Upright in a prostrate position.

Random quotes that I’m seeing around:

On the answering machine of a wrong number I accidentally called and left a message on about missing class:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. God bless.”

Written on a coffee mug, laid upside down on a white rag, drying, white on black:

For I know the plans
I have for you
declares the Lord,
plans to prosper you
and not harm you,
plans to give you
hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

On the toilet last night, I, for a fleeting moment, allowed God to talk to me in the middle of my sinning. I said, “do you promise?” I was referring to, in my head, the promise of a wife.

I didn’t get a yes or no, but I did get, “I’m here, in this bathroom, trust in Me.” I whined quietly like a hurt dog, and then I went back to my room and continued on.

As the night wore on, a phrase from Romans kept repeating in my head. “So God gave them over to their — ” and I would stop, because I’d forget the word used, and then say it again, “and God gave them over to,” and I read this now, “a debased mind” or “the lust of their hearts” or “dishonorable passions”; I word it “perversion”.

I woke up tired and hung-over (I didn’t drink, but I swear, I have just as bad a hang-over after I binge, just more where my mind is) and I hadn’t memorized my Spanish speech (which would have been accomplished in a quarter of the time it ultimately ended up taking me to satisfy my unholy lust), and so I risked my education, again, for trivial pursuits.

I have a friend who used to be addicted to heroin, and he was a rock star, and he’s not christian but his friend in the business saved him, stayed with him for a week as he went through withdrawal, made sure that he didn’t revert back in that, the most important of times. My friend is eternally grateful to this guy, who quite literally saved his life, and apparently does this a lot in the Hollywood scene, since he used to be an addict himself. I was hoping for and dreading that my step-father would hear me in my room at 4 in the morning, bang on my door without stopping, and yell, “Jon, open the door Right Now. Right Now, Open The Door” and stop me. And how embarrassed and ashamed I would have been, and how grateful and filled with love I would have been. I wanted to stop, you see? But I couldn’t stop myself.

I’m going to talk to my pastor today, and be upfront with him about my addiction, and ask to be held accountable, because I need this to be in the light, I can’t and shouldn’t hide this anymore.

As I went to bed last night and when I woke up this morning, I had this webpage opened up in my browser (from before the time I gave in again); a (I would assume) Catholic website for help with pornography addiction, and this is the quote that I read both times:

“The sinner who feels within himself a total deprivation of all that is holy, pure, and solemn because of sin, the sinner who in his own eyes is in utter darkness, severed from the hope of salvation, from the light of life, and from the communion of saints, is himself the friend whom Jesus invited to dinner, the one who was asked to come out from behind the hedges, the one asked to be a partner in His wedding and an heir to God… Whoever is poor, hungry, sinful, fallen or ignorant is the guest of Christ.”

— Matthew the Poor

Today I drove to work with not a doubt in my mind about Jesus. I’ve remembered why I need him so much. To see the hopelessness of me, and the separation that I cause between myself and my Father, there’s just no other way to bridge that gap. Ever since I became a christian, I’ve tried to understand what the point of Christmas is, and today I had tears in my eyes and could barely see the road I was driving on, and God has never seemed so clear to me. The need for Jesus, how totally undeserving we are, I am, and the love that seems to come alive around everybody during Christmas, I am just so grateful for this time. Love is so alive, and yeah it’d be great if it were always like that, all year round, but we’re human and not all of us really give a crap about God (certainly none of us all the time); it’s cool that the birth of Christ has become a time of grace and gift and smiles for most of this world.