The Real April Fool
Carl Thomas
Pastor | Live Free Founder | Lover of Jesus, Philly sports, fitness, tattoos, sarcasm, and craft beers.
Around 15 years ago, when I was still struggling with daily porn use, I felt tremendously ill. I still remember that night so clearly.
This was roughly a month after our first child was born.
Anyway, I was so horribly ill that I literally thought that I was going to die. In fact, I thought God was “taking me out,” probably because of a lot of things, but mostly due to my lifelong addiction to porn that I had brazenly embraced and ignored for over a decade.
So, around 2:00 AM I foolishly (and selfishly) decided that if I was going to go, I should get this stuff off my chest to my wife before I took my exit.
So, I woke her up crying and came clean about my porn addiction.
Surprisingly, she looked relieved. I didn’t understand why at the moment, but regardless, she took it rather well.
Then we both went back to sleep.
Spoiler alert…
I didn’t die. I just had pneumonia as it turned out.
And so over the following days, months, and even years I began my long journey of “recovery. Except I really didn’t work on my recovery at all.
REAL PEOPLE. REAL COMMUNITY. REAL FREEDOM.
Stop Simply Surviving & Start Thriving
Join the Live Free CommunityI just thought that I had because since I had come clean, I should have been able to just turn this stuff off and see it all go away.
Well, I’m sure by now you realize it didn’t.
So over the next 5-6 years, my wife would occasionally check in with me and ask me how I was doing.
Sometimes I was honest.
Sometimes I was not so honest.
The whole time I was just fooling myself into thinking that I had this thing handled and would eventually get things right. And that I could continue with being half honest with my wife along the way so as not to cause any more rifts or problems in our marriage.
What a fool was I.
Now, 15 years later, looking back on that time in my life, I realize how insane some of my thinking was
First, I thought God was going to kill me because of my issues. Obviously I was wrong on that one. God doesn’t work that way 🤷🏻
Second, I thought by just coming clean and buckling down I could get free of that stuff and clearly that wasn’t the case either since I continued my behavior for a good six to seven years after.
Third, I believed that I could get right on my own and eventually beat this thing. That was not the case either since I didn’t really turn the corner until I started talking to someone about my issues.
Fourth, I thought I could be half honest with my wife and preserve the trust and love we had in our marriage along the way. But truth be told, she’ll tell me now that she knew I was lying all along. And the only thing that hurt worse than my porn use… was my lies.
Silly me.
I thought I had everyone fooled. And at the end of the day, the only one that was the real fool was myself.
If you’re struggling with porn or other unwanted sexual behaviors, and you’re still thinking that you can beat this thing on your own, that you can continue to hide the truth from those you love, and that eventually it will all go away like a bad dream… You are just fooling yourself.
There’s no way around it.
It’s one of the worst April fools jokes you’ll ever play (on yourself) in your life.
Don’t be the fool.
Recognize the problem and reach out to get some help. Get into a supportive community and eventually you can find freedom and live the life that you’ve always wanted, but without the lies and without having to fool anybody.
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