Islander

I am truly sorry you are going thru this challenge. I have read your post carefully. What I am about to say comes from many years of experience in these maters. Ultimately, you MUST gather as much information as you can about these issues, consult specialists and educate yourself thoroughly before you make a decision. Since you have no family as of yet, you have time to determine what your next step will be. Pornography is a serious addiction. It deal with quite sophisticated and primal responses of the brain that are rooted deep in our developmental history. It is very likely that your husband has been struggling with this since he was a teen. So, there is nearly a decade of addiction, failed promises to himself, intervention and relapse. It is a well documented fact that pornography addiction can last decades and well until middle age. This has absolutely nothing to do with you and there is very little you can do, specifically, to curb his addiction. These are very intricate outlines of visual recall-ideation and arousal response that create a pattern of behavior that is extremely difficult to break. It may sound like I am quite pessimistic. Well, I am just trying to be pragmatic and accurate. Difficult as it may be for you right now, a hard choice and a season of pain are always better than a life of misery and regrets. Your feelings can NOT cloud your intellect. So, this HAS to be a rational decision. My prayers are with you.

You failed to see that it is ONLY an experiment for you. Many already have done their experiment so the process is well documented. If your outcome is different, it is obvious the flaw is in the process as far as you applied it.

Amen When the "Soviets" ran out of money, they broke away from the dead weight of the "republics" and left them to their own devices. They are now calling themselves "Russians" By the way, not a peep about the economic disaster they created for 70 years and the millions that died of starvation.

It is interesting that the proponents of socialism are always speaking of it in a vacuum. They are, invariable, either the political elite that arrogantly believe they know better, or the grossly uninformed about what such systems really entail. They should renounce their US citizenship and go live in Cuba or China like a regular citizen and see how much they like it

Please bring the laugh button back!!! Pam!!!!

Soninme said: "Or.........His word is complete. 2Timothy3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Every means every, so what else do we need to know? Therefore we have all we need and our commission is to take THAT message to all nations. OK, but unless you are a Catholic Priest and a follower of the Universal Church, who was the first after the traditions and teachings of Peter, the Bishop of Rome and keeper of the keys of the Faith you are not authorized to teach or preach. For you are not ordained and schooled in the ancient languages and in the secrets of the sacrament of the Latin Rites. Right? Not to deride but to point out that some make claims that would, on its face, invalidate your position. You seem very keen to repeating what you have been taught rather than studying on your own and inquire as to our point of view. You are making the same mistake the Jewish people made when the Savior came. They had scripture from God, history and prophets. They thought they needed no more prophets, truth or God's direct instruction. But they did! Because after a while, people forget, they abandon the true doctrine and the commandments, they change the law, they corrupt the ordinance and they transgress the covenant. In fact, those that claim that they already know (scribes, pharisees and the like) are just too eager to showcase their greater intellect and insight to the point of rejecting the living prophets of God (see also 3 John 9-10). It happened then and it is happening now. That is why the word of God does not stop, it never has and the evidence rests in the fact that we have scripture that encompasses almost 5,000 years! I guess God could have said it was enough at some point since they had ALL they needed in their time!!! Why would the Lord call another Apostle to the ministry some 30 years after the crucifixion? After all 12 Apostles had been called, many already killed and the work was underway. Because it is His Church and the work rests on His Living word thru prophets and Apostles that bring correct teaching and doctrine and not on the understanding, acquired knowledge or the belief of men.

You can not be happy away from God, for it is HIM who defines happiness. We can seek euphoria and ecstasy thru thrills and intoxication with the ever growing need for more edgy and dangerous activities to achieve such emotional states. But we will never be happy involved in (whatever) activities away from, and at times, contrary to the will of God. In the distant past, I walked thru very "promising" paths and what seemed, at the time, very worthy endeavors. Inspite of the public acceptance and accolade for my achievements I could not find happiness. It eluded me until I found and embraced the Gospel. Excluding medical conditions, depression is symptom with underlying causes varied and complex but always evidence of our distance from our Heavenly Father.

Whenever that was in the eternities! Infinity plus or minus one = infinity! He was the First, the ONLY Begotten of the Father and was with HIM from the beginning. He was is and forever will be God. You are NOT reading the scriptures. ALL things were made by Him. One second after or a million years it makes no real different when infinity is involved.

Oh, that is a fairly easy one! "In the beginning [of eternity] was the Word [Christ] , and the Word [Christ] was with God, and the Word [Christ] was God. The same was in the beginning [of eternity] with God. All things were made by him [the Word-Christ]; and without him [the Word-Christ] was not any thing made that was made. In him [the Word-Christ] was alife; and the life was the light of men. And the alight shineth in bdarkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." John 1:1-6 English lacks the ability to express time in such magnitude. Christ was and is from eternity to eternity

Your description and assertion that the creeds and councils held 300 years after Christ as "biblical" denotes your limited knowledge of the subject. Those traditions are no different from the rabbinic hedge and traditions the Jewish rabbis developed that the very Christ publicly rebuked and chastise. They were based on theo-sophical and historical interpretations rather than revelation and truth. Nobody questions your devotion and faith. All we are saying is that by your very words based on your adherence to the the creeds, a Rabbi would declare you a polytheist since you claim that there is a Father-God, a Son-God and a Spirit-God. And that definition in itself was "decided" by men in a political compromise forced by a pagan-unbeliever despot-emperor. It may serve you well to research the facts surrounding these political events before you base your understanding and declaration of faith on who and what God is when HE has declare and shown HIS own nature, in fact and thru revelation. Of course, your argument is not new and there are hundreds of threads on the very same subject here in the forum. But since you already made up your mind on the matter the exchange may have limited value.

Much has been said, so I will be brief. A few suggestions may be worth considering 1. DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN (yet) until and unless the marriage has been on very solid ground and fully functional for at least 2 more years. 2. Seek some counseling for yourself, gain insight and dimension about your marriage-relationship, your history, his behavior and how that relates to your future. 3. GO to the Temple by yourself. Difficult as it may be to realize, your salvation IS NOT tied to his. Seek to gain a greater and closer relationship with your Heavenly Father so that the Spirit may reveal to you what you should do in order to deal with this difficult situation. my prayers are with you

I think you misread the scriptures. The hellish-firepit-forever-terment condo is a perpetual lease for those that willfully and intentionally rebelled/defied God-the-Father and denied/rejected the Lamb. It is not a very large co-op so not many will be retired there. In the other hand, if you kill, harm and do truly evil things in your neighborhood, you are sent to be fried in an electrified easy-chair. The nature of the punishment is directly proportional to the extent of the sin.

I would give up 20 years of my life to be you, right now and without hesitation. The story is simply too long but sufice to say that I agree with much of what has been posted above. Seek to understand the Lord, His doctrine, His plan and purpose for you and I know it will not be difficult for you to discern what you should do at this stage in your life. Discuss it with you Bishop and seek some guidance from him as well. It will help you significantly.

Welcome back, Jody. Like grandma' used to say: "The Lord is not so much concerned with who you were yesterday but who you can become in the eternities." We are all glad ou are here today and willing to look ahead instead of behind you. Yes, welcome!

I do not mean to "argue" as in "disputation." Rather in the most basic sense of the word: they attempt to "bring clarity or explain" to me the errors of my ways. I did not quoted any one in particular but some obviously thought Isaiah 43 proves "we" are mistaken in our claim to inheritance of celestial royalty, exaltation and divinity. So their logic leads to their circular reasoning that thus we are not who we claim to be. I just wanted to state my position, for clarity sake.