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.