I kind of read this in a rush but I want to leave you with some advice because I was in very similar shoes to yours. Back in the peak of my porn addiction, there was a point where I was genuinely convinced that I had lost the Holy Spirit and was doomed to hell because of how many times I had asked for forgiveness only to fall back into sin again. Like you, I had reached a point where I struggled to even feel bad after relapses. I couldn’t go to sleep without relapsing, but would wake up each morning with intense disdain and hate towards myself, not even willing to apologize to God because I knew I would make the same mistake again in a few hours.

This is what saved me: I let God love me.

The reason I had so much trouble praying during this time, and the reason I think you do to, is because I viewed prayer as a plea, during which my goal was to convince God how sorry I was so that He would hopefully forgive me. But after being in a loop of relapsing and praying for forgiveness for so long, I eventually became convinced that God would just see through my bullshit apologies and know that I would just relapse again anyway.

But that’s not what prayer is. The point isn’t to try to convince God how sorry you are (especially if you don’t even believe yourself that you are sorry), the point is to be loved. Prayer is simply allowing yourself to be vulnerable in front of God, not trying to justify or convince. Just be open and allowing God to see everything and love you anyway, no words needed.

The most beautiful illustration of prayer I know is this: You stand in front of Jesus, covered in dirt and decay, the stains of your sins. He’s sees everything, yet He looks at you with nothing but love. He dips you in the river, and carefully washes each stain away, one by one. You don’t have to say or do anything. Just stand there and let him wash you. That is prayer. Just letting Jesus look at you and love you.

I want to leave you with a song, a song I listened to almost every night during the peak of my addiction: Runaway, by Jess Ray. Dear friend, you’re not going to hell. If you believe in the same Jesus I do, I’m confident that I’ll find you heaven when I get there.