FrenchLogan 3-4 years later

[frenchcatholic]

Hello, i am not a church goer or an active member in the christian community, but someone who posted many years ago regarding problems in my life, and i wanted to update you all on my progress in my life and my faith.

I originally posted about my use of acohol, cigarettes, pornography, and violent media, and about how i wanted to make my life better to be better for my family.

I have not quit smoking per say, howver i use a vaporiser and have had one actual cigarette in the past year and a half. I realize i am still addicted, so i don’t know if anyone cares. I have stopped drinking for 2 or 3 years, and i only drink on occasion when i am having a calm night with my wife or on new years when we are together or a birthday. So i will maybe drink 3 or 4 times in a year, and i rarely have more than two drinks on those occasions. I have stopped watching pornography for 2 years as well as stopped sexual sin, although i do relapse once in awhile. To be noted when i say sexual sin i mean illicit sexual acts, as i have never been unfaithful to my wife in the mildest terms. I relapse occasionally on violent media but i have all but stopped.

I will also admit that i was not entirely a christian when i posted originally and although i believed in Christ i had been experimenting with other religions and sometimes lack of, and had started flirting with the idea of coming back to Christ. As of the past year i would call myself a Cahtolic. I pray nightly, i stay firm in my faith in God’s plan for me, i do not try to control every little aspect in my life anymore, i focus more on glorrfying my body in God’s image and keeping these sins out of my life.

Removing these sins in my life has been paramount in my faith, when i am sober of mind and body my life is perfect, and when i slip on one thing, all sins start returning, my faith in christ shakes, and i have to catch myself, and it is usualy reading the bible that picks me back up to being of sober mind.

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[frenchcatholic]

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i am also an engineering student now in technical college taking a two year electromechanical engineering program…to get in i had to attend the colleges academic upgrading where i earned a certificate of highschool equivilency as well as an honorary award for mathematics. In the program i completed college level mathematics and most of what i needed in my current program. I recieved A+ in all my upgrading courses and am currently a very good engineering student, acheiving mostly 90s. I am also fully funded by my provincial government.

I say all this, because i wanted to return to college back when i came to this site, but i could not, i was not in the state of mind, and it was not college that allowed me to clean up my life, if i had gone in my previous state i know i would have failed. I cleaned up my life before attending, and it is the reason i am succeeding so brilliantly.

I say this because, i am sure may people clean up their lives through other religions or merely self control, but self control did not work for me, and i beleive in the values of catholicism. I could not have cleaned up my life without Christ. I have found so much fullfilment in my love for my wife and children and in working towards supporting my family properly that i usually forget there was ever a void in my life.

And if someone asks me and i feel safe enough to answer them honestly, probably because we are talking about God, i will tell them, it is because of Christ, i owe my life and happyness to the Graces of God.

I was brought to this website because i am currently trying to improve my life more, i will not talk about it but it involves my love life, and improvements i want to make, that are the lingering effects of my past sin and pornography addiction, whose effects i know at this point will probably linger long into my life if they ever do leave.

When my children are older i will educate them on the evil of pornography and all the evils that lie in this world, my daughter is just entering tweenhood and i am already educating her on drugs and alcohol, and me and her mother have a very close relationship with her and she trusts us. i do however fear if i am too strict it will have the opposite effect i intended. The lord knows it had the opposite effect on me.