Hope does not disappoint us

Hey! it's about 12:24 of the AM and I'm supposed to be studying but I'm not because I just finished having a quiet time (I know! kinda late, but it's better late than never right?). And I was reading Romans 5 and it was just so refreshing to my soul. This past week has been about banking all of me on God's hands. And God just keeps reassuring me that I'm not going to go broke when I trust Him.

Oh man! it's been such a journey since my last post. I think I told you I installed Covenant Eyes on both of my computers, and that's going well. I also have been trying to reconnect with friends from church, and one of the biggest steps I took was sharing about my journey with one of my closest friends. It was freeing in many ways, and I left that conversation encouraged. I have also started mentoring this one kid and our first hang-out time went really well. My studies were going really badly but it has gotten a lot better. I am filled with renewed motivation and with that peace that God can only give you. I can now concentrate on glorifying Him through what I do best, which is being a nerd :)

I am trying to surround myself with people who can help me continue this journey of faith and hope. And God is truly providing ways for that to be accomplished. He's also encouraging me in many other ways, at school, with random conversations with people I don't usually talk to because I'm intimidated to do so, and I just feel like I haven't felt in a long time. Like things are going to get better and better with every day that passes. I think that's called hope, something like that, something that I forgot lived inside me. I've become a bit more mellow, my regular self actually (at least when I'm alone) and I don't find myself freaking out about nothing, or all hectic and nervous about nothing. It's just the beginning though, but man oh man! I am hopeful. Once again, I am hopeful. Praise God.

Good night.

Getting ready to maybe start trusting God again ...

Hey guys! It's been incredibly long since my last post, hasn't it? I know, I know, but I'm back and hopefully I'll be able to post some interesting stuff more often.

I just finished an intense day of studying. I started classes about three weeks ago, and it's been just that, intense. I feel I'm finally adapting to the pace, and learning exactly what to change about my study strategies ... umm, I can see this is going to be a very boring post, but it's alright. Most of my brain is fried by now, what with all the path, pharm and micro I've had to read in the past 12 hours. And the worst thing is that I'm not even close to be done. My test is on Monday, early in the morning, so that leaves me only Sunday to review as much as I can. I'll be going to the first service tomorrow to save some time and then off to the library again. I love learning, especially the stuff I'm learning, about diseases and diagnoses, treatments, pathogenic agents ... I'm a learning machine.

Let's see, last time I was typing lines on this thing I was pretty much going downhill. And guess what? I did land deep, deep in the bottom of the pit. What's happened since then has been a series of unexpected events. But let's sort of summarize things from the beginning. First of, I don't think it would be a surprise to anybody if I start by saying that I am porn addict, consumate masturbator. So, right before starting school again I found myself in this binge of porn and unspeakable thoughts, sleeping barely 6 hours a day. And those were suppose to be my last days of rest before the so-called "hellish" second year of medicine I anticipated. In any case, during those days I used to think, 'it's just going to be until I start school', but the whole binging experience didn't stop come first day of class, in fact, it continued a good week into it, and I just didn't know how to stop. Sure, I had to spend most of my day at school, but upon my return to my apt, I'd lock myself in my room and drown the angst inside. In the midst of all these my parents visited me and something happened. I still can't explain it, but spending time with deeply hopeful, faithful Christian old-timers sort of made me think about stuff. I started thinking about my life as something worth saving. My parents love me to pieces, especially my dad, and when I looked into his old eyes, his seventy-five year old eyes and see them tear up with pride for me, I just couldn't help but think, meditate, pray. One of the verses that has always accompanied me is "Honor you father and your mother". I wasn't doing that. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. But still, I'm an addict and thoughts can't really make you stop.

A week ago, I decided to sort of reach out to one of the guys who I had been communicating via email since I started this blogging experience. I think it was a God thing I sent that email. This guy, this brother really helped me take a definitive step towards getting my life back in control. I decided to install some neat software thingy that keeps track of my web surfing and reports to my buddy about my online whereabouts. It was a huge step for me. I'm a pseudo-OCD guy .. okay, maybe not, but I'm a control freak and just deciding to do this was the hardest thing I've had to do in months. But my buddy didn't let me off the hook and walk away. He insisted about doing something about this addiction, and by God's grace and mercy I took the plunge. Dudes, it's been a bit more than a week, and I haven't watched any explicit pornographic material. That is a miracle. I thought that couldn't be done. I mean, I would try to do that on my own and fail miserably in like 3 hours after the decision was made. I'm not saying by any means that I don't have the desire to do it, cause believe me, I do. But I'm learning to say no to myself, finally. And that has been the theme these past weeks really: learning to say no.

Now, I'm still far away from God. Or maybe ... I'm not where I want to be with God, let's put it that way. I still need to return to my quiet times, prayer, and whatnot, but now I can actually see this is possible. My mind is not consumed with sexual images and thoughts. I was oversaturated with them, you have no idea. I feel I can take a deep breath now, get up and start figuring out where in hell I ended up at ... I need to figure out where my Father's house is, you know?

Anyways, that's that for an update. Nothing crazy ... well, maybe I'm a bit crazy for having gotten a slight bit of hope that God isn't done with me yet. I have the biggest issues when it comes to trusting God, so even acknowledging this possibility is big in my book. But I think I'm ready to give the whole idea of pursuing God another try, after almost 6 months ... man! that was a long journey through the desert, and it's not over yet, but there are some green patches showing here and there. Thanks to those who kept me in your prayers. And thanks to my buddy for letting God reach out to me through him.

You did what before praying?!!

So ... it's déjà vu all over again. Man! Don't you just hate when it happens. I do.

I wish I could explain how it happened, but I can't. It just did. One day I'm walking on clouds, the next I'm stepping on shit. I'm not upset and I should be. I guess that's why I'm deliberately using cuss words. Awareness of my indifference brings out this weird side of me.

I've prayed about it already. However, something even weirder happened this time. I felt the need to strip to my underwear. And as I knelt I told God that I felt I had things reversed somehow. That I had been coming to the altar of sin naked while I remained covered before Him. This time I felt I needed to get at least this part right, even if my rebellious soul remained bundled up and standing pridefully straight behind my collapsed physical body.

It's alright though. I know it all sounds very dramatic, and it was at the time. Now, in retrospective, I'm a bit embarrassed about the whole naked prayer event. I won't apologize for it though, I felt heavily in my heart that was the way I had to present myself before God, at least this one time.

One more thing before I go to bed, cause it's kind late and I've been trying to finish this post but chatting with friends has gotten in the way. I hate it when I pray about something, and all these questions, and confusion flood my mind almost to the point of overwhelming me. However, the next morning, it's like nothing happened. I do not follow up on the experience. I just let it go. Next time I'm talking to God I hit the same cathartic prayer and realize, hey! those questions haven't been answered yet. Well ... it's because they haven't been addressed you moron!! It seems I only deal with my issues when I fail, but then ... I tend to just leave it alone and totally forget about them, until they resurface and manifest themselves in a sleepless night of freaky online activity. I am a huge fan of status quo, not wanting to disturb the peace, keep thing sthe same. Routines are my friends. I cling to them to adapt to a new environment. Coming to God and deal with my issues is just so not me. I rather pretend a cathartic prayer will fix it. However, today I saw the pattern and how it perpetuated this vicious cycle of sin and what's worst, self-loathing. I hate that I tend to hate myself. The perfectionist in me is one of my many enemies. I think what I find hard to do is, waking up, seeing what a beautiful day it is, have a nice breakfast, thank God for all His amazing blessings and then continue with ... "so ... about my brother sexually abusing me when I was 6 ... let's talk about that, shall we?". I mean .. that's so raw, so Maury, and I'm so used to the embellished picture of a Christian. Nevertheless, I think we can agree our lives, for those who deal with SSA, is far from the perfect picture, or even the standard messed up life ... and I have a lot of thoughts about that as well, but that will be for another post (let's just say, I think heterosexual Christians have it easier than SSA Christians ... yes I do). But I digress ... I just think I need to learn how to be comfortable to open up in this way to God. I think the fact that I've never opened up to my dad this way, so honest and forward, affects the way I perceive God and how much I trust Him you know? And that's just something we can only fix, and I need to take the first step, cause let's face, Jesus already cleared the way.

Alright, gotta go to sleep now. Thanks to those who have commented. I feel encouraged and challenged by the things you say here and in your own blogs. Hasta pronto!

180 degrees turn, how does that feel?

I took the day off today.

And I used my self-given free time to talk to God. After doing so, I fell asleep. These days I've found it hard to know what to say to Him. I've gone through several ways of approaching Him, from the verbally adorned prayers to the simple whispers, from the screams and yells to the sobbing and silence. In any case, at the end, when I'm out of words or of any sort of verbal uttering, a feeling of peacefulness invades me and I easily fall sleep. Today it happened again, at 10am, after having slept my regular eight hours. Go figure.

Later, in the afternoon, I sat again on the floor of my bedroom and talked, talked and talked some more. I remember the days when I would pray to God knowing exactly what I wanted to say. I had a routine, steps to follow, a formula. This afternoon I had nothing. Just Shawn McDonald's Roots CD playing in the background and silence in my mind. I began with a simple 'God, I don't know what to say'. And then, I knew what to say.

I remembered reading something in one of the various blogs I checked a couple of days ago. Something to the effect that in the very beginning it wasn't Adam and Eve but Adam and God. Creature and Creator. And it hit me. I have spent my life looking for Adam and Eve and had forgotten Adam and God. I know God then established Adam and Eve but it wasn't because Adam asked Him. God gave Eve to Adam. And this is as far as I'm going with my 'revelation'. I know God wants to mend our relationship, whatever comes afterward ... well, it comes afterward and I won't sweat it. One thing I have clear, this time I'm not approaching God because I want to be healed from my SSA, or because I want to really start dating this girl I've always wanted to ask out, or because there are days I feel incredibly lonely, or because I've reached new levels of self-loathing, or because I want to have a family but because I want to know Him more and really know what He's all about. I told God of all my questions, and how I was putting them aside, and planned on coming back to them, but for now, I just needed to let Him help me get a grip.

The hardest thing for me right now is accepting who I am but not to let it control me. Recognizing my SSA is one thing, but what's next? Is it the same as with recognizing I am liar? Do I stop lying? Do I stop feeling attracted to other guys? ... I'm not trying that again. So far I reckon this will be my attitude, whenever I feel such attraction, I will acknowledge it and give it up to God, because right now, it's all about just Him and me. The last thing I need is learning how to handle somebody else's life, whether male or female. I will get a grip of my own life, and see where God takes me. I have no expectation other than hoping God will show up.

Now that I have stopped all the porn stuff and its associate, Mr. Masturbation, I'm sure the first thing that will happen is that I will be waking up a bit more riled up. Alright, make that a LOT more riled up. We'll see what happens then. All in its due time. Good night.

I want to fall in love with You

Remember that song from Jars of Clay? I'm listening to it right now, as I type in these lines, and it's hard for me not to stop and just close my eyes and pray each verse of this song.

It's been a while since my last post. I really don't know if anybody reads this at all. I guess it doesn't really matter. You don't know me, and I don't know you. So there are no serious attachments, nobody gets hurt, you can ignore me and I can ignore you.

For the past month I tried it. At least in my head. To live life as man who is attracted to other men. Can I be honest? I doesn't work for me. First of all, it's disruptive, it invades everything and owns my life. I lose control, and I become a slave. I don't like that. My mind is a wild salad of thoughts, without order or relevance. Second, it just doesn't feel right. I feel I am a man, and I don't need another man. I am attracted to men but I just can't devote my life to a man. I can devote my life to a girl, but not to a man. It just doesn't make sense in my head. It just doesn't click or feel right. If anything, I feel I could just go about my life using men as souvenirs and then toss them aside once I am done with whatever I want from them. And that is just sad. I hate what embracing this same-sex attraction does to me. It opens the door to a really dark side of me, and I lose myself in this darkness, and I feel engulfed and all of the sudden I become part of it. I am it. What I really want to do is care for a guy, not for the ultimate purpose of having sex with him, but just because I want the best for him. I want to get to know him, feel loved by him and let him know about my own affections for him, but not bring him home, own him or have him own me. I just don't feel that's natural. It's as if I'm trying to swallow some sour, nasty pill when I start trying to digest the thought of embracing a homosexual life. The fact that I tend to sexualize my attraction to men doesn't mean I accept it. I actually see it as something terrible because of how it makes me react. I want to posses, own, conquer, and then once it's done, forget about it and move on. I can't stand that. Especially because that's just the first impulse that comes to mind, but deep inside of me, there's the need to just know him and that would be plenty satisfying, and I could then move on without hurting anybody.

Sometimes, I enjoy talking to other guys on a gay chatroom more than engaging in any "online sexual activity", which by the way, what does that really mean? Most of the time is just the feeling of being accepted that makes the whole experience what it is. Those are the time when I realize I would never be satisfied in a same-sex relationship because I would always be longing for that acceptance from the next guy who shows up and impresses me. Plus, I'd rather call somebody a friend, in a real sense, than a lover.

Wow, I'm just sort of vomiting all these thoughts on here. But hey! nobody really reads this right? Isn't it shocking that a so-called Christian guy is just talking about all of this, gay chatrooms, and online sex, and whatnot? I find it a bit appalling and I'm the one writing it. But it does happen you know. I'm not trying to advocate for anything really, I'm just expressing my thoughts, and letting it all out, no pun intended. The truth is I long for something that is more than just sexual contact, even though I'm technically a virgin. And I don't think I will find it in a same-sex relationship, nor in a heterosexual relationship. If so, I would have had them long time ago, and I have had the opportunities to do so. I just believe life is more than just myself.

Take it or leave it

Hey!

I'm back after a long while.

I'll be honest from the get go. I was immersed in my addictions these past weeks.

It hit me yesterday that I am hurting myself and others. It's not like I hadn't realize it before.
But something happened yesterday that kinda changed my perspective a bit.
I burned a pot of boiling chicken.

Last night I decided to get an early start for the week and have some pieces of chicken ready to cook. So what did I do? Well, I turned on the stove and placed a pot of water with floating chicken tenders in there. It was all good and completely inoffensive. That was until I left and went into my room. What happened next has happened so many times I think it's a given you would know what that was. I logged into my computer and went to town.

Time went by and I completely forgot about the floating chicken, in the pot, on the stove, boiling, burning, scorching, smoking, stinking the place until it reached my room, at the very end of the hallway. At first I thought it was happening in my room, a wire or something. But no, it suddenly hit me that there was a chicken quality to the smell and I left my room running towards the kitchen. It was too late. A crust of black crap was sedimented to the bottom of the pot and had smoked everywhere. I opened the windows, the doors, sprayed the place and went back to my room as if nothing had happened. With that, I continued my descent into shame and indifference. I could have burned the place, I have ruined the smell in my whole apartment affecting my roommates as well, and I didn't care a bit. Until later the next morning, when I snapped out of it somehow and said to myself, 'What the fuck just happened? Who in hell am I?'

I'm messed up people, I'm telling you. Messed Up, capital M, capital U.

Today, I decided to talk to God. It was somehow apologetic, remorseful, but far from repentful. I told God that. I also said that I was destroying my life and it needed to stop. I am making some changes to my daily routine but I think the biggest thing was that I talked to God about something apparently silly like burning the chicken. It wasn't the act, but it was what caused the whole stinky episode. The others acts that consumed me and distracted me to the point of forgetting about reality; what was happening in the next room.

Watching porn, masturbating, degrading myself in one way or another, all of that have a price and I am running short in soul cash. I'm losing all of it and sooner than later I'll be in a place where God will only be a memory. Something I've been thinking about is, that even though I'm trying to figure out where I stand before God in terms of my sexual ambiguity, homosexuality, bisexuality, or whatever, I FEEL I need to refrain from objectifying people, using them for my own pleasure, immersed in my own fantasy world and caring less about people's feelings, lives, eternity. It just feels wrong. I don't need to hear it from a god to know that what I'm doing is wrong. It comforts me that my God says that to me, that I need to love them as Jesus loved me, dying to Himself so that I could live, denying Himself. I obviously don't live that way and I think that's the hardest thing for me to understand about the gay lifestyle. It seems to me that it revolves all around me, putting myself first, caring about my own feelings, inclinations, orientation and little about family, moral values, biology, friends, roommates, and God. I fit everybody else in my world, force them in, push them in, use them to affirm myself and leave them the leftovers of my care and love. At least that's me. I am sorry if I am generalizing, but the little I've come in contact with the gay lifestyle has led me to believe this is what goes on. Not necessarily because I've seen in it in other people (although I have) but because it just flows naturally out of my own heart, these dark currents of self-centeredness, self-idolization, selfishness. I can be nice and whatever, but I can see that whenever I embrace this nature of mine, all of these 'self-' traits get magnified and that it's just not normal to me. I can't stand myself acting this way. It's as if I see myself in an out-of-the-body experience and just shake my head saying, 'who are you? you aren't like that! you don't treat people like condoms and throw them away! you don't seek people's approval by getting naked in front of them, who does that? you don't admire other people for doing so either! what about their own selves? the story behind the physical aspects? the struggle, the identity crisis?'

The truth is I just care too much about our spiritual side to live my entire life immersed in the physical realm of things, in the carnal side of relationships. I've tasted true peace, true joy, and I know where to find it. This struggle to figure out if I want to embrace the gay lifestyle has always been settled in mind. It's a big no. I can't just unplug my soul, also I can't just unplug my penis either. And that's when the whole conflict flares up again. It's happened over and over again. However, I don't want to be owned by my addictions. And that has nothing to do with my penis, but with self-control. A self- word I do appreciate. These days I've felt so out of control, so careless, so addicted to what brings me sexual pleasure that everything else seems to have vanished in the margins and has suffered. I'm a true addict. And so ... having said that, I will also say, I'm trying to regain some control. One of the things I told God is ... I knew I was praying because I was afraid of this whole lack of self-restraint ... I knew I was looking for a break, and that maybe after a week or two I'd be back to it again, reasoning I had had enough of a break ... but, I prayed, I would let Him take a crack at my hardened heart once again, that that was all I could do for now. That I wasn't going to pretend I was repentful, cause I wasn't. I felt bad about the whole situation, and guilty, scared, but I couldn't force myself to repent, that stuff is deeper and He could only do it. But here I was, standing before Him, giving it another shot and He would have to take me as I was, all broken and rebellious. One thing I promised though, I would talk to Him. That I would let Him know what was going on in my head. And that's all I can do right now. And all I'm doing right here. Take it or leave it.

Pluck out your eyes

I made a decision two days ago.

For the past month I gave myself to self-indulgence. I didn't care about my relationship with God. Well, maybe I did, but I chose to do whatever pleased me over what I considered stupid moral concerns at the time. That kind of attitude took me to a dark place spiritually. God's voice seemed fainter. My hardened heart grew more calloused. I'd pray prayers of repentance that later became cries for help. I questioned God about everything while I pretended to wash off a stained soul. Warm water didn't work, and the steam fogged the bathroom mirror. God's image in me was as blurry as it had ever been. Quite sad, quite scary.

I think everything stemmed from learning that my life won't be as I pictured it. I thought to myself, why should I give a fuck. Apparently God doesn't, then why should I. And my perspective narrowed and darkened as a door closing in the face of the Savior. My mother died of this condition, the condition I have been diagnosed with for about 2 1/2 months now. My brother has it as well. And now me, the last child in what's left of a family of so-called men. So much for perpetuating the family name. For somebody who has studied science, this is Darwin's hardest slap in the face. Some days I wake up bitter, with a lot of resentment, angry almost, other days I wake up hopeful, cheerful, a fighter ... most of the days I go to bed praying for a miracle. I stopped believing in miracles at age 15, when my mother passed away. I can see miracles happening in other people's lives, and I will encourage you to pray for those. In my life, not so much ... I've seen them happen though. But I've come to believe that these miracles are more a result of God's will prevailing rather that God answering my prayer for one. He does what He pleases. He is God. To a certain point I think God sees us as puppets. I realize this might be a terrible thing to say but I want to voice these thoughts, because they are part of my journey. Some times I feel I am part of the cast for God's play, and He is the main character. We can be killed off, replaced, whatever. In any case, how is it consistent of me to pray for miracles when I don't believe they can happen as a response to my prayers? Simply because I hope to be wrong, and I want God to prove me wrong. I want to believe in the God I believed when I was kid, when I was not the cynical bastard I am now, jaded and suspicious of everything. In spite of all that happened to me when I was kid, I still believed in a God who loved me, who was willing to give it all for me, to protect me, to care for me. Unfortunately, as I grew up and realized how screwed up my childhood was, how people messed me up, I harbored resentment towards a God who had allowed all of this happen to a kid. And to top it all, let's take away the only person who made him feel safe, his mother. That will teach him how to fend for himself ... and you know what? it did. I took over her role. I became her in many ways. I took care of my life and my ill brother's, and my dad. And I excelled at it. I aged the day she entered the hospital and the day she was buried I knew how to take control of my emotions and tuck them as far inside my chest as I could. So yes, I have issues with God. Deep inside I know He is good, I can accept there are things I will never know that take precedence over my desires, and I know His wisdom is higher than mine and that there's people in this world in worse conditions than me. I know all of that, in some level or another, all of that it's in the back of my mind, always present, apeacing my rage, my superego. And this is the place where I voice my thoughts, if for anything, to have them expressed, and to, while typing them, realize what I am saying and then come to God with a greater honesty. I'm tired of pretending, even in front of Him. I love God. I do. I wouldn't be trying to work it out with Him if I didn't care. And I see my life and it's a mess, and I just want to understand what do I do with this pile of sadness and conflict. I know something will come out of this conversation. Catharsis is indicated in my case as well, hahaha.

I'm sure you have heard things like, 'there's a reason for everything', or some variant of this saying. Well, while I try to figure out my spiritual life, and my life in general, integrating all the pieces, and allowing God to mend stuff, two days ago I decided to step away from the whole world of porn. It's been tough to say the least. I have established habits, and things that I do to unwind when I get back home, and things of that sort. Just old habits. One thing I've adopted is not to wear my contacts when I'm at the gym, for obvious reasons. I have the worst wandering eyes, and I can't help but keep my eyes open to move around. Well, I have a fairly bad case of nearsightedness ... basically, I see shapes but no edges, but I can still differentiate things and move around without a problem. It's been two days in a row since I started practicing this little game of not wearing them and seeing how it affects the way I behave when I get back home. It's actually been pretty good. I have less desire or reason to indulge in pornography. And so ... in a way, I have plucked out my eyes. Growing up I hated wearing glasses, and just having to carry them around for everything. Contacts were a dream come true, but still, somehow impractical. Today I can see the usefulness in being temporarily legally blind. There's a reason for everything.

A broken place

Hello Blogger world ... again,

I am back.

I wish I could say I am back wiser, and more mature, but the truth is, I am not. If anything, I am back more confused and lost than ever.

The past month has been the most uneventful month, and the worst I've experienced so far this year. I fell into this routine of self-indulgence and self-centeredness. Quite sad.

Here's a little bit about me. I'm a grad student living in the east coast. I was born in a Latin American country, and came to the States for college and I am now in grad school. I'm close to reaching 30 years of life in this planet and there are lots of things I haven't figured out yet about myself partly because I chose to ignore a lot of my past and its issues, and also because of the things I used to belief about God and myself. Growing up in the kind of family and society I lived in contributed to it all, and having moved to the States has given me the 'freedom' to express, mostly in secrecy, dark sides of my persona. I've lived in conflict with myself all of my life. In any case, I've have gone through a lot of phases in my spiritual life. I grew up in the Christian church, and I've gone from being an incredibly religious fundamentalist, to agnostic, atheist, spiritualist, non-denominationalist, etc. Right now I remain a Christian at the core of who I am, but even that has gotten old. All this time it's just been labels even though I have had my moments of true devotion, and more than moments I should call them periods where I've found myself at the peak of my faith just to find myself crashing down with an unstoppable speed against the ground.

I have many weaknesses. I am a broken man in all the sense of the word. I was sexually abused by a family member when I was kid. I can't remember much of it, just fleeting images in my mind, the luring games, some specific instances. I have even confronted the abuser, I happened to live with him most of my life, and he admitted it all. The abuse stopped when I entered middle school and I guess that's why I forced myself to forget it until I hit puberty and found out my sexual life had been completely messed up. I am attracted to guys. I remember a time, as a kid, when I was attracted to girls alone. I remember my mom would have to separate me from one of my female cousins because I wouldn't stop kissing her or holding her hand. I also remember telling my mom I would marry this friend of mine from church, a cute girl I hanged out all Sunday after Sunday school. We would play mom and dad games. I even fell in love with one of my friend's cousins, a cute girl I met at her party. I cherish those days of pseudonormalcy, but it was sometime then and now that something happened to me. I don't know if it was the fact that I found a stack of gay porn hidden in my own home, or the previous abuse, or the curiosity and longing for what had been awoken prematurely at age six. Once I opened that magazine I was hooked on porn, mostly gay, and it has been my addiction along with every other activity related to it such as masturbation, webcams, etc. The only thing that still remains mine is my virginity, although only physical. Yes, at the age of late 20's I am a virgin. And I wish I wasn't. There's such a mismatch between what my mind knows, has witnessed, watched, dreamed, that my body can't tolerate it and compulsively reminds me of this fact everyday. I've heard it's good that I haven't had the physical contact because otherwise I would find myself in a deeper abyss filled with self-hatred and solace. Guess what? I find myself there right now. I detest who I have become. Somebody who has no control over himself anymore. Addicted.

Not everything is bad. I've been blessed. Abundantly. I'm a smart guy. Made it through schooling pretty nicely. I'm on my way to become a physician. I am not incredibly ugly. I have a father who in his late years adores me, although he always did but never knew how to show it. Now he does, and my stepmom loves me to pieces as well. I have learned how to forgive my abuser, because he is my brother, who is gay as well. I am away from a home that reminds of pain and suffering, in a place of my own, sheltered, protected, cared for. I lack nothing. Instead I have too much. I have friends who love me and I don't love enough. I have brothers and sisters in Christ who love me as well, even though they know little of my true self. I could just go on with my life and not ask stupid questions about who I am. But when you are about to reach 30 you gotta ask. The crisis should hit you. And it's hitting me square in the face.

So far I've decided some things in my head. I used to believe I'd get married, have a family, live a normal life. I've given that up. I used to believe I'd live a long productive life. I've given that up as well. I have a genetic condition that will claim my life early, not in two years, not in 10, not in 20, but sometime in the future. What is true is that my life-span is shortened. Although, if you think about it, I could be run over by a car tomorrow, and this genetic condition would matter little to the whole spectrum of my life. I used to believe this 'gay' thing was beatable. I have given that up. I used to believe I was bisexual, after all I am attracted to girls still. And that is an honest statement. My sexual instincts don't work accordingly most of the time but I've fallen in love with girls. However, I have given up that way of labeling and thinking as well. I am an incurable romantic guy, almost an idealist. I'm learning to give that up as well. And you know why am enumerating all of the things I'm letting go? Well, it's because all of that is foolishness. It is foolish to have these amazing things in my mind alongside the darkest nightmare, and to open my eyes and see that darkest nightmare looking back at me on the mirror. I am broken people. And all I have is God's, all that I will achieve is God's, and I am learning there are things I won't achieve and it is useless to spend hour after hour dreaming about it, when the reality is looking 'straight' at me. I rather spend my time, dealing with reality. Embracing the fact that I am gay, or sexually confused, or whatever. And coming before God and telling Him, this is who I am. Take me as I am. I can't fix it, I can't force it out of me, I'm as broken as they come, a mess and I can't figure out what to do with myself. I can't figure out how to live this life you call me to live. I can't continue fighting for a 'normal' life, with the wife, and the kids, and job, and tithing, and the missions, and the smiling. Because that would be a lie. I'd be covering it all up. I would be hurting the wife, the kids, the job, the tithing, the missions, and the smiling wouldn't be there. So, this is who I am, a messed up man. Broken in all the sense of the word. With no idea what to do, other than knowing that there's a God otherwise none of this makes sense. And it would have been better to jump into the abyss like that one day at the beach, when the suicidal me wanted to play a game of daring. I've lived enough years on this earth to have realized there are no coincidences. I've studied enough science to get the picture of the improbable probabilities of us standing where we stand and attributing it all to fate and randomness. I've felt enough love in the presence of absolute despair, enough hatred within me boiling up, and witnessed too many a miracle to believe I am purposeless. My life has been stained, ruined, and left on the side of the road, and I can't fix it. I have to hope, in order to continue living, that there's something else out there claiming me as His own, because nobody else will. I know that. And that's why, in the light of it all, I choose to rid myself of my lofty dreams and goals, because this story is obviously not mine to tell. And I choose to be okay with that, to be the secondary character, or a stone, or a tree in the play. Even though all in my revolts, and rejects, and shakes. There has to be something else beyond this confusing world, which we see, day by day, screaming for hope. And if there's not, then I would have been wrong, but I would have lived a life consistent with what I believe, with character and with self-control. Something I am not doing right now, and that is why I am writing this blog. To find my way out of living a life riddled with inconsistencies, lies, cover-ups, masks. I won't try to come to God having fixed my life already, because I will never come to Him then. So, He will have to take me as I am. I'm an absolute mess, and these are my thoughts. Thoughts from a broken place.