Re: First Post (Part 7) -- looking for a cure (LONG)
Submitted by Derek on September 01 2000 01:59:27
In reply to First Post (Part 7) -- looking for a cure (LONG) submitted by FeelingDirty on August 28 2000 07:00:16
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Splash, Forgive me for not being positive... that's not my goal: my goal is to be honest. But perhaps something positive will come out of my thoughts. When reading your story, it was clear to me that if I were looking at the situation from the outside, without knowing your feelings, I would say that the relationship where you were struggling was the one with the boy's mom, not with the boy. It would look like your relationship with the boy was very healthy and beneficial to him, and rooted in purity. However, your relationship with his mom contained quite a bit of sexual impurity... Considering your feelings/desires, I'm not sure what this means, other than you've been extremely successful at controlling your desires towards the boy. It's a peculiar and difficult situation you describe, practically having to choose between a boy and his mother. I can't imagine what that's like--I'd drop the girl and take the boy in a heartbeat--but it's gotta be tough. If I heard a boy say "you were my friend first" I don't know what I'd do. Splash, reading your post to Bach, your theological struggles about motivation are almost identical to my own. Talking to people in my church about being a boylover has made me call into question the motivations for just about everything I do. "should I try to quench them and/or feel ashamed of them? Or should I learn something from these feelings?" I had a related conversation with my minister addressing that question. We had a slight disagreement in which he said that some feelings are from God: positive, and to be used to learn from; others are not from God: never to be righteously fulfilled and to be supressed and eliminated. My response was that all feelings are from God, perhaps indirectly, since God created everything: all feelings, positive or negative, should be learned from and dealt with in a holy, honorable way. For example, in the case of feelings of lust, I would say that the relationship should proceed with caution and prayer, with attention to ensure that the lust is not interpreted as love and does not cause faulty assumptions about other aspects of the relationship. Definitely, the feelings should not be ignored. Definitely, one should never feel ashamed of the feelings. My experience says that quenching feelings does not work; rather, you must find the root of the feelings and change that (something I've never been able to do successfully). There are many more examples like this where I helped disciple him as a Christian. If I wasn't the man in his life that showed such a deep love and concern for That's beautiful, Splash. Your philosophy here I find to be as perfect as I can imagine. I've said this about my own desires, and I'd love to believe this. Indeed, I do believe it as far as to say that my desires are there to help me carry out God's will for my life and the sexual aspect of them is a trap set by Satan to try to make me avoid God's desires. However, I ought to mention the response I got to this from my church. They are hesitant to believe that at all. They've said that if I think I'm the only one who would have ministered to a child, I'm sorely mistaken. God does not need me to do his work, they say. If it's at all possible that I might stumble, they say, I should avoid the situation entirely, even if it means failing to do God's work. God will find another worker. I know that God is all-powerful, but I have to wonder if God would find another worker. Truly, who but a boylover would find the time to get to know a boy well enough to minister to him in the way that brings him to know God? On a different side of the argument, why are young boys continually thrown in my path and end up turning to the Lord, despite my prayers... unless it's God's will? |
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