Pastor D - A Conflicted Soul

To my my brothers and sisters in Christ and especially my fellow pastors,

The cycle of regret, repentance, and relapse is real. Unless you’ve been chasing the darkness a long time, you’re going to get drunk on darkness and then hate the hangover.

I get it. Better than most, I understand. I’ve got dozens of deleted secret email addresses, usernames, platform profiles, etc. in my wake because of the many times I’ve succumbed to guilt and shame and deleted, deleted, deleted.

I don’t have great words of wisdom for you. But I can tell you, darkness is addictive and you’ll almost always come back. Even though we promise God we never will ever again, temptation comes knocking, often through some of the most innocent of doors, and no one’s around, no one will ever know, and we remember that the best orgasm we ever had was when … and we’re back.

We each have to find our own way. My advice is, don’t be so quick to believe the voices of shame and guilt. Push through it … like when you’ve overeaten and you don’t think you’ll ever eat again? But give it a few hours, and the desire, the hunger will return, as strong as before.

Push through the feelings of disgust with yourself. You’re not the only one. I’m a pastor for Christ’s sake, and I can’t seem to shake the darkness. But to be honest, I’m not sure I want to anymore.

Give it all some time. If you continue to expose yourself to porn, blasphemy, provocative pictures, and all the things that brought you here to begin with, what offends you deeply at first becomes a craving that only carnal fleshly acts can satisfy.

The guilt subsides. The shame fades. But the pleasure only increases and intensifies.

…and Pastorbator, and a few other names.

But I have left Tumblr and come back, and left and come back, left and come back … so many times.

Some people don’t understand the struggle for a longtime Christian—a pastor, no less—to “switch teams.” There’s more baggage than you can imagine if you didn’t start this journey as a dedicated, faithful Christian.

Something happened, obviously. I let the darkness in, and I liked it. I’ve tried to resist, and honestly I still do. But the orgasmic pleasure of giving in and giving over to the forces I’ve fought against MY WHOLE LIFE? FUCK!

I just want to surrender and let the darkness swallow me…

I think about my coming and going like physical therapy. When you’re trying to stretch a muscle, you can’t do it immediately. You do a little at a time, day by day, week by week. And sometimes you do too much and your body rebels with pain. But if you keep at it, progress is made.

I’ve got a long way to go, but if you only knew how far I’ve come!

The inability to run away.

I get it. I have felt all those things. Still do sometimes, to be honest.

So I warn you, be careful what you do and believe here. Because there are some lines you can’t un-cross.

Like the day years ago I whispered, “Hail Satan,” as I masturbated. I didn’t shout it or even groan it. I just whispered it. But I spoke the words to him. And he filled my mind with the most depraved and dark yet delicious images of forbidden fruit. I was so grateful to him that I said, “I worship you, Satan,” when I came!

It was the most intense orgasm I could remember.

But I thought I could do that and just repent, say, “Lord Jesus, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” God knows I’ve repented, relapsed, and returned to the darkness over and over since then. But it’s not that simple. It’s like the dopamine rush of a powerful drug that you’ll never stop craving, ever.

So, Christian, run if you can. Because if you don’t, you’ll end up having the most intense orgasms of your life and gladly pray, “God fucking damn, yes! Hail Satan!” like me and many of my new and forever friends.

The choice is yours.

Or is it?

Have you crossed that line already. Try to repent. See if you can.