The Manx Den

Isn’t that just the way of things, that when things are at their worst, it’s when you really decide to push into the will of God that true satisfaction and peace starts coming again? I’ve been pretty restless in sleep and mind since the beginning of december. I’d been roleplaying sexually on Shangrila mush for several months, and having the selfsame pangs of loneliness and disconnection as ever before. I had this happen last year- I mean, I’ve had it ever since a wintery second year in high school, where roleplaying just made me feel cold and a little sick, even while it mastered at least a little of the need for a feeling of connection with others.

Let’s be honest, that’s what sexual activity outside of a full-disclosure relationship in marriage with God and a spouse does – it’s temporary relief to a lingering spiritual and physical need which we are made to have. It’s at the core of our beings- we are made to enjoy the loving connection of our Maker and those around us! Thoughts of the arguments and point of views of evolutionists poke sourly at my mind now, but honestly, I want to keep on track with this journal entry.

Last year a Macintosh version of the online game City of Heroes came out, and one of my old role-playing friends Leandrea had mentioned it a long time ago as a fun pastime and the place she’d graduated from Mucks and Mushes for a bit of entertainment. And she’d said that it’d be fine for us not to play around together there. I mean, she’s fine with the explanations I’ve given in the past for not wallowing around in the mud with sexual RP. Most people are! Some whine ‘but you write so well!’ – which I do, I’ve simply accepted it as a fact (but durit, that’s beside the point *mumbled*), but that does grind on me when I hear it.

When I seek to split off from old habits of sexual fiddling around and masturbation I’m trying to follow what’s written quite clearly in the bible, from point A to point B:
3But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. … 8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10and find out what pleases the Lord. 11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
(Ephesians 5 [show] [5:1]Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (ESV)
)
And I really do find the endless cycle of self-gratification online to be darkness. It’s a lonely darkness, and I really do despise it, even over the fact that I fall into the mud of it again and again.

Well, the story of this year’s past stumble: I wanted badly to connect with some friends somewhere and have social activity. I had several months entirely without roleplay or masturbation (Hah! Which sounds so blasted idiotic to you people who don’t fight what our culture calls natural!), but being a one-armed woman without a job makes that rather difficult.

So I tried the game! The first month was rather fun, and I hung around with Leandrea at the in-character group she’d found there for folk who liked making their game characters have more personality than pixels. Let me say it loud and clear, it’s hard to stop flirting with someone you have before! Inevitably their personality or your own prior habit will knock at the door at any given moment, especially in the anonymity of cyberspace!

I ended up roleplaying again where I should have just turned like a deer and bound right out of the danger zone. It’s simple in retrospect, but bear in mind the heavy longing for some form of friendship, be it messing around sexually or just chattering away, no matter quite what it is it still feels like at least a little belonging. So like a deer in the headlights I got run over again, and stayed most of the year as roadkill.

I like myself as a non-sexual predator. (*snerk* I know that sounds odd.) I want to be able to look at the folk I meet without that annoying hint of habit in my mind ‘what would a relationship with that person be like?’

Sure, another line of thought that is likely not part of your own train of mental play~
It feels like I look at people only to think to myself, ‘what can I get out of him/her?’ – ‘what are they out to get, and what am I out to get from them?’. It’s a revolting thought line to me, because it undermines the very desire to interact with them, and naturally when I suspect that they are looking to have something from me like I am them, I shirk from the very simple openness and friendship I long to have with anyone.

Nigh anyone, really, because that is normal as a creation of God. Even humanists will agree, we are social creatures. I avoid the term animal, because I am rather angry with the habit of degrading folks to summations of their base drives. It stinks to high heaven of the same hateful thought, ‘what can I get out of this person?’

That is the way people look at eachother in this world- we know it and we live in it, no matter to which degree you as my reader feel it individually. We live in a world where, injured by our own sins and those of others we are by instinct walled up against eachother.

And so the struggle, you see, is not with fighting a natural inclination (for surely many of you are steeped in the cultural myth that it is alright to lay with whomever, whatever you like), but with a downward spiral:

Self-gratification empties the soul, especially sexually where intimacy is so closely intertwined with pleasure and emotions.
Your expectations of others are set by your own standards, because the more sexual gratification you have, the harder it is the next time to get the same thrill.
God made us to love eachother and be loved by Him, not the other way around! Where can my love come from if it is constantly from an unreplenished source?

Sure, mon petit cheu, there is plenty of love to go around in the world. Surely!

… I don’t feel it online, and I don’t feel it in my everyday relationships, because I’m so in the habit of not trusting myself or others (That grand old question, ‘what do they want from me, what do I want from them’). I’m so used to being treated that way from my youth from the person my mother used to be and the cold receptions of kids in school, that my heart at oftentimes feels quite cold in relationships, friends or otherwise.

There are perhaps folk who read this journal entry with the thought ‘but you don’t seem that way to me!’- yes, I am open, glad to give and converse without trouble, but honest, I’m speaking of my own ability to connect and be warmed and comfortable with folk, like a shy horse. I’m constantly thinking of my own safety around others, as is natural for someone who’s been abused in their past.
I am blessedly not destined to stay that way the rest of my life, because that is the path I am on-
I long for my heart and mind to be made new in Christ, so that I am no longer the person I once was- that I can look at myself the way He does. No longer scarred and malformed as my earthly mind tries to deceive me to think, but whole and made new by the God of love, the one that made the earth and everything in it.
The beauty of our home (the earth) is a testament to the very nature of who our Father is, and it is by the nature of who He is, God cares about the very heart of who you are and what you are going through.
For now the nature of our world sees only what is- the things we are used to in the everyday and in our society, the laws of science and nature, the physical. We lack the supernatural, and I have been touched by the supernatural (dreams, prophecies, and even a brief encounter with a demon) enough to seek my maker.

Ultimately I don’t want to live the way I have before!

Love in Jesus,
-illys