My favorite time of day is the morning, between 5 and 6am, when the world is waking up. The warmth and light of the sun is present, but not yet bright enough to allow for a clear contrast of colors; everything looks gray. The grass is damp from the morning’s mist, the air still brisk. Often  I find myself looking out the window over the headboard of my bed, watching the cold of the early morning be burnt away, thinking about the troubles and pains of life, and about things I could and should do differently. The gray morning, it’s magical. It’s peaceful, but anxious. It’s sleeping, it’s alive. It’s wet, it’s dry. It’s boring, it’s interesting.

I think the gray morning is my favorite time of day, because it is symbolic of how I feel about my life. There is so much potential, so much good, so many things I can accomplish, but I’m afraid to step out of the dark, to run out the door and burn away the sin I find so much comfort in. Most of you have heard my testimony and know that I have struggled with pornography since middle school. The ugliness of this sin really is appalling, and I always tell myself after an episode that I won’t do it again, and yet I find myself the next day, turned on by the smallest thing, and yet another episode. It really is disgusting, and I feel almost inhuman afterwards. The thought of what I have just witnessed, and the affect it will have on the relationship I have with my friends and hopefully a wife and family someday, pains me to the point of not wanting to get up, for fear of participating in such an activity again. And yet I know that victory without a fight is no victory at all. It is rather a foolish manuever to avoid change, to keep things the same, to bask in the comfortability of habit and familiarity. To move forward, without actually moving. (more…)