 10 of us guys, lived on different sides of the city, but you know what, I think all but 2 of the guys made it that night and we launched and we hit the ground running, for 10-weeks straight.
At times it was at a major personal cost, but the benefit that I have received from this has been life changing. I remember that time and time again, Dr Roberts when speaking about re-programming the brain (neural pathways), that I would get very despondent thinking I don’t have up to two years to wait for this process to happen, I wanted a quick fix, but I guess God knew all along what his plan would be. We completed the 10 weeks towards the end of 2020 and I was free, pornography and masturbation dealt with, not in a prideful way, and I was set.
I did suffer a setback in about July 2021, but very quickly asked myself the question, ‘is it worth it to go down this path again,’ and so got on with pursuing purity yet again. I started dating a wonderful woman in September 2021, been engaged since April 2022 and getting married now on the 8th October 2022, very soon from now, and all I can say is, it’s almost been 2 years, hallelujah!! How crazy how that actually worked out.
Conquer doesn’t work like it’s some sort of plaster that you apply to a wound, it works because as a man I learnt to take up my sword and fight. I really want to thank you guys personally and on my fiancé’s behalf that I get to go into my marriage having openly told my fiancé about my past struggles and that it is in my past. Sincere thanks, Ryan
Published with the writer’s permission and reproduced as written, apart from the removal of contact details.