In October of 2022, I found myself in the beginnings of a sexual, codependent, same-sex relationship/friendship. As time went on, we grew closer and closer. With that, our actions became more and more intimate. We fell time and time again for our desires. January 2023, when I traveled to Spain for my DTS (Discipleship Training School). For that period of time from January to June, the Lord had done some incredible identity work in me. With this change in me came a change in my desires for this sinful relationship/friendship that I was in. Nearing the end of the DTS, I decided to go to my mentor that I was assigned for the school and inform her of this relationship/friendship that I'm in. I told her a small portion of what our friendship had looked like and that I wanted to stop these reoccurring sins from happening. She gave me the advice to start making boundaries with her. Throughout that call, my mentor and I made a list of important boundaries. Along with the mutual decision for her to continue to mentor me while I was in the States.
I came back to the States and explained more in detail to my friend the boundaries that I set in place. She showed her disagreement for these boundaries, and from that time on, that was a slow degression of all the boundaries that I had set. Through the summer, I lied to my mentor that it was no longer necessary to have these boundaries and that our friendship was healthy once again. I continued to lie to my mentor about what was truly happening between us. As the rest of 2023 went on, our actions slowly began to revert to what they were in 2022.
Through out my time in my school, I had made the decision to come and join staff at this base in Spain. In January of 2024, it was time for me to leave back to Spain to staff the next DTS starting that month. Soon before and after I arrived in Spain, I was wrestling with the convictions that were now coming to the surface. The more time I spent in Spain that week, the worse the burden of this conviction felt. That first mentor time that I had since arriving in Spain, I confessed everything to my mentor. I confessed to her what had continued to happen with my friend and me and how I had been lying to her about it. I asked for her forgiveness. She walked me through a few steps and then recommended that with this codependent friendship/relationship, it was best to end it as soon as possible. That afternoon, this is what I ended up doing. I sent her a message, apologizing for my wrong actions. I let her know that we no longer would be friends.
Several months after that, in June 2024, I was talking with a couple friends, and I blurted something that had implied one concept out of the many that I learned in the early half of 2024. "Sexual sin has nothing to do with you fighting or defeating your sin; it has to do with fleeing from it." This was the very thing that God was teaching me all of 2024: how to properly flee from my sin and temptation. With this epiphany hitting my mind, it caused me to reflect on the past 6 months since ending my friendship. I realized that the whole time I had spent with this friend of mine was dancing around at different distances of sin and temptation, and I never really fled. This was the first time ever I actually fled from this unhealthy friendship that I was in. The first step to any sort of temptation is to flee. (2 Timothy 2:22) This was my first step to freedom from an unhealthy friendship/relationship and freedom from sexual immorality.
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