Nazis, Porn, & a brave old man

STF AdminFreedom, Healthy Sexuality

By Josh Gilman

One of my heroes is a man whose first name I can’t remember. I only remember him as “Father Ten Boom”. The Ten Boom family was a dutch family, living in Holland who famously hid Jewish people in a small secret room in their home during the Nazi Occupation during World War 2. Their story is powerfully told in the book The Hiding Place written by Corrie, one of the members of the family who survived their eventual arrest and imprisonment in one of the Nazi’s infamous concentration camps.

What does this have to do with porn? I’m getting there. First I need to tell you about something Father Ten Boom said and did.

You see the Ten Booms didn’t just resist the Nazis. They loved and helped every single person that came to their door. They had a deep understanding that they lived in a broken and hurting world and far before the horrors of the Holocaust, that family opened their doors to all who needed help and love.

But there is one quote from Father Ten Boom that is the key to fighting all evil, all brokenness and hurt. When the 84 year old man was arrested for his part in helping Jews flee Nazi capture he was told that if he would promise not to do it again, he could go home. He responded, “If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door to anyone who knocks for help.

The remarkable thing about this brave 84 year old man wasn’t that he loved the Jewish People so much he was willing to die for them (as he did die in a prison hospital a short time later). It was that he never allowed the Nazis hate to affect him. Not in the slightest. He didn’t even say “I will open my door to the first Jewish Person.” He said “anyone“.

I often think of another quote by this loving man, when he said.  “Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.

Porn kills our ability to love. And when it does, it causes us immense pain. When we lose our ability to love others, it is often because we have lost all sense of love for ourselves. Porn blocks that love. And we begin to hurt. We hurt very much.

I recently wrote about how I am fueled by a hatred of pornography. But I do not hate the Pornographers. I hate what it is doing to people. I do not hate the porn-stars. I hate what they are going through. I hate the false “love” they are being forced to portray. As Corrie Ten Boom said, “Surely there is no more wretched sight than the human body unloved and uncared for.” I think that describes most people in the porn industry very well.

I want to see people, all people, as the incredible creations deserving of love like Father Ten Boom did. He died in a Nazi Prison because he couldn’t stop loving. He resisted evil because he couldn’t stop loving.

In your own fight for freedom, do not give up on love. It is what can give you the strength to say, “If I am captured today, I will resist again tomorrow.”

Do not give up on love. It is what can keep us going when things seem too dark, too difficult, too depressing. Open up your heart to others, see them for the valuable creations they are, and you may just change your own life, and the lives of those around you.

Want to fight for victory in your own life? Download Winning The Impossible Fight for free!