Then God said “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen 1:26).

Growing up, I recall lightly using this verse on at least a weekly basis. Whenever someone picked on an insecurity of mine, I’d wittingly use this verse as a rebuttal. If my Sunday school teacher asked me why I had to love everyone, I’d recite this verse back to them, always taking it for its literal meaning and never delving into the depth required to truly understand such a statement. A naïve teenager, I did not understand the gravity and responsibility that comes with being in the image of a God who is, as we say in the Gregorian liturgy the unutterable, the invisible, the infinite without beginning, the eternal, the timeless, the limitless, the immeasurable, the unchangeable!

So what does it mean to be in His image? More importantly, when others see me do they see the beauty of the Lord in me? (And I’m not talking about the physical, outwards appearance that we tend to always draw towards, but the beauty that the sinner woman saw causing her to fall at his feet, the beauty that caused even the blind beggar to cry all the more for help…a beauty beyond the eyes!). I strongly believe that it is when we truly grasp this reality that, as the contemporary song says: “God dwells in me, that’s my selfie, that’s my true self”, then and there we will fall to our knees in reverence of our amazing God. As David the Prophet eloquently puts it:

“I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

There are so many privileges and responsibilities that are part of being in the image and likeness of God. A major characteristic boasted about in the Christian life is the notion of free will. That being saved through the life-giving blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, I was released from the bonds and chains of sins; being able now to act through voluntary choice.

Firstly, it must be understood that it is because man was created in the image of God, who is entirely free, that we are also free through Him. We must never lose sight of this royal liberty, a right bestowed upon us as individuals in God’s image. Unfortunately, more often than not, amongst the storm of this world we forget this fundamental truth: that it is a gift given only to royalty. I’ll never forget the words a dear friend said to me once in the midst of my pains, “You are the child of a King, why are you afraid?!” Unfortunately, over the times, western culture has conditioned us away from the true meaning of freedom. The phrases, “Don’t judge me, I can do whatever I want” and “It’s a free country, I’ll do as I please” exemplify this misinterpretation.

Freedom to choose was never intended to be a scapegoat for us to do as we please, but a gift given from on high, allowing us in return to unite it with our Creator as an expression of our love. Christ knew the folly and limitations of our thinking, and we are warned that ironically our “freedom” can become our very own captivity.

as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. (1 Peter 2:16)

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)

The freedom that comes from being connected to the divine image was intended to give the individual their individuality, or to simply put it their uniqueness. It is because we are free, that we can express the divine image in our own distinctive, unique way.

Kallistos Ware says “within each of us there is a priceless treasure not to be found in anyone else… For each has a vocation for creating something beautiful in his or her own unrepeatable way.”

This. This is what He intended when He said “Let us make man in our image”; The freedom to express our love to Him in our own unique way.

I leave you with this question. Are you truly living free as one who is in His image?

I pray that God gives us the true freedom, which we can use to serve his glorified name, growing each day in His love.

Well, He’s dead.

In the end, they took Him and nailed him to a cross, watched Him suffocate under the weight of His own body, and then stabbed Him to make sure He was dead. Then everything seemed to go mad; the Veil of the Temple split down the middle, blasphemously revealing the Holy of Holies. The earth started shaking and the ancient dead burst from their tombs, as though strolling around Jerusalem was the most natural thing in the world after a thousand years of bodily decay. They say that if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the whole netherworld beginning to creak and shudder; the dead are waking up, and the Devil is screaming.

It all seems a lot of fuss for one dead man. You can see Him there, moving down the path toward His tomb. He’s the bleeding bundle of cloth at the front of the group. The man holding His feet is Nicodemus; one of the wealthiest men in Jerusalem. The man holding His shoulders is Joseph of Arimathea. They’re both religious types — they’re even on an important religious council called the Sanhedrin, with sixty-nine other extremely religious men, which would definitely make them two of the seventy-one most religious men in Jerusalem.

That woman behind them, the one who can’t seem to stop crying, is called Mary. She comes from Magdala, and unlike Joseph and Nicodemus, she is not the religious type. We don’t know much about her, but we do know that when she first met her Teacher, her body was home to no less than seven spiritual parasites. They were old, terrible creatures who fed off her misery and desperation. Back then, she had had plentiful stores of both, though we don’t know precisely why. Perhaps she had done terrible things. Perhaps terrible things had been done to her. Perhaps a bit of both. At any rate, she was not what anyone would call a “pillar of respectability,” and it hadn’t helped her Teacher’s reputation to have her hanging around. But He was the one who freed her. All seven of her demonic tormentors had screamed and fled when He came along, and they never came back. Since then, she has followed Him; and she follows even now, when all that’s left to follow is a bleeding corpse.

There are others walking with them, following the blood-soaked bundle that was their Teacher. There are a couple of Mary’s present (but not the famous one), Salome, Joanna and Susanna.

Surprisingly, you are present too.

You’re part of your own procession, a larger one, invisibly leading Joseph, Nicodemus and their bloody bundle of linen towards the tomb. Your procession is headed by golden crosses on poles and at the very back, just in front of Joseph and Nicodemus, men are carrying icons of Jesus’ burial and crucifixion, being censed by bearded priests wearing golden cloaks. Although there are more people in your procession than in the ancient one behind you, yours is a good deal less serious. Where Joseph and the Mary’s are burying a brutally murdered Friend, you are attending a religious festival. The atmosphere is solemn enough, what with the icons and the incense and gold crosses on poles, but in your procession people are distracted, occasionally chatting to one another, making quick remarks about Uncle So-and-So’s chanting voice and what they’re going to eat once the service is over. They’re tired because they’ve been in Church for nine hours. Mary, Joseph and Nicodemus are tired because they’ve just spent nine hours watching their Friend asphyxiate and bleed to death.

And so the two processions make their way slowly to a new tomb in a garden; one decked in white and gold, the other wet with tears and blood. You seem to be in two places at once. On the one hand, you’re walking around your local Coptic Church holding a candle, singing “Lord have mercy” in a tune which seems deeply sad and deeply joyful at the same time (which is different, mind you, to being half sad and half joyful). On the other hand, in some mysterious way, you are also walking towards a garden in Jerusalem to put a blood-soaked corpse into a new tomb. Some would say you’re not really in the same place as Joseph and Mary and the bloody bundle; properly speaking, they would insist, you are in a Coptic Church on Good Friday. You might imagine that you’re following a group of first-century Jews to a new tomb outside Jerusalem, but imagining doesn’t make it true. That’s what some people would say. Perhaps they’re right. But those people have probably never been to a Coptic Church on Good Friday, and so we might wonder how they can be so sure.

As you walk around the Church in procession, you notice some of the tired faces around you. A few places ahead of you in the procession is the man who taught you to be a Sunday School teacher. Like Joseph and Nicodemus, he’s the religious type. He’s attended every Holy Week service so far, morning and night, and he knows more about the Church and its history than anyone you’ve ever met. He loves this kind of service. His eyes are always closed during the long hymns, not because he’s sleeping (although no-one would know the difference if he was) but because he’s contemplating the deep nuances of the ancient hymns. He’s also one of the kindest and most self-sacrificing people you’ve ever known. You can only see his back from where you are, but you’re sure that his eyes are closed now too, as often as he can manage it without crashing into anything.

The procession takes you up the back of the church, where a woman called Selena is leaning against a pillar. Selena still comes to Church for the big occasions, but she’s not really the religious type. She has a complicated history, which she doesn’t like to talk about. A combination of things she’s done and things that have been done to her have convinced her that she isn’t pious or holy enough to be a good, church-going Coptic girl. So Selena only comes on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, because the services are crowded and she can slip in the back without really being noticed. She doesn’t understand the long hymns, but she likes the processions. In the processions, Christ comes to her at the back of the Church, meaning she doesn’t need to wade through an ocean of harsh eyes and perfect people to get to Him. The priests and deacons carry Him around the whole Church, and she can even reach out and touch Him, like the bleeding woman in the Gospels. You meet her gaze as you pass her, but she looks away.

Over there in the corner is the kid you kicked out of your Sunday School class last week. You probably shouldn’t have lost your temper, but in your defence, he was being a royally arrogant little punk. He hit another kid hard across the back of the head, and when you yelled at him, he acted like he couldn’t even hear you. But you remember now that he’s Selena’s younger brother, and you don’t really know what his family is like. The one time you visited his house (your Sunday School mentor was with you that day) you noticed that his mother was limping. The father was in the house but he didn’t come out to say hello. In the car on the way back, your mentor said, “Pray for them. Especially for the father.” You didn’t ask for details. You hadn’t been thinking of that when you kicked him out. You should probably talk to him later.

As the procession takes you through the church pews, you see the faces of your friends, your teachers, your relatives, even one of your old crushes. Mostly you don’t acknowledge them; sometimes, you exchange a quick smile or nod. You have seen these faces nearly every week for years; at liturgies and fundraisers and functions, at fantastically failed church plays, at homeless drives and hospital visits, soccer competitions and youth camps. But it strikes you all of sudden, how strange it is to be here with all these people. I mean, in one sense, it’s no surprise that the usual people would turn up to Church on Good Friday, as they have done for years. But in another sense, it all seems like a strange coincidence that these people, with whom you’ve spent so much time doing such boring, normal things, should be present with you at something so important. This is no parish camp or trivia night; you’ve all come here to bury God. That bloody bundle of linen behind you contains the Firstborn over All Creation, the Word of God, the Father’s Wisdom and Power. Now that He is dead, the whole Kingdom of Death is being overthrown; angels are pouring down into Hades to join the coup. You’d expect burying God and the overthrow of Hades to be a unique and monumental occasion; something totally removed the mundane existence you carry out day by day. And yet, there is your old mentor, your punk Sunday School kid, your old crush, your friends, the woman who heads the Sunday School service, the man who runs the bookshop, the lady who makes sandwiches on Sunday mornings.

You reach the end. Joseph and Nicodemus lay down their load and let the women pour a last libation of myrrh and spices on Him. Your parish priest is with them, sprinkling rose petals as red as the blood seeping through the linen. You remember that those hands, sprinkling rose petals, are the hands with which he played volleyball at your last camp. Now, he is using them to anoint the body of God for its burial. You look around at the tired, familiar faces, watching Abouna wrapping the tiny icon in white cloth. No-one is joking now. They are either singing, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal” or saying nothing. And again, you are surprised that you should all be together here, at this place where the whole world turned upside down.

When all is done, Joseph and Nicodemus seal up the tomb, locking their Teacher in Hades to do battle with its dark prince. Abouna kisses the door of the tomb and begins to read Psalms while the ancient mourners go home to weep and ponder the spectacular disaster that had become of all their hopes and dreams. Selena slips quietly out the back. Your old Sunday School mentor stands in the sanctuary, eyes closed and arms folded. When the chanting stops, your class punk is unusually quiet in his corner seat; he is praying that God will teach his parents how to love each other. You realise that you’re glad they were all here with you, to see God die and come to rest in the earth.

It’s only as you leave that you realise who had been walking next to you in the procession. He never said a word, but He had directed your attention as you walked; He had pointed wordlessly to Selena, to your old mentor, to your Sunday School child. And He had looked back at you from inside each of them; from the peace that hung around your old mentor, from Selena’s downcast eyes, especially from your little punk Sunday School kid. When you reached the end of the procession, you watched Him wrapped in linen and sealed behind the black curtains of the sanctuary. But even then, somehow, He hadn’t left your side. He was walking beside you while He was borne behind you in burial clothes; just as He was still in the bosom of His Father even when He went to the depths of Hades. You realise now that it is no coincidence that you were all here together. You have things to do.

And He’s not dead.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 3:2)

In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with a need to be and to do, where we are frequently asked “what do you do? what do you want to be?” We seem to have lost a clear vision of what we are here for.

In the midst of the noise of trying to figure out who we want to be and what we must become, we hear a church bell ring, a symphony of praise, and a gathering of people like you and me. We have joined them many times but in the busyness of all the running around and our sweeping thoughts we did not notice what was happening, our senses could not be still, could not behold the great and awesome Presence before us.

Other times we were too busy all together – too busy trying to be busy – to take off our shoes, walk on holy ground, and enter into the divine place in which the Divine offers Himself. Consequently we have hindered the body we are part of from being whole and unshaken.

You see this great hostility that lies between the world and the church, as though the church were somehow pulling us away from moving forward and the world pushing us towards becoming something or someone, is a lie, it’s a lie that we have chosen to believe and commit our lives to living, but it is in striving to live that lie that we have silenced Truth. Since ‘Satan is a liar and the father of it’ (John 8:44) and ‘he who is of the devil has no part in Him’ (John 14:30) the more we pursue that lie the more we are left lifeless.

We are not here to ‘move forward’ to somehow be the masters of our destiny, or to ‘save’ the world. Indeed I cannot even help myself, let alone be of use to the world.
That is where the secret lies. The church is a gathering of people who have dared to step away from that lie and allowed themselves to be useless for a moment, a people who are not afraid to know and see that they are broken, wounded, and lifeless. They come as one body and partake of one Loaf. Here they know there is no special ‘use’ to them, you do not receive a bigger portion because you are particularly useful, no my dear you receive all that is offered, you receive the fullness of Life, you receive Him who is Life, simply because you have come. You have come with a heart open to receive and not an ego too puffed up to believe it is in need.

Pour out your entire ego O my soul that the uncontainable may find room in that small heart of yours. Come knowing that your uselessness is not despised – it is welcome! It is welcome and it is given to stand in heaven on earth, where the Angels come down and we ascend, where the heavenly and earthly unite, and we stand before the only One who was and is and is to come.

Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s workmanship. Workmanship or masterpiece in Greek translates to poiēma or poem. We are God’s poem. What is a poem? Dare I say it – it is a useless thing! It is a beautiful, soulful, completely and utterly useless thing. In the language of today’s hustling and bustling world, things that are of no practical use are minimized and eliminated. But do you realize how much beauty we miss out on? You are God’s poem, He delights in you, he takes pleasure in you, he was thinking of you before you even came to be, He loves you and remains to adore you.

And to commune with His precious poem, to meet with you in a real and intimate way, He offers you His flesh and blood that you may have a share and inheritance with Him and his family, the saints who have pleased Him since the beginning. So that you can continue to live your life each day not believing the lie and striving to be something but living bravely and faithfully as the flesh and blood of Christ. So that the sound of that church bell ringing may be the sound we hear when you walk by reminding us we are on holy ground and so that your whole life may be a symphony of praise, that Christ may be seen in you, that pure precious temple in which he dwells.

The Church, why then does it matter? It matters because you matter; you are a beautiful useless gratuitous being who is called to make Christ incarnate in everything you do; you are the Church.

A prayer: Lord, as my heart needs infinite washing and cleansing that it may be whiter than snow so does my soul need consistent partaking of the heavenly feast of Love and banquet of joy to fill the deep hunger in me. I have come as poor and needy, I have come as one who is nothing that you may be everything. I believe that I am your beautiful poem though I see no beauty in me I know that you make all things new and can make beauty out of ashes. Deep deep down in me there you lie patiently knocking that I may open the door for to you ignite my whole heart, soul, and being with the Divine fire of your presence. Heal me that I may open, wash me that I may purify and see you, love me that I may love you.

Check out Part I

This was written by a dear friend.

Tell me your secret: Pornography, I’m still learning to love.

The lonesome curse of the introverted recluse, the unbearable shaming weight of the extroverted socialite: pornography, at its core, is our broken generation’s poor excuse for human love.

Everything around us is different. We weren’t supposed to look like this. In as much as technology has advanced mankind, it has also receded our humanity to an impersonal, self-loathing collective of isolated individualism. We weren’t supposed to look like this. Love wasn’t supposed to look like this. God’s eyes see an unfulfilled generation of victims. Yet, as these victims, we have more reason than ever to hope, to depend on a power far beyond our capacity to fight. As victims of our own circumstance, we have the greatest capacity of all – to make His power manifest through every fragile weakness that composes our form – a fragmented form of a most precious, most lovable and most loved humanity. Being independently broken down as isolated men through our own weaknesses, we are united together by our collective pain for each other, for God we rise and rise, and rise yet again. I have hope. I’m still learning to love.

At the start of it all

There are times when it becomes clear to me that a deeper secret and a darker need, deeper and darker than my shackling habits, is in fact the strongest link in the chains holding me down. It is at the start of it all. Shunning aside every burning pre-pubescent lust, every teenage egoistic urge for admiration, every narrow-minded adult’s desire to express masculinity, there he sits, the small lonely child in my heart, repeatedly demoralized by every manifestation of the pain of his rejection. At times I cannot look into the mirror. I see his green eyes, desperate and teary, insecurely staring into mine. Swiftly, I look away. It isn’t the shame of his glare that I hide from, it’s the fear. Fear that every repressed negative belief about myself is in fact true. Fear that the small, lonesome child inside of me is unloved and well and truly unlovable. Ultimately rejected even by the fantasies that barely uphold themselves, the fragments of lies amount to a firm belief. At times, I avoid even sitting in silence, in prayerful meditation, because all I can hear is the child’s desperate voice, begging to be loved.

He hasn’t met my expectations as the presentable young man he should have become by now, the one he dresses like and acts to be. He’s simple, a feeble soul, with a thorough and shaken vulnerability like no other; broken, seemingly like no other. Broken, so very, very broken. He was only a child when he first saw that one explicit image, yet before he could resolve the anxiety of the trauma, he began to crave it more. It became his most intimate, valued treasure. He owned it. It became my porn. Over the years, at times, through the confusion and the turmoil, a balanced vision seeps through, and the single prayer of the child that lies at the core of my struggles repeats itself – the prayer I subconsciously prayed before I even knew what sex was, before I was even conceived. “Dearest God, please give me a kind, gentle hand to hold, that is all I ever desire.” As a growing man, nothing changed much since the start of it all. Rummaging through the endless pictures and clips, the child within me fantasises about that pure loving hand that now looks so vulgar and warped, yet as a man starving for love, not knowing how to love, I both reluctantly and desperately cling to.

The despair that I often find myself in does not stem from a mere frustration at my repeated failures and my feeble incapacity for self-restraint, because I’m already mature enough to be cognizant of my own shortcomings, of the confines of my strengths. I already know that as a human I cannot be defined as just a creation, or even as an end-product of evolutionary chance, but that I am defined as a true understanding of my desires, emotions and ambitions, restricted equally by both reality and self-control. But that’s not it, though. There’s more and I know it. Deep down, I know that there’s a difference. This shakes me at the core of my existence. Not only do I find my deepest and strongest intrinsic drive for expressing human affection, passion and love unexpressed, I find it compulsively expressed towards a lie. I knowingly break off fragments of my valuable heart and hand it over to a phantom, only to see it fall through the formless illusion and hit the ground, dying and unfixable. I rock to and fro between the two extremes of conviction – passionately embracing the pseudo-love because it numbs the emptiness, then retracting back to the true emptiness, woefully regretting my indulgence that left me emptier than before. Past my bold masculinity and the insensitive jesting, past the hoarse-voiced laughter and the aggressive ambition, there’s a fragility that goes untouched for deathly fear of being destroyed. There’s an overprotected intimacy, spoilt rotten by the ever-fulfilled delusional need to be silent, to be cocooned in a mind that is far too afraid to be revealed.

And the cycles begin, the painful patterns that I draw in my mind. Like rivers flowing through the valleys collapsing into the ocean to their demise, the variety of reasons pave their way through the valleys of my thoughts eventually gravitating to the single pool of demise – a pornographic ocean. A vast, vast solution to every rejection, every worry, every anger, every hunger and every isolation of experience. Too thirsty to even believe in freshwater reserves – in a holy, fulfilling and fulfilled sexuality – I’m allured by the ocean that provides its illusive worth of an unquenching mass of water, it leaves me even drier and thirstier that before. And I hate it, I hate myself for allowing it to make me what it made me.

I hear the people sing, ‘no man is an island’, yet in maturing I became the dictator of the island of my mind, I drove out the interpersonal society that began to flourish inside of me and I pushed away the edifying exterior influences that should have thrived within. Soon, I became that very island that no man can survive as. I became a man on my own terms, I became a man on my own, nothing more than an aged, shielded iteration of that terrified child inside. The child that is far too terrified to risk the pain of rejection that comes in its infinite forms and retracted deep inside your heart since the start of it all. “The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Rom 7:19). If it doesn’t even make sense to myself, how can I expect it to make sense to anyone else if I was to ever tell them? So I hide it. What kind of a Christian, deacon, fiancé, husband, lover and father can look like I do? So I hide it from my family, from my friends, from my relationships, but I cannot hide it from God, so I hide myself from God entirely…

Recycling the cycles of guilt and pain

The first stage of dealing with my guilt, is embracing my problem for what it truly is. For that reason, I have referred to pornography as my porn. It is mine. As I child I owned it as my dark, vile treasure, now I own it as the very key to my liberation. My porn is both the chains holding me down, and the means through which my chains will be broken through the loving grace of God. He says that the truth will set me free. My ownership is that truth. His unfailing acceptance is that truth. My liberation from guilt is that truth. My honesty is that truth that will set me free. Henri Nouwen says,

“Self-realization…is the growing ability to allow the dark side of our personality to enter into our awareness and thus prevent a one sided life in which only that which is presentable to the outside world is considered as a real part of ourselves. To come to an inner unity, totality and wholeness, every part of our self should be accepted and integrated. Christ represents the light in us. But Christ was crucified between two murderers and we cannot deny them, and certainly not the murderers who live in us.”

As with most painful experiences in our lives, once we learn to look past the suffering, an opportunity for compassion arises. God leverages our suffering, even that which is self-inflicted, to open up our hearts to a greater absolute truth – that humanity shares an overpowering need to be loved. I have always wondered why we need to be loved, why we need to give love and to make it. God’s image, our very selves, reflect His same passion in giving and receiving back from us, that which is given to us of Himself. That is God within us. That is God in others, which is in so much need for expression. The hours of suffering that follow the hours spent with my porn are incredibly dark, but they are a dark window opening my heart to the sleepless night of pain of those around me. I hear the words of the Psalmist, “Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth…The ploughers ploughed on my back; they made their furrows long” (Ps 129:2-3). Oh, how they’ve made their furrows in me so very, very long.

In the same way that porn is the lustful sugar-coating to my deep need for love, those around me that seek to fulfil their own need for intimacy and love colour their own hunger in a rainbow of expression. As my brother who I love, I invite you to take that silent heaviness as a moment of heartfelt, powerful prayer lifted up out of your own pain for the widespread suffering of the world. Lift up a prayer. For the girl you once loved, who out of a desperate, frantic need for validation, preferred to be lusted over and fantasised about than to subdue to the terrifying risk of her commitment to you. For your friend who it pains you to see dressing and acting provocatively to entice men through her seemingly immoral desire for sex, who deep beneath her wanting, lustrous eyes, an aching sadness and a begging for acceptance is buried. For your closest friend, who amidst the heavy bitterness and the disheartening complications of his soul, couldn’t find it in himself to even smile at your success. For your aggressive friend, who rages and furiously seeks out his own, yet only rages for and furiously seeks out a deeper conviction that he is worth loving. For your father who couldn’t love you, who, because of his misunderstanding of your adolescent pseudo-resentment towards him, lost the capacity to love himself and lost faith in the very value of his own fatherhood. For your bitter and discontented grandfather, who through the years, lost little-by-little the very love he spent his life building his heart upon. Feel their pain and forgive, “for they do not know what they do” (‭Luke‬ ‭23‬:‭34‬). They do not know how much hurt their pain has caused. Feel their pain my brother, that is the same pain that you hide behind your smile. Only in our darkest hours, can we see that we’re so very broken too and our hearts become ever kinder by the searing pain. ‘When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become,’ Henri Nouwen.

Pray for the deceptively seductive rainbow of pain arching over the world, for you are no more than a fragment of the brokenness of this earth and our porn is the explicit visual realisation of that same reality.

This is the glorious blessing that your porn can bring once you embrace it as a warped definition of your humanity, as your deep and great capacity for love, as misdirected as it may be. It hurts only because you are so loving, so affectionate, and so caring – it hurts because it makes you see how truly isolated and closed off you are.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

It’s time to share. But first, learn to forgive yourself. It isn’t your fault that your heart became so enslaved in these sexual perversions. Your fluctuating cravings and indulgences don’t change the truth about yourself. You’re still that pure child your mother raised you to be, the one who she taught absolute and unconditional respect for women. You’re still the protective brother who loves and respects every inch of his sister’s femininity and virtue. You are not your struggle. You are loved by God so incredibly deeply, not on the condition of an unfaltering purity, but by nature of your existence and for your persistent desire to return to Him, your Father, clothed in rags, smelling of swine, yet still the most valued, most precious, most beloved little child. ‘God said “Love Your Enemy,” and I obeyed Him and loved myself’ (Khalil Gibran). He says, “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion” (‭Ps‬ ‭2‬:‭6‬). On Christ you are established, “a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden” (‭Mat‬ ‭5‬:‭14). Your light cannot be hidden. Though the hilltop lamp may flicker and be put out by the wind, “a smoking flax He will not quench” (‭Mat‬ ‭12‬:‭20‬). There is still hope in you. There is always hope in you. Forgive yourself and learn to love yourself as deeply as you are loved. You deserve far more than the self-loathing that only you impose on yourself. Listen to his voice “for the Father Himself loves you” (‭John‬ ‭16‬:‭27)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬.

“But if you are a poor creature…- straddled, by no choice of your own, by some loathsome sexual perversion – nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex…do not despair. He knows about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one.”
C. S. Lewis

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“But You, O LORD, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head” (‭Psalms‬ ‭3‬:‭3‬). My glory is in God’s acceptance and protection, not in my own capacity to keep myself pure. There is no shame, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (‭I John‬ ‭4‬:‭18‬). On your journey learning to love a wholesome, perfect love, begin by letting go of your fears to let that love inside and to allow it to flourish through its ever-transparent and honest vulnerability. “It’s not easy. Fear will tell us all the many reasons not to share, all the reasons why we should hide. It is a scary thing to take your darkness and expose it, because what if no one accepts our dark? I’ve learned not to be afraid, not to be afraid firstly of my own dark, and not to be afraid of other people’s. Never forget the truth that you are more. You are more than your worst mistake. You are more than your shame. These words of your weakness don’t define you.” (Makrina)

By learning to be vulnerable, I’m learning to love. I’m learning to hand over to my fellow man, the depths of my fear and the dark reason for my inability to truly love.

Usually, it isn’t our own flaws that we present to others that repel them away, it’s the flaws that we desperately try to hide from them which creep out during our interactions with them that repulse them. It’s the masks we put on that we try to deceive them with that drive them further away from us. Unravelling the truth of our own weakness is never as abhorrent as unravelling the lie that hid it away.

Let him out

Once I came to the conclusion that my porn is my own, that it does not define me, that it’s a desperate expression to fill the love-less, isolated void in my heart and that sharing is the key to filling my void, and ultimately, my freedom, then came the time for inner resolution.

Call him out. Call out the terrified green-eyed child inside your heart and let him heal in Sun of Righteousness. Call him out and comfort him. With a gentle, newly-found understanding teach him little-by-little that love is not in the shadows, it is not his shameful, dirty secret, it is not a wasted fantasy, but a loud and sacrificial truth. Teach him to speak of his own pain and struggle, teach him that his vulnerability empowers his loved ones to feel liberated in their own struggles, to allow them to feel the pain that we all share as a broken humanity without fear of shame. When he’s hurting, teach him to hear His Father’s words,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jer 31:3). Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isa 1:18). I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance (Luke 5:32). I have come for you, my broken, hurting child. I have come so that you do not have to live as an island – isolated, ever-retracting and self-loathing.”

And the healing child inside you can reply,

“I am dark, but lovely (Songs 1:5). Why should I be as one who veils herself? (Songs 1:7) The king has brought me into his chambers (Songs 1:4). I’m healing by my shedding. I’m becoming vulnerable to become intimate. For God, I will rise, and rise, and rise yet again. Pornography, my chains and the key to unleashing my chains, I’m still learning to love.”

As for me, you may ask who I am. I am your dark past and your hopeful future. I am your father and you mother, who did not know how to teach you to love when you recoiled to the safety of your porn. I am your friend who you waited long for to hear my secret so that you can tell me yours, and that we can both grow in love and be free from our pain. I am your brother who was too anxious to give to you the gift of your own liberation. I am your future self – the loving husband who can be as honest about his weakness as he is about his strengths. I am your future self – the vulnerable and caring father telling his children about his struggles with porn, helping them learn themselves to love, to open up and to share their pain. In our shared pain, I am an embodiment of your hope.

I am a fragmented form of a most precious, most lovable and most loved humanity.

Pornography, I’m still learning to love.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me..
Philippians 4:13

For the majority of my life I have done whatever I wanted to do. I was always the one in charge, doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I would block out that voice in my mind telling me ‘no’ and amplify my behaviour until that voice diminished to an eventual silence. I was comfortable with this lifestyle. I was happy doing what I felt brought me happiness. I didn’t want to change anything about this lifestyle as I thought it was perfect for me. I was ‘happy’ in my daily routine knowing what I’d be doing that day and who I would be seeing.

This comfortable life soon turned into an unfulfilled and unsatisfactory routine. I was living the same way but it felt different. I was no longer satisfied and content with anything. That voice that I had always shunned into a silence was louder than ever and I couldn’t escape it. I was scared. I didn’t want to leave the life I had always known and was so comfortable with, but I knew it was now or never.

My comfort zone break-out had begun. One thing God blessed me with that helped me on this journey was surrounding me with (truly great) people that were an amazing support and encouragement for me. I had seen my brother completely change his life for the better and he badly wanted the same for me. He was the first hand guiding me in this new journey and always pushing me get out of my old, comfortable routine. Before I knew it my daily routine was changing and I was starting to notice how much my life was changing too. I was being introduced to new people and became part of a new community that were bringing me closer to God. This was really helping me let go of old habits.

Admittedly, part of me wasn’t ready to take the huge leap back into my own Coptic church community. I was anxious and nervous of going back to the church I had tried escaping for so long. I didn’t want to face people that I had tried to avoid for so many years of my life and I was scared of rejection and disappointment. God, however, had a different plan for me. He continually sent me people that I could rely on and feel comfort around. These people encouraged me to take that dreaded leap and go on my first ever church conference, which was exactly a year ago now. He taught me to rely on Him and to trust His plan more than my own. I learnt how to really communicate with Him and more importantly how to listen to Him. He started to change my life in so many ways that I couldn’t have done on my own.

The main piece of advice I would give anyone wanting to take that step further in his or her spiritual journey, but is held back by fear of stepping out of what they feel is their comfort zone, is to remember you’re never on this journey alone. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9.

Here are some steps that will help;

Step 1:

Talk to God, He knows all that your heart desires and will give you the strength and courage to fulfill all the things you couldn’t do alone.

Step 2:

Remind yourself that there will never be the ‘perfect’ time to take this brave leap and push yourself out of your comfort zone. God’s planning and timing is so perfect that we could never remotely match his plans for us. In 2 Peter 3:8 we read that “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day”. He is a patient and loving God and will wait for us until we allow Him to make us ready to find his promise.

Step 3:

Accept his eternal love for you. He watches over you through your most sinful and corrupt days, not with anger and disgrace, but with compassion and love and will provide you with his free gift of grace.

Step 4:

Obey his word. We are rewarded with salvation when we truly turn to Christ and fulfill His Word. Give Him an inch and He will give you a mile.

Step 5:

Trust Him with the things that scare you the most and He will provide you with bravery and strength you never thought you had.

By turning to God and surrendering my life to Him, he has given me endless rewards and blessings that I thank Him for everyday. He has provided with an amazing group of friends that encourage me on this new journey and fill my life with so much joy. The life I was once so comfortable in is now a faded memory, and all the past fear and anxiety God has now turned into excitement to see when He is going to take me next.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight”
2 Corinthians 5:7

I certainly felt emotionally secure. However, a specific part of my life began to chip away at this security. At home, mum and dad often did not seem to get on. I didn’t think much of it as a child as I assumed most people’s parents fell out from time to time. This was surely nothing I couldn’t take in my stride, I used to think. However, the problems continued to escalate. As the years went by, the division between my parents grew and it began to put a strain in the family. My younger sibling chose to distant themselves from the issue and seemed to want nothing to do with it. I didn’t have a friend close enough to speak to about it, I did not feel connected to any church or a particular priest I could open up to, and I was often made to feel that this topic was such a taboo that it should never leave the front door of the house anyway.

My original belief that I could handle anything myself was beginning to fade away, so I looked to God. “That’s what He’s there for, right?” I told myself. I love both of my parents and I knew they loved me too, wanting only the best for me. I spent years praying for God to intervene and fix their relationship. I asked Him to show me what is was that I had to do in order to play my part. I spent numerous years being the peacemaker in the house, refusing to take one side over another, and feeling too much of a sense of responsibility to detach myself from the issue completely. I refused to stop believing that with my perseverance and prayers, the problems would be resolved and one day we would finally live as a peaceful, happy family.
This day did not come. The cracks turned into gaping crevasses and after moving away to university, I found myself being the recipient of endless phone calls from each individual complaining about the other. It was taking a toll on my studies, my social life, and ultimately on my spirituality. I can recall long nights being in torment with God. I was filled with anger that after all the prayers and belief, He hadn’t come up with the goods. If anything, things were much worse than where we started.

I began to loosen my grip and reliance on Him, and slowly started to revert to my original strategy of handling it all myself. The stress of it led me to take comfort in other areas. I began to make wrong decisions at university and things began to slip. I was losing control – a concept that was previously so alien to me. I had blocked out everyone in my life, including God, refusing to listen to Him. I only had myself to contend with and for the first time, felt truly alone. This broke me. In all of my efforts to try and restore my family, I found myself with nobody.

In my fourth year at university, something within me revved me to get up and make a change. I was not content in staying in this slumber. I loathed self-pity and knew deep down that although I had turned my face away from God, He was still the only one that could change things. In my depths lurked a voice that kept telling me to look at Him and listen one more time to what He had to say.
I got myself back into church; one that I had frequented during my time at university, but never made an effort to get fully involved with. I chose to make a conscious effort to get to know the people there and engage with the community. There was instant gratification. I quickly found a friend I was confident to open up with, pretty much from our first meeting. I had never done anything like this before, but it felt so comfortable. It was amazing to unload to someone who was essentially a stranger. They helped me to start making steps towards the right track and made me feel welcomed in the group. I was wary of revealing my secrets to anyone else, still believing that I was an outsider with a shameful background. I could not have been more wrong. I quickly learnt that I was not the only Copt to have come from a far from perfect family, and was soon able to confide in someone that had been through something very similar.

Through further involvement in the church, I attended my first conference and heard a quote that truly resonated within me;

“The almost impossible thing is to hand over your whole self to Christ… but it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead” C.S. Lewis

I realised that striving to maintain full control of each aspect of my life was foolish, and it was essential that I hand over the reins to my life to Him. I must put Him firmly in the driving seat.

For a long time I knew that the situation at home was my cross to bear, and that I must carry it. However, I had no clue how to carry it. For a great deal of time I wondered what it was that I practically needed to do. I would often find myself being put in situations with my parents, being forced to balance my time equally between them so as not to make one upset that I was picking a side. I often wanted to take a step back and distance myself from the whole situation, but I felt overwhelmed with guilt and the sense of selfishness. Was putting them before myself and my own happiness how I was meant to carry my cross? These questions were so simply answered by my friend who had gone through a similar situation, and who I had previously confided in:

I needed to make sure that whatever I do, it was according to the will of God. I must keep God in my heart and that is who I should aim to please. Only He will satisfy my longing for happiness.

I realised how much I had complicated my life when I tried to work out what I needed to do, alone, not considering His will in my decision making.

This realisation has brought me so much peace.

Through all of the struggles and the anger that I felt towards God, I have learnt that it was all for my benefit. I wanted to work out how to carry my cross with minimal struggle, but instead I have been shown how to live with peace in my heart. I have learnt the true meaning of love and grace.

I longed for a family, and He has blessed me with an entire Church.

“She extended her arms to embrace her home, maybe the whole world.”
-Junot Diaz, the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I am not the theologian, sociologist, physiologist, or psychologist to know what we should do or how we should be with matters that are up for debate; I know only what I have observed and I do not seek to offend:

These days, in churches and in schools, in the military and in the halls of congress, there is much talk about what women should or should not do. There are those that say our gender is hardwired into us and defines a great deal of our character. Others say it must be taught and that a boy could be taught to be more nurturing and motherly and this development can even be supplemented with estrogen supplements and toy dolls to make him completely “female.” I know individuals that were born with hormone imbalances, or developed them later in life, or were born under such conditions that the doctors were not sure whether to mark M or F, and I can’t help but wonder. At the risk of sounding like a lukewarm heretic, I will say I am not smart enough to know exactly what the balance is; but I think, at our roots, we are undeniably different.

I think sometimes this word–different–gets a bad name. I long for a world where no one would think I should be offended if I am described as black or as a Westerner. I long for a world where an Oklahoman–literally red people–Native American could be called a redskin without that having to be a derogatory thing; why should we foster the idea that the color of our skin be inherently bad? I long for a day that, without feeling we have to be confined to a certain set of roles, we can celebrate the–I think?–inherent differences in us, male and female in the same way that we celebrate the beautiful differences between eagles and lions.

Though it is often taken to extremes through caste systems and legalism and distorted by our pride and insecurities, I think there is a certain order; I just do not know exactly what it is or what the right balance is. Somedays I wonder what it would have been like to be born a white Anglo Saxon protestant male, but I have heard there is a holiness in blooming where you are planted; in learning to accept and work in what is. God can work miracles through a white man that would be very difficult to work through me and can work miracles through me that a white man could not imagine; is this not good?

Looking through a theological lens, I think we were all made to reflect a different aspect of the image of God. No gender, or race, or nation, or profession or work of art , or flock, or natural phenomenon can come close to doing this alone I think. The uncontainable God cannot be perfectly reflected even using the entirety of his seen and unseen creation I think, much less a small sliver of it; but still he shines through us. For the past month or so I have been constantly reminded of the unique way that God is reflected in two very important populations that are often disenfranchised and forgotten by the Church and by the world: women and children. Today, I write about the former.

Again, I am not wise–or perhaps brave is the better word?–to say the things that I think should be, only what I have seen. And I have seen beautiful things. The Bible, the Synaxarium, our histories and many of our folk stories are all disproporionately quiet in regards to women, but as far as I can tell, we have always split the story of God about fifty-fifty. Though we often write the names of men in flashing lights, though they often seek and gain the glory, I think there is a quiet, humble, and world changing glory in the actions of women. They have many roles, to be sure, but the one that tears my heart out again and again is their ability to preserve faith and creation.

They are built for this. Women have several organs that–as far as I can tell with my limited understanding of human anatomy and physiology–serve no other purpose than to preserve and nurture creation. There is something beautiful about the womb, that holy place that keeps a helpless new life developing and growing for nine months; and it is reflected in liturgies and in prayers and in mothers’ love all around the world everyday. The child is sheltered and nurtured while the world rages around it, never knowing more than that its mother is all around it who holds within a gift to the world.

While men are often off finding better ways to destroy the world, women are planting gardens and teaching their children math facts. They are stocking the shelves with groceries and making sure their homes are clean. During periods of persecution in the Church, now and in the past, when the clergy is killed or withdraws, women are often the only link that children have to the Faith. The importance of the matrilineal bloodline to Jewish culture should not be lost on us. Traditionally, young Jewish children are expected to memorize large sections of the Torah; how did this occur while, traditionally, the father was at work? How is it so easy to forget the magnitude of this simple act? If you have given nothing else to the world besides a child that is learning truth and love by heart, you have done a great thing. Though the fathers give the names–what is seen and heard–the mothers give the blood that run through us: I have seen mothers teaching their children entire liturgies, family prayers, Bible verses, the basic truth that they are loved by God and to love the world in turn, and the magnitude of this is beginning to break me.

I think there are few greater callings than the preservation and fostering of good things. This is enacted in many ways by the young and the old, and by men and women alike. But, without having any personal experience to support or understand this, I think there is something in holding a life in you for nine months that gives you a vested interested in the future in ways that men can never fully understand: a man never really has to watch his diet for the sake of an infant or make a personal decision about when the best time to attempt conception is. Honestly, in good and bad ways, after a single night, a father is free to depart to do holy, or mundane, or terrible things in the world. There are good and bad mother and fathers, but more often than not, when a baby is born the mother extends her arms and her heart and her soul to embrace them, and by extension, as Mr. Diaz so eloquently states: maybe even the whole world.

I am beyond blessed to have dozens of men in my life that have invested in me and so many others; men that I can confidently and honestly call father. But many are not so lucky. Disproportionately, from things we can help and things we cannot, women bear the brunt of parenthood in our world. As a black man in America, the extent of my blessing only becomes more evident the more I see an entire ethnic group that has spent too many generations growing up fatherless. There is strange, dark, talk by angry people suggesting that blacks were better off under slavery. While I disagree with the heart of what they say, and I realize that I may be idealizing a whole situation I have no firsthand experience with, there was a time when black women in chains knew they were free already, even as they worked for a different kind of freedom for their children. Now that we have freedom, we seem to have forgotten: some things we can help, and somethings are beyond us, but I pray we listen to our mothers will give our daughters good truths to teach their daughters again. Soon.

We come from auction blocks where families were raped and had their fathers and language and culture ripped from them, to more subtle places of human trafficking where fathers and mothers alike sell themselves to the idols of infidelity, substance abuse, and despair–I am unqualified to speak much more on such things. My soul cries out in joy and wonder and sorrow as I consider where the black community would be–where the world would be–without grandmothers and aunts and big sisters and big cousins and little sisters and on and on…what kind of kid in the hood thinks its fun to push around a stroller, to play house? I know children often only imitate what they see, but there is a certain beauty in the reality that while I was busy trying to figure out how many different weapons I could make out of a stick, my girl was trying to figure out how she was going to make this mud pie into a meal that would nourish my body. I think the sticks are often necessary in a broken world, but thank God for mud pies.

I don’t know what all of this means for our churches and barrios and our society. In my eyes, women are our foundation and our roots. They are unseen and often unsung, but they carry heavy weights and have proven that they will be here when our knees are scraped and when our wars are over. They have the capacity to heal us in ways that nothing else in the world can: my mothers can offer healing and comfort in heartbreaking ways; they use pain to mend wounds and bring relief out of deserts. My sisters and cousins inspire and encourage me in ways that my brothers could only pretend to; they can correct me and guide me in ways that I am often too blind or prideful to accept from another man. So many wives I see offer support and offer a check to pride that no one else in the world could. They offer direction and lend humanity to their husband’s vision, often at the expense of their own; but when they are coupled and each encourages the other, I have seen breathtaking things:

They are there to teach the Stephen Colberts that it is ok to laugh when your hurt and that is ok to laugh with someone you disagree with. They are there to teach the Orson Welles that bedtime stories can change the way the people see the world. They are there to teach the St. Basils of the world what to fight for and what to be patient for and why we pray. They are there to teach the Tupac Shakurs and John Lennons and Paul McCartneys to carry their hopes and dreams and pain in song. Our foundations allow us to take in new things without compromising our roots. A strong foundation gives us the security to love and trust without any expectation of being loved and trusted in return.

I know many wonderful single fathers, fathers that share the burdens of parenthood equally, and fathers that bear the bulk of the burden. I know many people that have never had their own kids for a variety of reasons that are better parents than people with more kids than they can count. For certain, we need roofs and walls and things to fill our house, and our mothers do not, cannot, and should not provide all. Our fathers, our spouses, our children, our teachers, those others we come into contact in the world, and God himself must have space to contribute and live in our house, but at the risk of being painfully literal, we would have no house without our mothers. We are a world that often forgets while our mothers are trying to preserve, but I think there is part of us that, no matter how far we go, will always remember where we began. This is my hope at least.

I do not consider myself an alarmist, but I’d like to think I am a realist, and I am a believer that we are at war. I believe that in our greatest war–the war for our souls–there needs to be those willing to fight and those willing to preserve. There is depression and there is oppression and there is rape and there is exploitation and there is poverty and there is self mutilation and there is apathy and our battlefields go on and on. I believe, by and large, men have proven to have a certain knack for the business of war–running around and doing things, making decisions quickly, smashing idols that need to be smashed–but without the voice of women, without the foundation and healing they provide, all our energies often amount to naught.

By the courageous, ever nurturing, ever preserving love of good mothers and the courageous, ever defending, ever striving love of good fathers, the world is changed and God, I think, is reflected. For certain, as a dude whose love of kids and cooking being at least on par with his love of kicking things and burning things has often caused his own masculinity to be questioned, I know these roles are not the same for us all; but all in all, I’ve seen what I’ve seen and I am inspired, and I am thankful.

God himself, who can make anything out of nothing, chose to incorporate himself into the story of mankind in such a way that Emmanuel, who came as a man was born of a mother, was raised by her, loved and was loved by her, was worried over by her, was mourned by her, was shared by her, and served as a light for her. I have been mostly quiet on this subject as the implications of this leave me, mostly, speechless. So, as always, I am thankful for other words:

“My son, keep your father’s commands and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck…Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her shoe has a husband…He makes the barren woman abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. Alleluia!”
-taken from Proverbs 6:20-21, Psalms 113:9, Isaiah 54:1

To my teenage self,

So I guess around this time of your life you’re probably depressed and all alone waiting for someone to just look at you, notice you, want to know you. You’ve tried reaching out for help and showing a little bit of yourself to people, only to be terrified at the thought of them leaving because of what they will see. You’ve always chased after friends and people because you always give your best efforts with friends. You’ve always had that sense of duty to always check up on them and to always make time for them even if you have studying to do or a test the next day. And the pain and worthlessness you felt when no one would check up on you unless you initiated was so strong, yet you couldn’t express it. You’ve been told that you were too sensitive and you didn’t like how you felt everything much deeper than anyone else would.

Guys were never really your area of expertise. You’ve had feelings for a lot of guys, but none of them seem to have feelings for you back. After a while, you started believing that something must be wrong with you. After all, you’ve put on your best self and they still didn’t like it.

You’ve always longed for something more or someone to share thoughts or emotions with. Someone to give your everything to, someone to tell you its all going to be ok. Someone to fix you, to look at you – to really look inside – and not be afraid or run away. Your heart is aching, your spirit is downcast, you need help and don’t know why or where to turn.

In about 4 more years you’ll meet this guy, he’s a church guy, so even better, right? He’s finally here! You’ve prayed to God for someone for so long! You even told God that you’d rather wait a while until the right person comes along as long as he’s the one! And it happened! Someone who you finally get to share and give your everything to! Your thoughts, your feelings, your deepest fears, and mistakes. Sweetheart, you’re going to let this guy into the deepest part of your heart, you’re going to ignore all the signs that maybe this isn’t a good idea. You’re aware of the signs, but you’re willing to look past them and work together to fix them, because that’s what you do in relationships. It’s a partnership; you’re responsible for each other. But, we both know you have this trait that’s not exactly a good thing or a bad thing. When you fall, you fall hard – you give everything you’ve got to something. You don’t hold back. It’s all or nothing.

Well, that’s exactly what you’re going to do in that relationship. You’re going to give him everything; emotionally, physically, and mentally. And it doesn’t feel wrong or anything because that’s what you thought you’re meant to do. God was an essential part in the beginning of your relationship, but slowly, over time you lost track of Him. You started becoming more focused on him, and he became your world. Everything revolved around him. You couldn’t do anything or be upset about anything without talking to him. And let me mention that it was not easy, we both know how hard it is for you to trust someone. But, he did it! He earned that trust. He even promised he’d never leave you and said all these sweet things to you.

Well, as you turned your eyes away from Him and put it on him, desires came in and were “satisfied”. Problems came in and were “dealt with”. You were both each other’s everything for a while. And when you felt bad or distant from God, you took breaks from each other to help “focus on God.” But you couldn’t stay away; he could, but you couldn’t. And when there were problems and there was no one to turn to, then you turned to God. Everything was ok.

He told you that you made him a better person. You thought your were happy. You put him first, above all else. You tried putting him second, but you get so consumed with your emotions that you just can’t help it. This is your weakness. Well, he’s the one, right? Everything is good, right? He accepted you for who you are, and you accepted him for all he is, so what else could you ask for? Oh, did I mention that he promised he’d never ever leave you? Dude, he loves you, right?

Wrong.

This guy will leave you, abandon you, take away everything you ever hung on to, everything you believed, and he will do it without any gentleness or love. He will leave without a good reason. You will go crazy trying to figure out where you went wrong; what did you do wrong? Did you share too much information? Were you too dependent? Were you too ‘down’ emotionally?

You finally had someone and you gave him everything! And now everything you thought you knew meant nothing. Your emotions and your attachment had no value. You world will turn upside down. You will make yourself sick with the amount of thinking and attempting to figure out where you went wrong. You will beg and plead with him to fix this together You will change anything he wants, as long as he stays!!!

Sweetheart, your value does not depend on him. You are more than that. You are not worthless; you are the daughter of King of Kings. You need to hold yourself up in that standard. God has called you by your name and has great plans for you.

A boy who isn’t sure about what he wants even though he seemed 110% sure is not someone who is ready to be in a relationship. The reason he gave you for leaving was that God had told him so. He needs to get closer to God and he cannot manage to do that within a relationship. And that, added on more pressure and confusion to your world. What did that mean? Did that mean I’m causing him to sin? Am I taking him away from God? Am I against God? Am I God’s enemy??

It will take a bit of time until you get all the answers you need. There are still some unanswered questions, but you will realize that you don’t need to know – in fact, it doesn’t change anything.

By this happening, you were forced to seek God for comfort and answers. Your relationship with God began to heal and really start unfolding. God became (always was and will be) your Saviour, Helper, Healer, Father, and Love. You will begin to see all the sins and mistakes you have made that you were unaware of. They will haunt you and the memories will be hard to bear. But, by the grace of God you will get through it. This experience, though it was the most painful thing you have ever endured, was necessary for you to gain an incredible thing – an intimate relationship with Christ. You will find everything you need and want in God! Everything that you thought relationships were designed to fulfill is what you’re supposed to seek from God because He is love in all its fullness!

You will start to really understand what love is and you will cry at God’s act of love. There, your world will begin again with Him. You will begin to see everything from a different perspective when you’re so focused on Him! You will even thank Him everyday from saving you from a relationship that was going in the wrong direction. You will put your trust and faith in Him because God is good all the time. You will begin to see that your desire and thirst for something more is indeed satisfied by God. His power is made perfect in your weakness and you will experience that first hand. You will look back and wonder how you ever got this far. It is not by your strength (I still remember when you were sitting in your room for months crying your heart out and unable to do anything), but it is by His grace, mercy, and strength. He saved you, He carried you through. You came to Him naked and he clothed you. He gave you comfort, peace, and love.

And now, you will be careful with everything. You will find your worth in Him who created you. You will want to be so transparent just to allow others to see God through you. You will want to spread joy and love to others. You will want to talk to Him and know Him more. Because that endless thirst for something more, He’s got it. He is Love. He is gentle, calm, loving, kind, and He loves you. Draw near to Him every day, seek him in everything you do. Seek his peace and His presence daily. Whatever you do, do not stop talking to Him. You always feel His presence and His hand in the toughest times. Do not be discouraged when you don’t feel His presence. Rest in the fact that He is there and will never leave you. For real this time. He’s been there all along. You were just too stubborn to see it.

Love,

“The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live”

Deuteronomy 30:19

Nothing, you see, equals prayer: it makes the impossible possible, the difficult easy, and renders the crooked way straight. Blessed David also practiced it, and hence said,

“Seven times a day I praised you for the judgments of your righteousness” (Psalm 119).

Now if a king, a man immersed in countless concerns and beset from every quarter, beseeches God so many times a day, what excuse or pardon would we have, with so much free time on our hands, not to implore him incessantly, especially as this puts us in a position to reap such benefit? It is inconceivable, in fact, inconceivable that someone praying with due fervor and constantly beseeching God should ever sin. Why this is so, I shall tell you. The person who enkindles his attention, lifts up his soul, transports himself to heaven, and thus calls upon his Lord, remembering his sin, speaking to him about pardon for them and begging him to be merciful and mild sets aside every worldly concern through the time spent in this converse, takes wing and becomes exalted above the human passions. He is not distracted by the sight, even of a comely woman the ardor of his prayer abiding within him and dispelling every untoward thought. Being human, however, it is likely that you relapse even into sloth when an hour or two or three has passed after prayer, and you notice the ardor you have developed about to evaporate gradually; then betake yourself promptly to prayer again and rekindle your cooling attention.

If you do this throughout the day, maintaining your fervor at intervals with the frequency of your prayers, you will not give the devil an occasion and admission to assault your thoughts. And as we do when having lunch and on the point of taking a drink, when we notice the hot water has cooled down, we put it on the stove again for it to be quickly heated, let us act likewise in this case also, and by giving our mouth to prayer as though onto hot coals, let us rekindle our mind once again with piety. Let us imitate the builders: when they are getting ready to build with bricks, on account of the fragility of the material they support the building with long timbers, doing this not at great intervals but at short ones so as to make the binding of the bricks firmer through the closeness of these timbers. Do this in your case, too, and fence your life around on every side by interspersing your worldly activities with constant prayers as though with wooden binding. If, then, you act in this way, even should countless winds later blow, even should trials, discouragement, disagreeable thoughts of some kind, trouble of whatever sort befall, they will not succeed in demolishing that house held together in this way by frequent prayers.

How is it possible, you ask, for a man of the world, tied to the bench, to pray three times a day and betake himself to church? It is possible and quite simple: even if heading off to church is not manageable, it is possible even for the man tied to the bench to stand there in the vestibule and pray. After all, there is not such need for words as for thoughts, for outstretched hands as for a disciplined soul, for deportment as for attitude, since Hannah herself was heard not for uttering a loud and clear cry but for calling out loudly inside in the heart:

“Her voice was not audible, but the Lord hearkened to her,” (1 Samuel 1:13,19)

the text says, note. Many other people also did this in many cases, despite the officer calling out from inside, threatening, ranting and raving, while they stood in the porch making the sign of the cross and saying a few prayers in their mind, and then going in and transforming and soothing him, turning him from wild to mild. They were not prevented from praying like this by the place or the time or the absence of words. Do likewise yourself: groan deeply, recall your sins, gaze towards heaven, say in your mind, ‘Have mercy on me, O God,” and you have completed your prayer. The one who said “Have mercy,” after all, gave evidence of confession, and acknowledged their own sins: it belongs to sinners to have mercy shown. The one who said “Have mercy on me” received pardon for their faults: the one to whom mercy has been shown is not punished. The one who said “Have mercy” attained the kingdom of heaven: the one on whom God will have mercy he not only frees from sin but also judges worthy of the future goods.

Accordingly, let us not make excuses, claiming a house of prayer is not close by: if we have the right dispositions, the grace of the Spirit made us personally temples of God, and there is ease for us in every respect. Our worship, after all, is not of the kind that formerly prevailed among the Jews, which was long on appearance but short on reality. In that case, you see, the worshiper had to go up to the temple, buy a turtle-dove, get hold of wood and fire, take sword in hand, appear before the altar, and carry out many other requirements. In our case, on the other hand, it is not like that: wherever you are, you have the altar with you, the sword, and the victim, you yourself being priest and altar and victim. In other words, wherever you are, you can set up the altar, giving evidence only of an attentive will, place being not an obstacle, time no hindrance; even if you do not go down on your knees, do not strike your breast or raise your hands to heaven, and merely demonstrate an ardent disposition, you have completed the whole of the prayer. It is possible for a woman with distaff in hand working at the loom to gaze towards heaven in her mind and call upon God with ardor; it is possible for a man venturing into the marketplace and walking by himself to pray with attention, and for someone seated at the workbench sewing skins to direct his soul to the Lord; it is possible for a servant making purchases and running hither and yon, or standing in the kitchen, when there is no possibility of going to church, to pray attentively and ardently. Place is not something God is ashamed of: he looks for one thing only, a fervent mind and sober spirit.

For you to learn that there is no need at all of appearance or places or times, but of a generous and ardent disposition, Paul was lying on his back in prison and not standing up (the stocks fastening his feet did not allow it, after all) when the prison shook while he was praying zealously as he lay down, the foundations were moved, the guard was terrified, and Paul later conducted him to the sacred rites of initiation (Acts 16). Likewise Hezekiah was not standing upright nor on his knees, but was lying on his back in bed on account of sickness, facing the wall, when he ardently called on God with a sober spirit, recalled he sentence passed on him, won a great favor and regained his former good health (2 Kings 20). You would find this happening not only with holy and important men but also with wicked ones: the brigand was not standing in a house of prayer nor on his knees, but stretched out on the cross, when with a few words he attained to the kingdom of heaven (Luke 23) another man was in a deep pit (Jeremiah 38) another in a den of wild beasts (Daniel 6) still another in the very belly of a sea monster (Jonah 1), when calling upon God they dispelled all the troubles besetting them and won favor from on high

In saying this, 1 exhort you unceasingly to keep up the habit of visiting the churches and praying at home in tranquility, and when time allows going on your knees and stretching out your hands. If, however, we are caught up by reason of time or place with a crowd of people, let us not on that account abandon prayer, but in the fashion I mentioned to your good selves pray and beseech God in the conviction of gaining your petition nonetheless with that prayer. I said as much, not for you to applaud and marvel, but for you to practice this yourselves, night time and day time, interspersing the time of work with prayers and petitions. If we manage our affairs this way, we shall both pass this life securely and also attain the kingdom of heaven.

Reference: Old Testament Homilies, St, John Chrysostom, Volume One, Homilies on Hannah, Translated by Robert Hill, Holy Cross Orthodox Press.