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Does God Care If I Watch Pornography?
This blog is written for a Christian audience, for Christian women specifically. It’s more than just a blog about women who struggle with porn. It is about helping women restore a relationship with God. The hope is that women reading this experience grace. What we believe God believes about our struggles is an important piece of that experience. If God doesn’t care about what I’m doing, I don’t need to stop. If God thinks I’m worthless because of my struggle, then I have no access to hope. The original question that raised the doubt that changed the course of history is a question of what God really said and meant.…
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What Does Accountability Look Like in Marriage?
Is your marriage a safe place to struggle? Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about accountability. It’s perhaps one of the most important and yet misunderstood aspects of a freedom journey. If you write me about your struggle with pornography and ask what you should do, the very first thing I will tell you is you need to share your story with someone (other than me). That’s not because you need a babysitter or because you need shamed. It’s because that’s the first step in tearing down shame and reestablishing community. Pornography, by its nature, is isolating. Shame, by its nature, isolates even more and shrouds in lies. So, sharing…
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The Mistakes We Make With Accountability
Ask any group helping people overcome a struggle with porn and you’ll probably hear them talk about the importance of accountability. Even Christian organizations will emphasize this important step. But, did you know, accountability as we define it is actually nowhere in the Bible? There are Biblical principles of confession and honesty in community, but there is no chapter and verse that tells you to tell a friend/stranger about your struggle and ask them to check in on you daily. Accountability is a tool that many of us have found useful in our own journeys and in the journeys of those we help. However, based on emails I have received…
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Sharing Your Story with Family: Thoughts on Shame, Grace, and Loss
It’s a question so many women have: How am I supposed to tell my family? My husband? My kids? My parents? Perhaps you didn’t know this. Maybe you did. But my family doesn’t talk about what I do. It’s a complicated dynamic. Along with fierce loyalty and love, there’s some toxic shame and legalism and blame that likes to creep in to the fibers of our family. Some conversations just feel like they aren’t worth the fall out. So, I just kept my book out of the conversation, and my family did too- at least to my face. Then my husband-to-be read it. Since that’s literally how he and I…
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Moving On With Life When Your Pictures are Still Out There
(Edited in August 2023) Yep! That’s me. I figured I am better off using one of my own pictures than incriminate some royalty-free model. Besides, it will prove my point. There are quite a few of us who have made the mistake of sending our pictures to someone. Obviously, I’m not referring to pictures like the one above. I mean “pictures” as in “illegal to pose for or view if you are under 18.” Not every woman trapped in pornography has made this mistake, and not every woman who has made this mistake has been trapped in pornography. Still, there are quite a few women who have either posed for…
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5 Mistakes We Make When We Talk About Pornography
I’ll never forget sitting through a church service and listening as the preacher, over and over again, with disgust talked about how sick people in pornography are. The men who watch it are sick. The women in it are sick. The men in it are sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. I was torn between wanting to crawl out the back door and standing up and telling him to zip it. I did neither. Yes, we should be talking about pornography in church. Just not like that. This is just one of many mistakes we can make, whether in ministry or not, when it comes to addressing the sins of lust and…