This post is somewhat personal but quite appropriate considering the list of readers.
Dear Lust,
In this letter I am informing you that our bonds are mostly severed and will soon be entirely dissolved, very soon. You have been my consistent companion for many years, but I have found you out. I have discovered your true identity.
You are founded on a web of lies, the primary one being that I do not have ultimate control of my feelings and thus I must turn to something outside myself for occasional relief from reality. You have kept me in bondage for quite some time. You had me believe that not only could I not feel consistent satisfaction with loved ones, but that the only way to feel deeply was to engage in behaviors that sabotaged these relationships. "Nothing personal" was the script you taught me, "but this is the only way I could feel anything". You even taught me that people close to me, specifically my wife needed to understand and respect that.
She was always the main focus of your attacks because she represented my deepest connection. But she actually is a real person. She never did understand or respect or even try to understand that mentality. You told me that because of her "belligerence, opposition, and disregard" for my needs that I had two choices.
1) Harbor secrets that if only she was more understanding that I wouldn't have to keep from her.
2) Kill my desire to feel anything. Resign myself to my fate of never getting to have what I want.
I chose number 2 almost every time I was faced with that choice. The fact that number 1 is a more serious issue was an excellent mask for you to continue to enslave me. You told me that I had a choice between bad and a WHOLE LOT WORSE. So I chose bad; I chose heartache; I chose lack and poverty. Over and over and over again I made that choice.
I have gained much wisdom and continue to gain more; When this impoverished emotional state resurfaces, as it does on a fairly regular basis I now remind myself that to truly fuel lust, I must conclude that that emotional state is pervasive and enduring.
Instead I assert that feeling emotionally impoverished is fleeting and diminishing while freedom, life, vitality, joy, peace are becoming my default emotions.
Now where do I get the audacity to make such an assertion?
Alma 5: 10 asks that same question with slightly different wording.
10 And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved? Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation? What is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death, yea, and also the chains of hell?
Versus 7-10 give the full picture. It is because I choose to believe that I have the power to fundamentally alter my emotional disposition and because I humble myself before God and give him, voluntarily, my trust. I seek out others who are of my same heart in this regard and learn from them.
So, Lust:
I am free now. Farewell.
Dear Lust,
In this letter I am informing you that our bonds are mostly severed and will soon be entirely dissolved, very soon. You have been my consistent companion for many years, but I have found you out. I have discovered your true identity.
You are founded on a web of lies, the primary one being that I do not have ultimate control of my feelings and thus I must turn to something outside myself for occasional relief from reality. You have kept me in bondage for quite some time. You had me believe that not only could I not feel consistent satisfaction with loved ones, but that the only way to feel deeply was to engage in behaviors that sabotaged these relationships. "Nothing personal" was the script you taught me, "but this is the only way I could feel anything". You even taught me that people close to me, specifically my wife needed to understand and respect that.
She was always the main focus of your attacks because she represented my deepest connection. But she actually is a real person. She never did understand or respect or even try to understand that mentality. You told me that because of her "belligerence, opposition, and disregard" for my needs that I had two choices.
1) Harbor secrets that if only she was more understanding that I wouldn't have to keep from her.
2) Kill my desire to feel anything. Resign myself to my fate of never getting to have what I want.
I chose number 2 almost every time I was faced with that choice. The fact that number 1 is a more serious issue was an excellent mask for you to continue to enslave me. You told me that I had a choice between bad and a WHOLE LOT WORSE. So I chose bad; I chose heartache; I chose lack and poverty. Over and over and over again I made that choice.
I have gained much wisdom and continue to gain more; When this impoverished emotional state resurfaces, as it does on a fairly regular basis I now remind myself that to truly fuel lust, I must conclude that that emotional state is pervasive and enduring.
Instead I assert that feeling emotionally impoverished is fleeting and diminishing while freedom, life, vitality, joy, peace are becoming my default emotions.
Now where do I get the audacity to make such an assertion?
Alma 5: 10 asks that same question with slightly different wording.
10 And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved? Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation? What is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death, yea, and also the chains of hell?
Versus 7-10 give the full picture. It is because I choose to believe that I have the power to fundamentally alter my emotional disposition and because I humble myself before God and give him, voluntarily, my trust. I seek out others who are of my same heart in this regard and learn from them.
So, Lust:
I am free now. Farewell.
