We all had been raised up in Sunday School and church. We had a grandmother that was strong in faith and a disciplinarian as well as teacher of right and wrong. Our parents taught us right from wrong, but there was something about this magazine that was pulling me to keep it. I wrestled for just a moment on whether to leave it or keep it, and the good that I would, I didn’t do, and I picked up the magazine and quickly hid in behind the seat in my dad’s truck. My brother and cousin knew that I had it, but the trick would be how I get it in the house past my mother! My mom is like Sherlock Holmes, Matlock, and Perry Mason combined! If I would get caught, it would definitely be by here and not my dad. The thrill of having this magazine in my possession outweighed everything bad that I could imagine happening to me. I could care less about a punishment! I didn’t care about getting caught! I had found something that had awakened something in me that I would later find would be one of the hardest things to put back to rest!
I could not tell you how long I was able to keep the magazine hid in my room. To this date, I don’t know if my mother or father ever saw it, and I can only assume that they didn’t. As I stated earlier, my mother was sharp, and it was almost impossible to get anything past her. My mom would have laid the magazine on top of my bed and gave me the biggest lashing had she found it, so I will just put that one “get away” in my corner. Oops, I guess she knows again huh? I cannot tell you when I discarded the magazine, but I do know that on occasions, just as many young boys do, we would pull it out and get our thrills.
Never would I have imagined a nude magazine, would produce a lifetime of pain, sorrow, and struggles. Of course at eight years old, I could not see what would happen in the future. Had I known then, what I know now, I would have left the Playboy magazine at Paper Stock Dealers Incorporated in North Little Rock, Arkansas and eliminated a series of strongholds and struggles that with last what seems to be an eternity. The adrenaline rush that I received knowing that there was a dirty magazine in my room, outweighed all of the teaching that I have received as a child. I can still recall my brother and I closing the door one of us making sure that coast was clear, and that our mother was nowhere to be found. There is something about sin that does in fact read about a sincere pleasure if we are honest enough to admit it. There is a psychological rush that occurs whenever we find ourselves faced with those things that we the most pleasure to us. Far too often, as believers, we have painted the incorrect picture of sin to the world. Of course we know as redeemed believers, that sin, in the end, can have and will have damning consequences in our lives. However, we often forget how much fun sin was before we came into the knowledge of Christ. At the time, being eight years old, the pleasure of looking at the naked bodies of women, mind you grown women, far outweighed the thought of any punishment whatsoever. No wonder James in his epistle writes, “let every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust” James 1:14. Of course this Scripture meant nothing to me at eight years old. Now that I look back, I can see that even at such an early age, the influence of sin was already at work in me. There was something inside that was already drawing me away to sin. Of course, recalling now, it reminds me of one of the most quoted Psalms, Psalms 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me”. That which was an inherited trait, had become awaken too early!
One of the traps that we fall into is “premature exposure”. There are just some things that a child can never be ready for as a child! They may be physically big and strong and developed, but emotionally and mentally, they are not ready for certain things. This magazine should not have been in my possession and inside I knew this, but again, the thrill of knowing that I was doing wrong outweighed the right choice I should have made at Paper Stock Dealers, and that was to leave that magazine in that pile under my feet. Too late now! The door was already opened, and many more doors would be connected to a door opened at nine years old from a Playboy magazine that would take a lifetime to close!
