I have a list and I hate it. On that list is everything the Holy Spirit brought to mind when I was getting right with my wife. It shocked me
It is a list of those I committed adultery with. My wife has seen it. We have talked through it.
That list is disgusting and vile, and it is a shame to even think about.
But I do think about it, way more often than I want to.
If your conscience is clean, then you are blessed. A defiled conscience brings crippling memories with it, memories that I would give almost anything to forget.
Some of the memories are vague and hazy with time and some are still sharp and pointed. Some should be easy for the mind to forget because the experience and person involved were repugnant – others bring greater shame still because the person involved was not repugnant.
Even more, shame comes at the knowledge that I helped indirectly keep some of the girls in an industry that destroys lives. Rather than helping them out or witnessing to them I became a contributing factor to their sin. I wish I could go warn them now, but who listens to a hypocrite? The guilt I felt at the time over my inability to witness to a soul that had shared intimacy with me was often intense. How much greater is that shame now!
The list of those I have committed physical adultery with is huge, but it pales in comparison to those I have mentally sinned with. I am still shaken to the core by the revelation of the enormity of my sins. I have lusted after so many women. Every woman is beautiful in her own way, and their beauty is not a crime or a sin. My sin was lusting after them. Matthew 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
I still carry in my head thousands of memories and dozens of names that can trigger an instant recollection of a face and body. You develop favorites when you dive into porn, and I can probably name more triple-x stars than you can Hollywood actors. They pop up in the mainstream news with alarming regularity as porn becomes mainstream. Its not something to brag about – it is a perpetual grief of mind and soul. I have seen so much that I shouldn’t have. Sometimes people remind me of someone – and then I am ashamed later when I realize that they remind me of a porn star. Sounds and songs can also cause me trouble. Innocent places on God’s earth where I committed sin have become charnel houses for my wife and me. My memory has become a minefield.
There is the illicit knowledge that I shouldn’t know also. God knew what he was doing when He forbid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because there is pleasure in sin for a season – but the ruin sin wreaks brings pain beyond measure. Curiosity over forbidden knowledge opened Pandora’s Box – and it can never be shut for me again. I wish it could be. I am polluted, and only God’s grace gives me hope.
Being able to adjust memories is a popular theme in science fiction. I know why, for I would almost lose all of the good memories to get rid of the vile ones. They are a torment to my soul.
I have in particular two images I want to erase more than anything, but I can’t. They are both stuck forever.
One is the first pornographic magazine I ever read intentionally. The images are burned in, and I cannot forget, though I have tried a million times.
The other… is my wife screaming in horror and pain as she collapsed on the floor in shock from the brutal truth of my sin.
The first memory is the father of the last. Don’t start. The memories might kill you –
But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. Proverbs 6:32-33
Learning to Run 