Chapter Nine. Strangled by the Hedge of Thorns

Exchanged Glory V: God Meant it for Good

At each step, I grieve new and larger losses (my health, my ability to relate to women, perhaps my job …). …I lose more respect for myself, and my attempts at Acceptance and Contentment become increasingly strained.

Deeper into Trouble

Fortunately, Brokenness was as far as I got on the Sinful Behaviors and Attitudes side of the Emotion Commotion Chart. For the sake of completeness, however, I will describe what might have happened if God hadn’t rescued me.

I was scheduled to get married less than a year after entering my state of Brokenness. If I had continued in my downward spiral until the time of my wedding, it would have been best to delay or call off the marriage. My wife would have been walking into a set of problems that would have caused her great pain, and her presence would have greatly complicated everything.

Since I am not one to hide my sins, I would have told her exactly what I was doing. She would have pleaded with me to repent, and I would have tried and failed, breaking her heart. This would have continued until we had major marital problems or a divorce on our hands. She would have been deeply hurt, and I would have had even greater Fear, Guilt, Anger, and Sorrow to deal with, which would have pushed me even deeper into the fetish.

If we decided to call off the marriage, I would have found myself without the positive experience of a normal sexual relationship, which would have created an entirely different set of problems. My abnormal sexual desires would have tempted me toward more and more extreme expressions of the fetish. Eventually, smoking and privately acting out would not have been enough, and I would have felt compelled to establish a relationship with a woman who smoked. In time, even that would not have been enough. I would have been driven toward more smoking, women, and other sins. Who knows where it all would have all ended? The following is just one of many possible destructive scenarios.

Contentment

It is possible that I would eventually have all but given up on God’s plan and embraced the full-blown hedge of thorns shown in Figure 13.

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Now all of the arrows in the Emotion Commotion Chart lead to sin. Please notice the highlighted parts of the chart (which show the differences between Figure 12 on page 58 and Figure 13). First, the arrows from Fun Emotions and Desires, Self-Control, and Brokenness to Obedient Behavior and Attitudes have been removed. I have concluded that God has functionally abandoned me, so I stop looking to Him. It seems that if He is there at all, He obviously can’t handle “the real me.” Maybe He just doesn’t care enough, or maybe I am too much of a problem for Him. Whatever the reason, I am better off devoting my efforts to being “true to myself” than to pursing a powerless religion.

I am now willfully and self-consciously indulging in the fetish. I believe it is better to plan and act on my desires than to resist them (the highlighted arrow from Self-Control to the Sinful Behavior and Attitudes box). I am now a full-blown prodigal straying from home toward a pig pen, yet it feels as if I am fulfilling the deepest longings of my heart – following the only path I can. I will not turn around until I hit bottom. Even then, I might choose to die rather than to trust Jesus again.

As the hedge of thorns takes full control, my perception of Brokenness changes. I no longer see it as a condition in which God’s strength will work. Instead, it is now my normal inescapable state. I might even think of it as “the way God made me.” I conclude that my only realistic option is to Accept my lot in life and enjoy it as best I can (the arrow from the Brokenness box to the Contentment box).

There will be some negative consequences (lung disease, an abnormal sex life …), but why worry about these when there are so many advantages? If nothing else, at least I don’t feel like I <page 62>am living a lie. And along with that, the fetish not only stabilizes my emotions, it also provides a tremendous amount of pleasure. I am living a life that is the equivalent of sexual foreplay and pornography all day long, with release through sex or privately acting out whenever possible. It is as if I am living in my own personal playboy mansion.

Since I am surrounded by smokers, there is no practical way to leave the mansion. I see no hope of resisting, and why would I want to? Why fight something that seems so wonderful in order to seek a life that is humanly impossible? I had tried to do so for the eight years I sought Jesus, and it had led me toward insanity. I conclude I might as well find what Contentment I can in the middle of the joys and sorrows of my unique condition (the arrow from the Contentment box to the Sinful Behavior and Attitudes box).

Suicide

Contentment gives me temporary relief from my Fear, Guilt, Anger, and Sorrow, and I am able to return to living more out of Fun Emotions and Desires and Self-Control for a time. My heart finds a sense of liberation that seems to justify my decision. I have decided that “stuffy religion” has failed me. It hasn’t allowed me to embrace the passionate emotions that are so much a part of enjoying life: erotic love, strong drives, childlike delight …. Though these emotions have led me into a strange fetish, at least they are an honest expression of my heart. They are better than forcing myself to live by a set of Christian rules which are out of touch with my humanity.

Tragically, however, addiction isn’t static. The hedge of thorns grows over time. The nature of the fetish does not allow me to find a place of peace in indulgence. It drives me to smoke and pursue sexual activity with reckless abandon.

Eventually it pushes me beyond what my health can bear, and I reach the point where the natural weaknesses of my respiratory system break under the strain. Asthma grows worse and is joined by other diseases.

How do I handle these complications? I try to quit smoking, but I fail. (Let’s face it, if I couldn’t keep myself from smoking before I started, what chance would I have had once I had done it for many years?) My repeated failures lead to greater and greater Brokenness. At each step, I Grieve new and larger losses (my health, my ability to relate to women, my job …).

The illusion that the fetish is helping me with daily life has now lost all connection with reality. I lose more respect for myself, and my attempts at Acceptance and Contentment become increasingly strained. (How much Contentment can a person find when they know they are killing themselves for something so pointless?)

In my distress, I turn to alcohol and prescription drugs to ease my plight. As my losses mount, I wonder why I am hanging onto life at all. Respiratory disease is a horrible way to die. Panic strikes my heart as I gasp for air. I feel like I am slowly drowning in my own phlegm.

The cycle of Pain intensifies, and there is little Pleasure to counteract it. Eventually I decide that it is too much to bear. In order to find the easiest way into the inevitable, I choose to make the final leap into death through suicide.

The hedge of thorns has, at last, strangled me.

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