A cold shock of electricity streaks down Ted's back at the sound. It is the last thing he expected to hear tonight. 
In a single moment, it brings his whole life into question.

Ted travels in his sales work. He's away from Marie and their three little girls an average of a week out of every month. He's young but very good at his work, earns a good living for them and when he's at home is an attentive husband, a loving dad and a spiritual leader.

He's respected at church, and has fine friends there – a few of whom are there because he invited them. They aren't what he would describe as close friends, any more than he would describe the fellows he works with. Yet they trust him and are glad he's teaching their kids as well as his own, because he's true to his word and would never lie to them.

You wouldn't guess that he's got a secret from all of them. 
He doesn't do drugs or drink or gamble or visit seedy adult theatres or patronize prostitutes or keep a mistress … exactly. It doesn't seem to him like a really deep, dark secret. Just a private matter.

Ted has a laptop that travels with him and keeps track of his sales appointments and information. And since he always stays at hotels with high-speed internet, it gives him access to a lot of other information.

Much of it is visual information. It started a couple of years back, fairly innocently, with a sports site that had a swimsuit calendar feature. Curious, he searched for others. It wasn't pornography, he reasoned; certainly no worse and not very different from anything he would see at a beach or a water park.

It wasn't that he exactly felt guilty about it later; just … uncomfortable. He went home from that trip, still delighted to see Marie and reassuring himself that she certainly didn't suffer from comparison. He erased the cache from his browser that might contain copies of the photos from those sites and thought little about it.

As time passed and the business trips continued, the swimsuit sites were starting to feel a little tame, and there were links to other sites with different content. He resolved he wouldn't pay to see anything; there seemed to be plenty of free ones available. 
Ted rationalizes that if he could be home as he would prefer, he wouldn't need to view such things … that it isn't harming his marriage, since Marie knows nothing of it … that he isn't squandering money on it … or looking at anything that anyone was forced into doing … or even viewing anything that would get an "X" rating in a movie.

But tonight is a little different. Marie is away from home this weekend, on a shopping trip with her mom and sister and though Ted was glad to give her a break from staying with their girls, the house is a bit lonely with the little ones long since in bed upstairs. So the laptop is glowing in front of him.

And a sleepy voice behind him is asking, "Daddy, what are you doing?" 


SCRIPTURAL POINTS OF LIGHT

Proverbs 6:25; 2 Samuel 11:2; Psalm 51; Matthew 5:28; Ephesians 5:3-4; 25-28