Formatting Woes :(

Hi Everyone,

Umm... Something very strange is happening to my blog. Weird formatting errors. White appearing behind the text, the font colour randomly changing, double spacing being activated for no apparent reason. Looks like I might have to switch to another blog site. Any suggestions? Your input is greatly appreciated.

- Gina

Response to "Oversexed Much?"

An old friend of mine wrote a response to my post from earlier this week. I believe he provides many excellent insights into the mind of someone struggling with sexual addiction issues...

Gina,

I read your blog post and I appreciated what you had to say... I agree with most of it also (although I did take exception at your unnecessary jab at my liberal arts degree! Haha).

I also appreciated the links to the helpful article and sermon! Does this pastor of yours who overcame porn addiction have more resources that you could send me? 

A: Yes, his name is Lee Kosa and is 3rd Service Pastor at Tenth Ave Alliance Church in Vancouver. In January, he will become Senior Pastor at Cedar Hills Mennonite Brethren Church in Delta. He would be delighted to help you, I'm sure. ! I know for a fact that he would recommend that you connect with an organization called Living Waters and their program, SALT. Here is a link to their page: http://www.livingwaterscanada.org/programs/salt

I too struggle with porn addiction and I can use all the help I can get... Also, could you ask him if he know of any resources or support groups in the area? I have tried looking online but haven't found anything useful at all.

I am well past any desire to keep holding on to this pet habit, but keep going back to it anyway. Fortunately I am much more open about now, especially since attending some Freedom Sessions a few years back. Nevertheless, I am at the point where I really want it to be finished. I wish to be a strong husband and father one day, and I know that porn has no place in that life.

Also, keep in mind, that while porn users are abusers (abusers of self and abusers of the people portrayed) there is also an element of falling victim to the devil's trap. I was first exposed to porn completely unintentionally at the age of 10 or 11, long before I had any mental or emotional ability to cope with or deal with what I saw. I came across porn before I even knew it existed...

I was hooked at a very young age and it was the seed of destruction that was planted then that eventually grew after years into the choking vine of addiction. So, while I don't excuse my actions, or make excuses for my own choices, remember that the enemy wants us in this place and will do everything in his power to bring us there. Which is why as Christians we need to be there for one another in this battle.

Also, I commend this person who will remain unnamed for his bravery in allowing me to post this facebook message. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your transparency! - You're a true friend and Brother in Christ!

Finding a Cause

A note to my Facebook friends -  April 16th, 2012

To those of you who don't have a cause or purpose in life, I strongly suggest that you find one or both. Embark upon a journey to find what inspires you. How do you know what makes you tick?

Ask yourselves these questions:
Where do your thoughts drift to? What news stories the most provoke the most emotion within you? What are your concerns with regards to the direction of society? Is there a loved one or person in your sphere going through a trial that you can help them with?

I'm commenting on this because some of you seem aimless, perhaps you're at an age where you're trying to find your identity. You're doing lots of things without doing anything terribly meaningful. So many serve themselves without serving others or at least attempting to make a difference in their corner of the world. Indulging your own desires won't spiritually enrich you much in the end. I have an insight for you. If you serve others, you will be served. God will see your heart and honour you. You may like calling Him "The Universe", I don't know. Just don't expect the reward to be monetary. In my experience, God will bless you with wisdom and gentleness of spirit more than anything.

Now, not everyone is able to serve others because they are in a bad state. Feel no pressure to dive into a cause when your life is unmanageable but realize that acts of kindness are always rewarded in some regard even when they're small. Demonstrations of love to others never return void. Also, focusing on a cause and not on your problems can be quite helpful. Myself and many others have fallen victim to the pity parties we throw for ourselves. If you know anything substantive about my life and it's many battles, you'll trust me on this one.
The distillation of my thoughts is such: If you are able to serve i.e. you have both the health and the financial means, SERVE OTHERS! If you aren't fully able, start small - you can't go wrong. I can't begin to express how fulfilling service to others and the community at large can be. Also be aware of the fact that the people you serve often times end up teaching you very valuable life lessons - it's amazing!

God's Peace to You!

The Ripples of War - Originally Posted November 11, 2011

Few people know what war is truly comprised of. I have the luxury of several relatives who have not only been sent to but caught in war as their homelands were theatres of war. Their rich personal narratives are a true legacy. 

Zio Francesco - My Nonna's eldest brother who was sent to the Soviet front during the winter of 1942 to hold the front line against Stalin's troops in Northern Ukraine. He was nearly 6 feet tall and dropped down to a skeletal 115 lbs. Several toes froze off. He had gangrene and could have died. Now, can you imagine serving a country led by someone who you knew was a dictator? But he was just a teenager doing as he was told. Zio was a quiet, gentle man and never uttered a word about the ordeal. In fact, he carried a sort of shame about it. I'll never begin to understand what he went through.

Great Uncle Gene - My Grandma's eldest brother who despite being from a one horse town in Saskatchewan never having seen much more than a creek was sent to serve as a gunner on a Naval ship. He spent the war, puking his guts up, firing on German warships and burying his crewmates as sea. He volunteered for the Navy because nobody else in his area wanted to go and they were short on men. His faith in God kept him sane and strong. The war could have made anyone bitter but Uncle Gene never said a bad word about anyone or a foul word of any kind. He's still alive and farming to this day at 89 years old yodeling and whistling like his sister did. Take Uncle Gene off his farm and he'll probably die the next day.

My Nonno and Nonna: My father's parents are from a town called Celano. It was fairly isolated in the central mountains of Italy, trouble is that it was down the road from Avezzano, the site of a secret Nazi munitions factory. Avezzano was levelled and Celano was virtually cut off from civilization. Towards the end of the war, a battalion of British Indian troops occupied the town. Several townsfolk were frightened by these dark-skinned men as they were told through propaganda that white people were superior. Mussolini had attempted to not only tell his people that they were winning the war but that Indians were, according to the enlightened Adolf Hitler, an inferior savage monkey race. Total chaos ensued. The end result of this has been fantastic to witness. I can say in all honesty that my Nonno is the least racist person I have ever met. If you don't believe me, I will take you to meet him. He will be thrilled to chat especially if you are from an unusual country like say, Laos or Bahrain. He said that WWII ended the way it did because anyone who wants to divide the human race is wrong and also against God. "God won't stand for that."

Note: My Great Uncle passed away a few months ago. He was 89 years old. He is present with the Lord in heaven where there is no war or heartache. I know my Grandma was delighted to see her big brother. :)

It said in his obituary that he served aboard the HCMS Haida which was the most heavily armed Canadian WWII era warship. It was in the more battles than any other Canadian ship and it's crew was the most highly decorated Canadian naval crew in WWII - The Haida never lost a battle.

Transfer of Facebook Notes to Blog

Hi Everyone,
Over the 5 years I've had a Facebook account, I have written several Facebook notes. Over the next few days, I will be setting aside some time to expand and edit them for this blog. I hope that you find them to be an interesting read!
- Gina

Oversexed Much?

The other day, I had an extremely relevant chat with a fellow named Geoff (@FocusedFathers). He stood out to me as a Christian man who was taking the initiative and mentoring men struggling with various personal issues over Twitter. As a Christian woman, it is my opinion that men are failing their families, the church and society in certain regards. 

So tell me, who takes the children to Sunday School? Predominantly Mothers, 80% of the time or more from what I've observed. Who prays with their children at night? Once again, Mothers. Most of my peers have told me that it was the faith of their Mothers or Grandmothers that inspired them to pursue a relationship with Christ as adults. It was the women who planted the mustard seeds of faith in the vast majority of these young adults' hearts.

Do you ever hear about Mothers abandoning their families? Rarely. When I heard that Hugh Jackman's Mother flew to England and left her multiple children back in Australia, I was stunned. I can only imagine the Jackman family's intense grief and longing for Mom to return home. It was a 60 minutes episode that I'll never forget.

You must be wondering what's causing men to drop the ball on a grand scale. I have a simple answer, pornography. My pastor, Lee Kosa, has been extraordinarily candid about his battle and eventual victory against pornography. He says that it's spreading like a cancer in the church and is brainwashing men into objectifying women and turing them into a means to an ends, that being sexual satisfaction. Porn is also rewiring male brains in an unhealthy way which causes them to treat their spouses like a piece of meat, become extremely lustful, cheat on their wives and then walk out on their families. That is the chilling progression. Here is an article that Lee recently appeared in on this highly pertinent issue.

http://www.lightmagazine.ca/index.php?page=public.viewarticle&nArticlesID=578

Lee Kosa - Sermon on Sex Addiction

http://youtu.be/i1pQfGD_MQI

I see certain men around me as balls of raging hormones. They allow the chemicals in their bodes to control their minds. They say absurd things like, "We're all animals" and "Men aren't meant to be monogamous, it's our evolutionary history." My response is, "Looks like you're stuck at Homo Erectus. Last time I checked, we're now Homo Sapiens (reasoning man) and our prefrontal cortex trumps our primal amygdala oblongata." Using evolutionarily biology as an excuse for promiscuity is just not on. My sympathies to any woman who falls victim to this out and out absurd reasoning.

AND, don't tell me that it's harder for you men to resist sex. It's not. Women have even more hormones than you do. I,  in particular, have to endure an effect of my mania called hypersex. Let's just say that lot of crazy sexual impulses flash through my mind. What do I do? Lock myself into my room for two days, pray, and ride out the hormonal roller-coaster until I feel like a normal human again. It's not pleasant but I get through it at least twice a year with my sexual boundaries intact. I have been blessed with self control.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wtqpEZg2iA

Notice how the man resists the woman in a form of hypersex. "I know this isn't really you."

On the other hand, there STILL are men out there like Geoff and his colleagues and friends. They give me hope. It's just that myself and many other young single Christian women are wondering where the good men are. Where are the devoted fathers? Where are the kind, thoughtful companions? Where are the men who want an intellectual equal and not someone submissive to control? Where are the spiritual leaders? Where are the emotionally available men who express feelings and aren't ashamed to cry? Makes me think of an old Beck song called "Sexx Laws".

http://www.artistdirect.com/video/beck-sexx-laws/41084

A decent number of the guys in my generation are a bunch of self indulgent children who like their little gadgets, their beer buzz, their recreational marijuana and have had everything handed to them on a sliver platter by Mommy and Daddy. They have been through no trials in life and have always been employed because of family connections despite having a more or less useless liberal arts degree. What a joke.

Maybe I should stick to being single. I probably will be for a very, very long time after posting this. Whatever. I like being married to my service to God.

Are you an expert?

While on Twitter the other day, I noticed a question from one of my Twitter acquaintances.
"Gina, are you a political expert?"

I was wondering what this individual was implying. Do I have many opinions? Yes. Are they well informed? Yes, I read the news constantly. Do I try my utmost to be factual in my statements of any kind? Yes, but am I an expert in this area? Hmm...

What is an expert? Someone with the formal credentials of this world? In this instance, someone with an MA or better in political science? See, I don't buy into these definitions of an expert. I think that everyone's life experience when a person is well read, properly informed and thoughtful can cause them to be an expert in at least a couple of areas. Parenting if they've raised healthy, happy children; cooking if they do a lot of entertaining and the guests are continually in awe of the food they've prepared; psychology if they've had lots of counselling and their life situation has improved; gardening if they know how to create an explosion of flowers on their property.

What led me to these conclusions were the writings of Soren Kirkegaard, the father of modern existentialism. His ideas have taught me that:

1) I am the ultimate authority in interpreting my own life experiences.

2) My life experience has taught me many valuable lessons that cannot be taught in a formal educational institution.

3) I have the freedom to express myself in any way I like so long as it does not undermine anyone else's freedom.

4) I have self-determination.

5) God has given me human rights and free will and it is my right to fight for what The Lord has give me.

Someone who has underscored this worldview has been my lovely psychiatrist. She always says to me, "I do understand the chemical mechanisms that take place in your body but only in a general sense. Everyone's bodies have quirks and somewhat different chemistry. You are the ultimate expert on yourself and I can only help you interpret what it's telling you and make informed decisions on what meds to take." I am the ultimate authority on how my body metabolizes and reacts to meds. Simple as that.

Am I slogging formal educations, no? I have heralded my psychiatrist and Kirkegaard, both of whom attained PhDs. However, these highly educated scholars realize that without practical knowledge, book knowledge isn't very applicable in certain circumstances. Theory doesn't always translate practically into the real world. This I know.

I used to think that I was less of a person because of my limited formal education. I had no "marketable credentials". I now know that my unconventional, unique life has shaped me into someone who is quintessentially Gina. :) And while my peers had their noses in books, I was living life and life was teaching me many valuable lessons. Also, each battle I have overcome as a person has made me stronger and provided me with wonderful insights. I have walked through fire and arisen refined. Hardship is now a blessing - a chance for me to grow. So life - hit me with your best shot, I just might turn out to be bulletproof. :)

I'm Back!

Over the past few months, I have met several extraordinary people on Twitter from the fields of mental health, progressive Christianity and politics. Some of these individuals have sparked fantastic conversations with me. I will be sharing the highlights of these conversations with you over the coming months.

Thanks!
- Gina