Born to a Catholic mother and a Lutheran father, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic grade and high school, was an alter boy, and like many, rebelled against my parents and religion. College came and religion was furthest from my mind.

After college I met my wife to be and we married. For a long time life was good, still God played a marginal role in our lives.

When we eventually decided to have children we found that we both had fertility issues, and the strain and stress on our relationship skyrocketed.

Instead of turning to my wife I turned away. Not to another woman but to online gaming. I needed an escape from the stress, and it quickly came to consume my life.

Like many addicts I justified it to myself. Playing mainly after my wife went to bed I thought it the perfect escape. Little did I know how it would only continue to erode my marriage.

Out of what can only be described an intense feeling of being alone my wife contacted an ex-boyfriend after finding some of his old things. She wanted to give them back to him.

Finding our about this I went into an internal rage and began spying on their conversations, and eventually followed her to the meeting (to give back his letters). I expected the worse, in my opinion she was having an online relationship. Nothing happened between them physically, but I was enraged at the lies and deceit, so I confronted her. We fought, she agreed to have only limited contact with him. By then though the trust and confidence I had was destroyed and I have worked since to try and rebuild it, and eliminate the demons of insecurity and jealousy that plagued me. They still do.

About this time she brought back a book for me from a recylce event called “Left Behind”. If you have not read these books, it is about the end of the world.

I now understand that God is not limited in how he can send us a message. As I read these books, devoured is a better word, I came to realize that I needed God back in my life, and that I had been a fool. While only fiction it hit home more than the Bible might have or even Church at that point in my life.

I have since knelt alone and confessed to God my need for him, for his Grace, and confessed to him that I am a sinner, that only through his mercy and the blood of Jesus that my soul will ever be washed clean enough to enter heaven. I have decided to read the Bible for the first time with open eyes and ask God for help rebuilding my marriage.

That is why I am here, while I know God with me now I am still riddled with insecurities, and hope to find answers or others who might help me understand what God is trying to tell me.

1. Tommy Says:
   April 2nd, 2010 at 11:09 am

   Your testimony really hit home for me. I was also addicted to online gaming and even internet porn. It probably would lead me me down to darkness and away from my marriage and family. By the grace of God and my wife calling us to church it saved my marriage in being another divorce statistic. I still need to be more loving and giving with my family and with God’s help and the blood od Jesus for our inequities and sins we can overcome. Praise the Lord for he will never leave you nor forsake you. Amen.