Sharing Success Stories - The Battle of Impurity

[Lux_et_veritas]

I see many people coming in to this forum heartbroken because they are unable at this time, to control issues surrounding impurity. The help given is compassionate and uplifting. However, I thought it would be nice to have a thread on the subject of impurity dedicated to success stories to give people hope.

Tell us how you won your battle (vague is best please). Tell us if you had at any point lost hope and despaired, dropping away from confession or church and what prompted you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move forward.

We need success stories and I know they are out there.

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I’ll leave some words for those who come to this thread in search of hope, challenging them to fight courageously, and to never give up hope.

**Listen for the silence of Him! He comes to you in the night and stirs your heart, leaving behind the sense of guilt and shame. This is not a sign to lose hope. It is a sign that the Lord is at your door. He is knocking and saying, “Come, Follow Me”. Answer that call and head to confession. Don’t be afraid to tell the Father that you have a long standing habit and want to change it. **

Find your inner warrior. Your soul is your fort and you need to defend it. It will take every ounce of strength you have to hold the fort. When you are at war, ask the Lord for strength, courage and endurance to survive the minute, the hour, or the day. Be proud to live as a warrior for the Lord, conquering the mighty enemy within. All warriors live with the pain of battle wounds and so will your suffering be in following the way of the Lord. Please Him by offering your suffering up to Him for some greater cause.

Vincit omnia veritas - Truth conquers all

 

[gardenswithkids]

I’m afraid to say it’s completely won, lest I fall again because of pride. But I found success by remembering the smiling faces of my children that were concieved when I fought the temptation to contracept and other. The strongest temptation I ever had was on a night when we concieved a child instead. That night I remember feeling as if an evil spirit literally left the room when I recognized that something was very distorted in the temptation presented. And I wonder what the devil feared from that particular child that he tried so hard to prevent that conception.

I know fully why the devil temps so hard in the area of sexuality: because he hates that this is how human souls are created. He fights his hardest (and often most successful) spiritual warfare in this area because of how great and holy sex really can be when it’s properly ordered. I have living, breathing children who would not be here today if the devil had his way with me or my husband.

It’s a tough battle, and the battle just gets tougher the longer the habits continue. But with serious prayer, frequent confession, fasting and the grace of God, it can be won.

 

[Princess_Abby]

gardenswithkids:

I’m afraid to say it’s completely won, lest I fall again because of pride. But I found success by remembering the smiling faces of my children that were concieved when I fought the temptation to contracept and other. The strongest temptation I ever had was on a night when we concieved a child instead. That night I remember feeling as if an evil spirit literally left the room when I recognized that something was very distorted in the temptation presented. And I wonder what the devil feared from that particular child that he tried so hard to prevent that conception.

I know fully why the devil temps so hard in the area of sexuality: because he hates that this is how human souls are created. He fights his hardest (and often most successful) spiritual warfare in this area because of how great and holy sex really can be when it’s properly ordered. I have living, breathing children who would not be here today if the devil had his way with me or my husband.

It’s a tough battle, and the battle just gets tougher the longer the habits continue. But with serious prayer, frequent confession, fasting and the grace of God, it can be won.

That is such a beautiful testimony. Wow.

 

[Viki59]

I was trapped in a fantasy life for several years that eventually controlled me, I couldn’t even carry on a normal conversation without zoning out. It began innocently and progressed to impurity.
I was reading in a bookstore, C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. It’s an allegory about “ghosts” who visit heaven from purgatory/hell, and are given the chance to choose to stay there. There’s a chapter about a ghost who has a lizard of impurity on his shoulder, an angel asks him if he wants to be delivered from it, and he agrees, so the angel breaks the lizard’s back. It changes into a mighty stallion, which the man mounts and rides away into heaven.
When I read that chapter, the words of the angel leaped out at me - I forget the exact words, something like, “Do you want me to take it away?”
They were being spoken to me. I said, yes, and felt as if I were delivered in that moment. Though at first it was a struggle to maintain, eventually it became easier and I’ve had few problems with it since then.
I’m very grateful to our Lord for His mercy. He’s used the books of C.S. Lewis several times to help me.

 

[Cathy]

I’m now middle aged. The summer after I graduated from college, a Catholic friend lent me a horrible book. I think it was called the Sensual Woman…full of deceit, but I fell for it, and became addicted to impurity. Decades later, another Catholic friend gradually taught me Catholic morality and I realized what I had been doing was not only bad for me but bad for my marriage. As a lifelong Protestant, I hadn’t been taught that my behavior was wrong…even though in my heart of hearts I knew it.

When I joined the Catholic Church, I stopped doing this behavior when I was fully conscious, but if I caught myself waking up, I’d go to confession as soon as possible, even though I knew it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I was fortunate to find a priest who didn’t chide me for confessing unnecessarily. He told me it was good to confess these things and receive the grace from God to get complete victory over sin.

I’ve been going to daily Mass for 10 years now, and I’ve confessed this more times and to more different priests than I can count (always trying to confess behind a screen, if possible, but it wasn’t always possible, alas…that was the hardest). While the frequency declined, thanks to God, I was still having to confess this every few months until last May when I went to a Catholic charismatic convention. After Mass, the priest named some people who were being healed of various ailments, and he said, “The Lord is healing a XX-year-old woman of XXXX.” I knew he was speaking about me, and it gave me great hope. When I saw the priest again later, I asked a friend to hand him a note telling him of my new hope from God through his ministry. I felt it was important to go back and thank Jesus. I really did feel like the leper who had been healed, and I needed to go to Jesus to thank him. How wonderful to have priests in the Catholic church who serve as “alter Christus” (did I spell that right?). I still go every few weeks to confession, but not for this particular reason in about a year. Thank you, Jesus, for loving me, even though I scourged you with so many painful lashes. Please hide me in your wounds.