PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Shame. A heavy emotion, one you are all too familiar with. You're seventeen years old and in one of the back rooms of our childhood home. It is technically your sister's bedroom, but she isn't home often. There's a computer in her bedroom with internet access, so you come in here late some nights to watch porn in privacy. Everyone else is generally asleep right now so you feel safe enough to go on a binge.

You're touching yourself, entirely engrossed in the video. It's well past midnight and your mom walks in the bedroom, with laundry that she wants to put away. You cover your nudity as quickly as you can, exing out of the video, desperately wishing this moment could pass. Your mother looks at you, disgusted, and says, "You know you aren't supposed to be on those filthy websites!" She doesn't even leave the room. She puts the laundry away, her face a disapproving grimace. Shame.

You were caught masturbating several times, and every time you were you were met with shame. What wasn't understood at the time, no matter how disgusted your mother was with your porn habit, was that you were even more disgusted with yourself. No matter how many times you'd berated yourself, swearing that you would never watch again, you always went back to it for a moment of relief. And the shame which was intended to stop you from using, became a part of the routine.

Every time you feel ashamed, whether related to pornography or not, an urge to use wells up inside of you. Sometimes you will even search out videos where the porn actresses intentionally shame the viewer. Sex and shame go hand in hand. The more you use, the more ashamed you become. The more you feel ashamed, the more you use. It's the ouroboros, the snake cyclically devouring its own tail.

I know that you feel ashamed right now, and will feel ashamed for many years; but I want you to stop heaping shame on yourself. It doesn't help. It only feeds into the problem of why you use in the first place. You are using because you feel inadequate, unlovable and unworthy of a fruitful life. You don't mean to destroy yourself with your addictions, but subconsciously you are sabotaging yourself, but you don't have to live this way anymore.

You are adequate, you are lovable, and God Himself wants you to have a fruitful life. That's why He bore the shame of the cross, the shame we rightly deserve, to set us free from the clutches of shame that entrap us into the downward spiral of self-destruction. You can't change what you've done, but it's never too late to turn around and put that shame behind you. It's never too late to accept forgiveness and bury the shame of your shortcomings at the foot of the cross.

From me to you,

Big Evan