TRUE LIFE CONFESSION: ‘I Always Masturbate On Sunday Morning Before Going To Church’

What started as just a one-time relief, masturbation has now taken over a 30-year-old young man’s life.

Below is a true life story of James and his fight against masturbation:

I’m James, 30, and single. The fear of contracting HIV and the need to stick to the Christian teaching of abstaining from sex before marriage have held me in a puzzle.

I am confused about how to satisfy my sexual desires without going against Christian values. I want to get married and even search for a partner but I seem not to find any, yet I continue to have these huge sexual desires.

Sometimes I think about getting a woman whose sole role is to satisfy my sexual needs. Although these seem available, I fear contracting HIV because I can’t trust women one meets and sleeps with on the same day.

This is why I resorted to masturbation which has now held me captive. When I started doing it at university about 10 years ago, I didn’t know I was laying a trap for myself. I am like a bird caught in a trap with no idea of how to get out.

Starting the practice
I knew the church’s teaching on abstinence until marriage is a good principle to live by but my sexual urges kept increasing. One day the pressure was so high on me I decided to masturbate. I did not like what I did.

The short time excitement turned into an unpleasant experience. I was so full of remorse that I immediately repented, vowing never to do it again. But after about four or so weeks, I went against my vows. The slightest things like listening to a song or reading something with sexual undertones aroused my desires.

I would end up masturbating sometimes three or four times a week. I realised that pornography might accelerate my ordeals so I avoided it but I could not stop masturbating. Sometimes I do so on Sunday morning before going to church. I am only lucky that nobody at church realises it otherwise if they were to chase away sinners, I would have already been thrown out. I feel very guilty. I hate it yet I do it.

Confusion and frustrations
I once thought of finding a woman outside church, that I could have sex with but abstain from church girls but realised it very foolish and decided to drop it.

Now I don’t admire people by their appearance because some people appear good when they do awful things. For instance, some young people might have been admiring me for not messing up with church girls yet what I do is equally sinful.

The harm
What is even more frustrating about masturbation is the way I do it. Generally, I tend to feel pain in my pelvic area. I realised I was harming myself. This was enough reason for me to abandon the dirty act but did I?
Instead it reached a level when it was so easy for me to do it. I often find myself so powerless yet with a strong urge to do it. It is like I lose my senses in the process.

After doing it, remorse comes in, a feeling of self-betrayal and being angry with God wondering why He doesn’t help me when he sees my heart bleeding for doing what I hate doing! Then I feel I am being harsh on God. I repent, breaking all curses and demons that there might be, only to do it again.

Fear to confess
I fear talking to anyone about it. I know that confessing is one proven way of breaking a habit but how can I do that? Friends look to me with respect so how can I confess to them that I commit this terrible sin, how? I chose to fight my battle alone.

I have now spent some time without doing it but I am not sure I have completely overcome it. In the past, I have spent three or four months without masturbating only to do it again. So I am not sure I have broken it. I hope I have.