Being Popular in the Furry Fandom vs Being Recognized as a Faithful Servant in the LORD's Kingdom.
Greetings to you, my beloved brothers and sisters. Today's journal topic will deal with the subject of fame, or being popular within fandom communities, and what drives us (loneliness) to seek out others and make a name for ourselves. I wasn't entirely sure if I should have included the brony fandom in the title of this journal. I have much more experience with the furry fandom personally, but I suppose the topic could potentially work for both communities. Just substitute the word "furry" with "brony" if you feel it is applicable.
First, may I just take a moment to remind you, dear brother or sister, that the LORD and His Son Jesus Christ love you very, very much. They are incredibly patient with flawed, sinning servants such as myself, and I hope that in reading my journals you will discover how much patience and love they have for you as well.
I don't know just how long I've been present within the furry community. If I had to guess, I'd estimate my presence to be around 20 years, give or take. I know I was present for the furry convention Further Confusion 2001, so that's roughly at least twenty years just since I had started to attend conventions alone. If I recall correctly, I considered myself a furry for some time before that.
Going back a bit to the late 90's, there wasn't the presence of furry then that there is now. You could visit a handful of online sites that, if you were furry, you probably knew about or heard about from a friend. These places were either roleplay communities or perhaps early artist/fan hosting locations. Furry IRC or Mucks/Mushes was where most of the socializing could be done. This was before Twitter, Facebook, and other popular media sites was a thing. You can go even further back before that to furry newsgroup communities, though we were a much smaller community at that time.
As the furry community grew, it became possible to start gathering groups of friends through various social media site/communities. Livejournal is an early example that had a furry presence for awhile. The appeal of these places was that you could tag other furries as friends and interact with them at these locations, and then later meet up at furry conventions and finally be able to put a face to the person that you had been speaking to and developing a friendship with.
But, and I am guilty of this - the human mind often thinks 'More is better', and many people would end up tagging a great deal of other furries as 'friends' or in an interim status of 'I would like to be your friend, won't you friend-tag me back so it can be official?' What I mean by this is - on many social media sites, you can "Friend" an individual's profile or account. On your own profile, it will say you have friended this person and view them as a friend, or that you are watching them for new posts. But unless they do the same action back at you - your account will only show you as having friended them. Fur Affinity refers to this as 'Recently Watched' and 'Recent Watchers'. If you have marked 100 people as someone you want to be friends with, or if you just want to be able to see what content they post - those 100 people will show up under the 'Recently Watched' list. If they tag/watch you back, your 'Recent Watchers will go up as well. But if you do not get those tags in return, your Recent Watchers will remain empty.
So, basically, if you are someone on one of these social media sites such as Fur Affinity and you have a big list of 'Recent Watchers' - you will be considered to have some level of fame or popularity by most furries within the community. You don't even have to have a lot of 'Recently Watched - it's all about how many people have tagged or are watching you, really. So what earns some furs big followings? Well, obviously - if you are an artist, you will have a much higher likelihood of having a following. Many furries make a name for themselves within the fandom by becoming very good at art and drawing peoples' characters. You might also be someone who makes a name for themselves by having a fursuit and becoming very recognizable at conventions and online through your suit. Others may also become known by performing at furry conventions in various panels.
Whatever the case, there does seem to be a phenomenon within furry fandom where having that fame is a thing that is sought after by many people. Whether you yourself are an artist or fursuiter, or you happen to know some well known names yourself - the sensation that some might receive from being in these elect positions might be something like feeling "on top of the world". You can go to a convention and you will get recognition, fan service, and even adoration - possibly more than you could wish for.
But what is it exactly that drives us as individuals to A.) Seek these tempting special status positions within a community of our peers and B.) Drives us to put so much idolization on some individuals that we in all honesty probably won't have much deep interaction with in the span of our lives? What I mean to say is - I would like to examine this phenomenon from the viewpoint of the adored(the famous or popular ones) and those that adore them(the fans).
First, to really understand what drives us in these matters, we really should take a look at the very first chapter of the Holy Bible, which is Genesis. (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=NIV)
If you read this short segment, you will notice that the LORD is remarking on many things being 'good'. But, let us examine the following bible verse:
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” - Genesis 2:18
The very first thing that the LORD remarks as 'not good' is for man to be alone. This ends up being why the LORD ends up making a 'help-mate' for Adam, so that he would not be alone. Enter, Eve. May I also note, that just because Eve was made as a helper to Adam does not mean that she is somehow worth less, or not as important as Adam in the eyes of the LORD. Both Adam and Eve are supposed to make a whole. She was created from Adam's rib. You really can't get more symbolic here. Treat your help-mate as you yourself would wish to be treated, because she came from you.
Ok, so the LORD realizes fairly early on in the bible just how bad it can be for any of us to be alone, right? I know that when I was in my twenties, one of the most preoccupying thoughts on my mind was wanting to have someone special in my life. In my opinion, it's a sort of built in mechanic that most if not all of us deal with. As we grow and mature and experience the world around us, we want to have someone special who we can share in all these experiences with. I daresay that the reason a great many of us furries ended up as furries is because for one reason or another, we had experience when it came to the notion of being alone. Many of us were probably experts at being alone. Not the best thing to be an expert on, but for many of us, it wasn't really by choice. Furry fandom gave us an imaginative community of other people much like ourselves - people with active imaginations who had a lot of fun creating a sort of hybrid animal-person character that was a representation of themselves. That, and all the media that we grew up with as a child that seemed to suggest that this was a thing that could be done. I don't believe that those of us who found furry and became enamored with it had problems with being human for the most part - it just seemed so incredibly fun and full of adventure to be able to use our imaginations to imagine ourselves as something so much different from the normal, and often lonely lives that we were all too familiar with.
I can't say for certain, but if I had to wager, I would guess that a number of furs - myself among them, have had to deal with experiences in our lifetimes that involve abuse (physical, sexual, emotional), loneliness, depression, anxiety, and perhaps feeling like you just don't fit in. How amazing that we could transfer ourselves from a world that had all these bad experiences to a world with others in it that offered fantastic and imaginative animal-people characters, complete with art, roleplay environments, LARP opportunities, conventions, and so on.. For many of us it was like a refuge for those with wounds in their soul.
So that can be a good thing. We can have community, friendship, good times, and create many amazing things together. But it can also be a bad thing, too. Let us not forget that to some extent, this means that we are, and were a community that was assembled together with and by a framework of many broken or at the very least 'damaged/injured' individuals. When you are emotionally hurt and injured, you tend to not make the wisest choices. Personally speaking, I believe this is why I was so involved in the sin of lust as a furry through the years. Furry community offers a lot of opportunities to furs - roleplay among them. A lot of the roleplay opportunities are adult in nature, and not what I would call healthy in a spiritual sense. I had my trust and person violated in a bad way by a non-family member when I was very young, and I believe this was a partial influence as to why I grew up being so attracted to interacting with others in adult behaviors. Somewhere, deep down, a part of my mind associated the act of adult relations with another as a form of love, or friendship. As long as I was giving out sex with other like-minded furs who were looking for it - I was accepted, appreciated. There would never be a shortage of others who would see value in me. This is what my mind, perhaps on a sub-conscious level believed. But really, if you have to give of yourself in an intimate way just to have friendship, is it really true friendship? A true friend will always be there for you, and will not ask you to give up such personal intimacies in return for their friendship. But hey, as long as you are loose and are willing to put out, there are many online furry roleplay communities where you can make a name for yourself and have a lot of "friends". I say friends with quotes, because - the friendships in these cases sadly, are often dependent on your willingness to put out. Should you decide to go chaste and maintain your purity/innocence - you generally will not receive the attention and time you used to from these places and people. There may be exceptions to the rule on this, but generally speaking - furries in adult roleplay areas are there for a specific reason - and if you are not there for the same reason, you are at best seen as a peculiarity and at worst, a waste of someone's time.
Prior to giving my life over to Christ Jesus, this was how I spent the majority of my life. Seeking the attention and company of others online. Oh, it was something else. I could be with a dragon person one day, and a deer person on another, and so on. There was variety and adventure - but I believe it was all in order to try and fill the general feeling of isolation and loneliness that we all tend to experience. If you are a furry and engage in similar behavior, I challenge you to try going chaste for a week. Or how about a month? A year? See how things change for you. You may start to feel a sort of isolation or sense of loneliness that you were keeping at bay with your former pleasure-seeking activity. You will quickly find that what you had was an addiction. The rush of sexual pleasure and entertainment from getting together with other furry animal persons online that you may have known awhile or barely known at all - was enough to keep you happy and content enough on a day by day basis. Doing the same thing, over and over - the same sort of thing which basically inhibits and kills any and all potential for true moral and spiritual growth.
For some, such as myself, it is, or was - this sort of activity that we participate(d) in to keep the feeling of being alone at bay. For others, it's chasing likes, watches, or friend tags on various social media sites. Some push themselves into becoming artists or fursuit designers. They may make some good money, but I do believe that after some time, most, if not all of these artists, fursuit makers and popular people will come to the realization of the following bible verse:
"13 And I applied my heart[a] to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity[b] and a striving after wind." - Ecclesiastes 1:13-14
It may not happen in their minds when they are young, and are receiving much fame, many commissions and a lot of attention. But it may come later on, when they are older, when they are in their 30's or 40's, or commissions don't seem to come up as often as before, and they notice that furry fandom is predominantly a younger person's community. Those that age tend to wander off, fade away into the sunset. Whether because of marriage, health conditions, or a sort of disillusionment as they realize more and more that each convention, each activity - is always often more of the same...vanity, many individuals chasing after their own desires, many of us may stop and reflect a moment and ask ourselves if chasing after fame or recognition in our community is really going to bring us true happiness. You may be a big name in furry as an artist for some time, but do many of the fans love you for who you really are - or is it for what you represent to them (fame, a big name) and what you can provide for them(art, commissions) ...? How many of those that follow after you would you truly be content in stating would be there for you, through thick and thin, whether or not you were still a big name? What if you suddenly decided not to draw furry art anymore but still remained around in the fandom? Do you suppose you would still have as much of a following? It is through these realizations that one may come to understand what true friendship is, and that having fame or being popular in the furry community does not necessarily mean you will not still feel alone.
It was this driving force to not feel alone which compelled me to often behave the way that I did within furry. Seek out others. Tag others as friends. I may never get to know them on a personal level, but I could keep telling myself if I just tagged enough people as my friend, those feelings of isolation and loneliness would be a thing of the past. It never really worked the way I was hoping it would. I had some nice times, but I was foolish in thinking that I could friend-request or NSFW roleplay my way out of the situation I was in. A situation that I feel, many furries are still dealing with, young and older.
There is good news though, my brothers and sisters. It is possible to realize that you are never truly alone. But it takes a lot of work. An incredible amount of work. It will require a great deal of commitment and faith. It will take a great deal of strength, courage, and will-power on your part. Here I am, a furry of 20-some years telling you that it IS possible to fill that sort of strange void deep inside you that creates feelings of loneliness and isolation. We struggle to fill that hole with vain, shallow methods such as the ways that I have described above, never really realizing that we are all just injured souls who are expecting other injured souls to somehow heal us of our own injuries and insecurities. Is this not the blind leading the blind?
So how to deal with this situation then? The answer is the same. Be you a furry artist that is a well known name and incredibly popular, or a fursuiter that is well known in all the convention fursuiter circles. Whether you are someone young just coming into the furry fandom wondering how to make a name for yourself, or whether you are someone who has some years of experience under your belt who may be wondering why after all this time your life does not necessarily feel any more richer, or rewarding. The answer? Repent of your sins and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Friends, I really am not joking when I tell you that TRUE WISDOM and understanding can be yours, but it will only come to you if you are willing to **humble yourself** and put someone else at the top rather than your own mind and way of perceiving things.
If you are willing to humble yourself, to admit that the buck does not stop with you, but with someone whom you acknowledge as your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for your, my, for all of our sins - and if you are SERIOUS about your walk - then you will receive wisdom and knowledge that remains hidden from those whose strong EGO state keeps them in a prideful, rebellious way of perceiving in this reality. Look at it as sort of like a natural sort of safeguard/mechanism that prevents the unworthy from receiving hidden, special information that could easily be abused in the wrong hands. Do you want to realize you are never truly alone? That you are special, and have a special purpose, a special reason for being here? Then humble yourself, my brother or sister, and take a walk with me on this very straight and narrow path.
You must be entirely committed. You cannot say you are a Christ follower and still condone/give yourself over to living in sin, whether that sin be sexual, such as adultery, or sodomy(LGBTQ lifestyle, where adherents seem to take pride in the sin of pride), vice/drug use, etc... You will have to familiarize yourself with the Ten Commandments, The Holy Bible book, Jesus Christ Himself, the seven deadly sins and their countering seven virtues - all this so that you do not just give yourself over to Christ Jesus in name only but in how you live and serve others as well.
You must be obedient and submit to Him as a higher authority in your life. If you refuse to become all the things that Jesus Christ and The Holy Bible tell you to do/become, then you are not His child, but a child of the devil instead, who is prideful, rebellious, and refuses to submit to the Lord. Remember what Jesus Christ told those who wished to follow him:
“If you love me, obey my commandments." - John 14:15
This is what makes a Christian a true Christian - a willingness to see and admit to their own flawed (sinful) nature and a very dedicated willingness to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, who then begins a new work inside that person through the Holy Spirit to sanctify them and over time, help them become a better, kinder, more pure, and more merciful servant.
Do these things, and you will receive the knowledge and wisdom that He deems good for you to know and understand. You will realize that you were never really alone in the first place, and although we as Christians can still struggle with loneliness - you will never feel truly alone in the ways that you used to feel. You will come to realize a great many things - that there are angels and demons all around you at any given time - so just remember that the next time you might get the urge to do something naughty or shameful!
(SUBTLE BUMP FOR MY CHRISTIAN FURRY/BRONY DISCORD SERVER HERE)
Are you a furry or a brony struggling with your faith or with the task of trying to find your place in the world? Are you seeking guidance on how to be better to yourself and others? Would you like to be part of a community of friends who loves you and will labor with you in your struggles? If so, please consider giving my Discord server a snuffle! Christian Furs and Ponies is a discord community of furries, bronies, and people who are not from either category who have a love of Christ Jesus and a desire to be obedient servants to the Lord Jesus Christ and to each other. We will treat you with love and with a desire to help you grow spiritually.
To be a part of our community, simply click on the following link and write up a little welcome/introduction about yourself in the channel. A moderator will give you access to participate with others after that. We hope to see you soon!
https://discord.gg/MpPF6zUA6N
First, may I just take a moment to remind you, dear brother or sister, that the LORD and His Son Jesus Christ love you very, very much. They are incredibly patient with flawed, sinning servants such as myself, and I hope that in reading my journals you will discover how much patience and love they have for you as well.
I don't know just how long I've been present within the furry community. If I had to guess, I'd estimate my presence to be around 20 years, give or take. I know I was present for the furry convention Further Confusion 2001, so that's roughly at least twenty years just since I had started to attend conventions alone. If I recall correctly, I considered myself a furry for some time before that.
Going back a bit to the late 90's, there wasn't the presence of furry then that there is now. You could visit a handful of online sites that, if you were furry, you probably knew about or heard about from a friend. These places were either roleplay communities or perhaps early artist/fan hosting locations. Furry IRC or Mucks/Mushes was where most of the socializing could be done. This was before Twitter, Facebook, and other popular media sites was a thing. You can go even further back before that to furry newsgroup communities, though we were a much smaller community at that time.
As the furry community grew, it became possible to start gathering groups of friends through various social media site/communities. Livejournal is an early example that had a furry presence for awhile. The appeal of these places was that you could tag other furries as friends and interact with them at these locations, and then later meet up at furry conventions and finally be able to put a face to the person that you had been speaking to and developing a friendship with.
But, and I am guilty of this - the human mind often thinks 'More is better', and many people would end up tagging a great deal of other furries as 'friends' or in an interim status of 'I would like to be your friend, won't you friend-tag me back so it can be official?' What I mean by this is - on many social media sites, you can "Friend" an individual's profile or account. On your own profile, it will say you have friended this person and view them as a friend, or that you are watching them for new posts. But unless they do the same action back at you - your account will only show you as having friended them. Fur Affinity refers to this as 'Recently Watched' and 'Recent Watchers'. If you have marked 100 people as someone you want to be friends with, or if you just want to be able to see what content they post - those 100 people will show up under the 'Recently Watched' list. If they tag/watch you back, your 'Recent Watchers will go up as well. But if you do not get those tags in return, your Recent Watchers will remain empty.
So, basically, if you are someone on one of these social media sites such as Fur Affinity and you have a big list of 'Recent Watchers' - you will be considered to have some level of fame or popularity by most furries within the community. You don't even have to have a lot of 'Recently Watched - it's all about how many people have tagged or are watching you, really. So what earns some furs big followings? Well, obviously - if you are an artist, you will have a much higher likelihood of having a following. Many furries make a name for themselves within the fandom by becoming very good at art and drawing peoples' characters. You might also be someone who makes a name for themselves by having a fursuit and becoming very recognizable at conventions and online through your suit. Others may also become known by performing at furry conventions in various panels.
Whatever the case, there does seem to be a phenomenon within furry fandom where having that fame is a thing that is sought after by many people. Whether you yourself are an artist or fursuiter, or you happen to know some well known names yourself - the sensation that some might receive from being in these elect positions might be something like feeling "on top of the world". You can go to a convention and you will get recognition, fan service, and even adoration - possibly more than you could wish for.
But what is it exactly that drives us as individuals to A.) Seek these tempting special status positions within a community of our peers and B.) Drives us to put so much idolization on some individuals that we in all honesty probably won't have much deep interaction with in the span of our lives? What I mean to say is - I would like to examine this phenomenon from the viewpoint of the adored(the famous or popular ones) and those that adore them(the fans).
First, to really understand what drives us in these matters, we really should take a look at the very first chapter of the Holy Bible, which is Genesis. (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=NIV)
If you read this short segment, you will notice that the LORD is remarking on many things being 'good'. But, let us examine the following bible verse:
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” - Genesis 2:18
The very first thing that the LORD remarks as 'not good' is for man to be alone. This ends up being why the LORD ends up making a 'help-mate' for Adam, so that he would not be alone. Enter, Eve. May I also note, that just because Eve was made as a helper to Adam does not mean that she is somehow worth less, or not as important as Adam in the eyes of the LORD. Both Adam and Eve are supposed to make a whole. She was created from Adam's rib. You really can't get more symbolic here. Treat your help-mate as you yourself would wish to be treated, because she came from you.
Ok, so the LORD realizes fairly early on in the bible just how bad it can be for any of us to be alone, right? I know that when I was in my twenties, one of the most preoccupying thoughts on my mind was wanting to have someone special in my life. In my opinion, it's a sort of built in mechanic that most if not all of us deal with. As we grow and mature and experience the world around us, we want to have someone special who we can share in all these experiences with. I daresay that the reason a great many of us furries ended up as furries is because for one reason or another, we had experience when it came to the notion of being alone. Many of us were probably experts at being alone. Not the best thing to be an expert on, but for many of us, it wasn't really by choice. Furry fandom gave us an imaginative community of other people much like ourselves - people with active imaginations who had a lot of fun creating a sort of hybrid animal-person character that was a representation of themselves. That, and all the media that we grew up with as a child that seemed to suggest that this was a thing that could be done. I don't believe that those of us who found furry and became enamored with it had problems with being human for the most part - it just seemed so incredibly fun and full of adventure to be able to use our imaginations to imagine ourselves as something so much different from the normal, and often lonely lives that we were all too familiar with.
I can't say for certain, but if I had to wager, I would guess that a number of furs - myself among them, have had to deal with experiences in our lifetimes that involve abuse (physical, sexual, emotional), loneliness, depression, anxiety, and perhaps feeling like you just don't fit in. How amazing that we could transfer ourselves from a world that had all these bad experiences to a world with others in it that offered fantastic and imaginative animal-people characters, complete with art, roleplay environments, LARP opportunities, conventions, and so on.. For many of us it was like a refuge for those with wounds in their soul.
So that can be a good thing. We can have community, friendship, good times, and create many amazing things together. But it can also be a bad thing, too. Let us not forget that to some extent, this means that we are, and were a community that was assembled together with and by a framework of many broken or at the very least 'damaged/injured' individuals. When you are emotionally hurt and injured, you tend to not make the wisest choices. Personally speaking, I believe this is why I was so involved in the sin of lust as a furry through the years. Furry community offers a lot of opportunities to furs - roleplay among them. A lot of the roleplay opportunities are adult in nature, and not what I would call healthy in a spiritual sense. I had my trust and person violated in a bad way by a non-family member when I was very young, and I believe this was a partial influence as to why I grew up being so attracted to interacting with others in adult behaviors. Somewhere, deep down, a part of my mind associated the act of adult relations with another as a form of love, or friendship. As long as I was giving out sex with other like-minded furs who were looking for it - I was accepted, appreciated. There would never be a shortage of others who would see value in me. This is what my mind, perhaps on a sub-conscious level believed. But really, if you have to give of yourself in an intimate way just to have friendship, is it really true friendship? A true friend will always be there for you, and will not ask you to give up such personal intimacies in return for their friendship. But hey, as long as you are loose and are willing to put out, there are many online furry roleplay communities where you can make a name for yourself and have a lot of "friends". I say friends with quotes, because - the friendships in these cases sadly, are often dependent on your willingness to put out. Should you decide to go chaste and maintain your purity/innocence - you generally will not receive the attention and time you used to from these places and people. There may be exceptions to the rule on this, but generally speaking - furries in adult roleplay areas are there for a specific reason - and if you are not there for the same reason, you are at best seen as a peculiarity and at worst, a waste of someone's time.
Prior to giving my life over to Christ Jesus, this was how I spent the majority of my life. Seeking the attention and company of others online. Oh, it was something else. I could be with a dragon person one day, and a deer person on another, and so on. There was variety and adventure - but I believe it was all in order to try and fill the general feeling of isolation and loneliness that we all tend to experience. If you are a furry and engage in similar behavior, I challenge you to try going chaste for a week. Or how about a month? A year? See how things change for you. You may start to feel a sort of isolation or sense of loneliness that you were keeping at bay with your former pleasure-seeking activity. You will quickly find that what you had was an addiction. The rush of sexual pleasure and entertainment from getting together with other furry animal persons online that you may have known awhile or barely known at all - was enough to keep you happy and content enough on a day by day basis. Doing the same thing, over and over - the same sort of thing which basically inhibits and kills any and all potential for true moral and spiritual growth.
For some, such as myself, it is, or was - this sort of activity that we participate(d) in to keep the feeling of being alone at bay. For others, it's chasing likes, watches, or friend tags on various social media sites. Some push themselves into becoming artists or fursuit designers. They may make some good money, but I do believe that after some time, most, if not all of these artists, fursuit makers and popular people will come to the realization of the following bible verse:
"13 And I applied my heart[a] to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity[b] and a striving after wind." - Ecclesiastes 1:13-14
It may not happen in their minds when they are young, and are receiving much fame, many commissions and a lot of attention. But it may come later on, when they are older, when they are in their 30's or 40's, or commissions don't seem to come up as often as before, and they notice that furry fandom is predominantly a younger person's community. Those that age tend to wander off, fade away into the sunset. Whether because of marriage, health conditions, or a sort of disillusionment as they realize more and more that each convention, each activity - is always often more of the same...vanity, many individuals chasing after their own desires, many of us may stop and reflect a moment and ask ourselves if chasing after fame or recognition in our community is really going to bring us true happiness. You may be a big name in furry as an artist for some time, but do many of the fans love you for who you really are - or is it for what you represent to them (fame, a big name) and what you can provide for them(art, commissions) ...? How many of those that follow after you would you truly be content in stating would be there for you, through thick and thin, whether or not you were still a big name? What if you suddenly decided not to draw furry art anymore but still remained around in the fandom? Do you suppose you would still have as much of a following? It is through these realizations that one may come to understand what true friendship is, and that having fame or being popular in the furry community does not necessarily mean you will not still feel alone.
It was this driving force to not feel alone which compelled me to often behave the way that I did within furry. Seek out others. Tag others as friends. I may never get to know them on a personal level, but I could keep telling myself if I just tagged enough people as my friend, those feelings of isolation and loneliness would be a thing of the past. It never really worked the way I was hoping it would. I had some nice times, but I was foolish in thinking that I could friend-request or NSFW roleplay my way out of the situation I was in. A situation that I feel, many furries are still dealing with, young and older.
There is good news though, my brothers and sisters. It is possible to realize that you are never truly alone. But it takes a lot of work. An incredible amount of work. It will require a great deal of commitment and faith. It will take a great deal of strength, courage, and will-power on your part. Here I am, a furry of 20-some years telling you that it IS possible to fill that sort of strange void deep inside you that creates feelings of loneliness and isolation. We struggle to fill that hole with vain, shallow methods such as the ways that I have described above, never really realizing that we are all just injured souls who are expecting other injured souls to somehow heal us of our own injuries and insecurities. Is this not the blind leading the blind?
So how to deal with this situation then? The answer is the same. Be you a furry artist that is a well known name and incredibly popular, or a fursuiter that is well known in all the convention fursuiter circles. Whether you are someone young just coming into the furry fandom wondering how to make a name for yourself, or whether you are someone who has some years of experience under your belt who may be wondering why after all this time your life does not necessarily feel any more richer, or rewarding. The answer? Repent of your sins and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Friends, I really am not joking when I tell you that TRUE WISDOM and understanding can be yours, but it will only come to you if you are willing to **humble yourself** and put someone else at the top rather than your own mind and way of perceiving things.
If you are willing to humble yourself, to admit that the buck does not stop with you, but with someone whom you acknowledge as your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for your, my, for all of our sins - and if you are SERIOUS about your walk - then you will receive wisdom and knowledge that remains hidden from those whose strong EGO state keeps them in a prideful, rebellious way of perceiving in this reality. Look at it as sort of like a natural sort of safeguard/mechanism that prevents the unworthy from receiving hidden, special information that could easily be abused in the wrong hands. Do you want to realize you are never truly alone? That you are special, and have a special purpose, a special reason for being here? Then humble yourself, my brother or sister, and take a walk with me on this very straight and narrow path.
You must be entirely committed. You cannot say you are a Christ follower and still condone/give yourself over to living in sin, whether that sin be sexual, such as adultery, or sodomy(LGBTQ lifestyle, where adherents seem to take pride in the sin of pride), vice/drug use, etc... You will have to familiarize yourself with the Ten Commandments, The Holy Bible book, Jesus Christ Himself, the seven deadly sins and their countering seven virtues - all this so that you do not just give yourself over to Christ Jesus in name only but in how you live and serve others as well.
You must be obedient and submit to Him as a higher authority in your life. If you refuse to become all the things that Jesus Christ and The Holy Bible tell you to do/become, then you are not His child, but a child of the devil instead, who is prideful, rebellious, and refuses to submit to the Lord. Remember what Jesus Christ told those who wished to follow him:
“If you love me, obey my commandments." - John 14:15
This is what makes a Christian a true Christian - a willingness to see and admit to their own flawed (sinful) nature and a very dedicated willingness to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, who then begins a new work inside that person through the Holy Spirit to sanctify them and over time, help them become a better, kinder, more pure, and more merciful servant.
Do these things, and you will receive the knowledge and wisdom that He deems good for you to know and understand. You will realize that you were never really alone in the first place, and although we as Christians can still struggle with loneliness - you will never feel truly alone in the ways that you used to feel. You will come to realize a great many things - that there are angels and demons all around you at any given time - so just remember that the next time you might get the urge to do something naughty or shameful!
(SUBTLE BUMP FOR MY CHRISTIAN FURRY/BRONY DISCORD SERVER HERE)
Are you a furry or a brony struggling with your faith or with the task of trying to find your place in the world? Are you seeking guidance on how to be better to yourself and others? Would you like to be part of a community of friends who loves you and will labor with you in your struggles? If so, please consider giving my Discord server a snuffle! Christian Furs and Ponies is a discord community of furries, bronies, and people who are not from either category who have a love of Christ Jesus and a desire to be obedient servants to the Lord Jesus Christ and to each other. We will treat you with love and with a desire to help you grow spiritually.
To be a part of our community, simply click on the following link and write up a little welcome/introduction about yourself in the channel. A moderator will give you access to participate with others after that. We hope to see you soon!
https://discord.gg/MpPF6zUA6N