God has used this testimony of this man, a pastor and one of my new friends, to open my eyes even more to the reality that same sex attraction is not limited to any particular “style” of life or “type” of person. People from all different backgrounds struggle with these feelings, and I think that’s something that needs to be realized. It’s not just the people that are “out” and proud that have homosexual feelings, but many people….some of whom truly love Jesus Christ….have these feelings as well. This man’s story is much different from those which I’ve posted in the past… and I am certain multitudes will be able to relate to it.
Here is his story:
Where do I begin telling this story of my life that no one fully knows? My mind races to so many different times. It also fills with fear and doubt. Can I really share it and it be ok?…
Well, here it goes the best I know how to share it. As a young boy I always liked doing things that my sister and the other young girl my mom kept did. They played with barbies, so I played with barbies. I didn’t have any guys to play with so I did whatever they were doing. We lived near my great grandmother and she loved to garden and talk about flowers and make crafts. I enjoyed following along and doing the same. It was obvious that I wasn’t like most other little boys.
I started to elementary school and my friends were mostly girls. In elementary school I had some friends who bought some books at the book fair. I remember coming home as a young boy and my dad seeing the books I had bought. He took them from me and told me that I had bought girl books and I should not have done that. I remember being so crushed and confused. At this point things were beginning to get worse. I didn’t fit in at school and I was over concerned about germs and cleanliness. Things that people said or did really bothered me and I worried about everything. My dad thought I was crazy and told me that, as he discussed sending me to see a counselor. Things got so rough for me in middle school that my parents decided to homeschool me 7th and 8th grade. I was relieved that I would not have to go to school and be around my peers.
I began to discover things about my body and during those days after school with my mom I would go spend time at my great grandparents home. I would read about puberty and development wherever I could find information. I would read about sex in Redbook and watch the soap operas my great grandparents had on TV. I learned much I didn’t need to learn or at least from the wrong sources. During this time my grandparents got a computer and I came across the picture of a guy aroused. This fed my curiosity. I wondered if I was normal. Why did I feel attracted to other guys. Why did I long to be someone else? Was I really crazy like my Dad said?
By 9th grade my parents had decided to re-enroll me in high school where I could be involved in more things with my peer group. There were some good things during this time and some bad things. I was the new kid so some people were drawn to me but at the same time I was the new kid and I was different. I had a senior who was a popular jock ask me if I was gay. I still remember where I was and how it felt. He was the same guy who later exposed himself at PE and started saying I know you are looking at me. I did want to see him but I didn’t want him to think that at all. I was curious and longed to be like the popular guys. I felt conflicting feelings.
I did come to know Christ when I was 15 and that brought some confidence to my life but I still didn’t feel like I belonged. I knew my homosexual thoughts were wrong but I couldn’t seem to overcome them as easily as I thought I should be able to. My dad would try to get me to call girls and go out but I was too afraid of looking stupid and I hated the thought of flirting because I thought it was silly. I always looked up to the jocks because they all seemed to have the girls and the confidence. I wanted to be liked.
While in high school I had a coach who would dismiss my class by who he valued. He would let the sports players go, the cheerleaders, and the band and then he would say, “The rest of you can now go.” Those words would haunt me. I poured myself in to everything but sports but I never felt I was good enough because I wasn’t an athlete. I did not feel I could please anyone especially my dad, the one I wanted to please the most.
I dated a girl my junior year and I felt the arousal of desires but I didn’t really like her. I just wanted to be accepted so I was glad to have a girlfriend.
My senior year I grew in Christ and felt much more contentment but I still often thought about guys. I loved having a close relationship with another guy. During this season I had one friend who I spent a lot of time with and if he had shown any interest toward me I probably would have crossed some lines that I would have regretted. We would wrestle and goof off like guys do and my body would react and I would get upset because I didn’t understand why. I am thankful through it all that God protected me.
I moved off to college after graduation and my porn habit picked up. I downloaded videos on Napster and saw way more than I needed too. I would go through seasons where I would do better and then I would spiral downward again. I took a ministry position in college and it put a ton of pressure on me that I wasn’t ready to handle. During this season I came really close to crossing some lines that would have forever changed me and my future but God’s grace continued to protect me. I dealt with depression and stress and they sent me toward my coping mechanism, more porn. Ministry and a sin habit don’t go well together. It is only by grace that I did not lose all that God had blessed me with. If I could go back I would have shared my struggle with another man or seen a counselor in order to help me process all that I was going through.
From college I moved on to seminary and went through a very difficult season until I met my wife. We met after my semester in school. I finally found someone who I loved to talk to and spend time with. About two months into our relationship I told her about my struggle with same sex attraction. She accepted me through my tears and brokenness. I loved her even more for accepting. It was the hardest thing to say to her because I was afraid she would reject me or feel like I wasn’t attracted to her.
Things improved but my wife and I faced a ton together. During all of these ups and downs I continued to wrestle with thoughts about other men. At times I risked rejection an opened up to some people in my life. Each time I did that I was relieved when they accepted me and loved me.
I believe the rest of my life that I will be putting sin to death in my flesh and seeking to walk by the Spirit. I often want to give up but God’s grace sustains me and allows me to persevere. He shows me small victories and has recently provided me some new people to confide in and share my struggle. Accountability has been very helpful for me and God has given me some wonderful believers to walk with through this struggle.
God is good and my struggle does not change that fact. I must trust him and walk by faith. Sin is who I was before Christ and now I am a saint who is being made into the likeness of Christ.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:13 ESV)
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:3-4 ESV)”
Amazing dear Pastor. Thank you for your honesty.
@ Matt, thank you for posting this man’s narrative. In my case I was quite clear, I was not carrying a huge troublesome cross, I was not (am not) burden by living a chaste life. There are heterosexuals and homosexuals who struggle with chastity, some greatly struggle, but there are those who do not struggle so much. It seems to me the presumptions of seeing SSA/SSI in light of temptation and a cross shares a lot with a presumption against the reality of virtue, like that of chastity. After all virtue, is a habit and ‘gays’ and ‘lesbians’ are justas capable as ‘straights’. When I WAS dealing with feelings of SSA/SSI I viewed ‘gay’ as a classification-insignia. But it wasn’t always a struggle, but I do believe the struggle can often lead many to frustration for those who suffer with this infliction and who want to live virtuous lives of chastity. Thank you.
Will, you are not the only one. I strongly suspect God is leading me in the same direction. I hope and pray that God is willing to use us to educate the Church and move it in a direction that will glorify Him.
Davide, I would like to hear your story. I’ve read your comments on a couple of these blogs and I’m just curios to know more. My twitter ID is @BryanMatt It’s up to you. Thanks
Hey Matt:
As I think about my years in Seminary, I think about the guys in the ministry that confided in me that they struggled with SSA. I can think of at least 5 that were struggling along with me. One of those students, Kevin, not only was the weekend pastor of a country church but was HIV positive. Out of the thousands of students that attended that Seminary, I was the only person that knew of his HIV status. Just a few months after he confided in me, he became ill with full blown AIDS. Keven talked to me about how he contracted HIV. He wept as he told me of his early life and how his dad would get Kevin to engage in sexual activities with him. Kevin then said that he, like many victims of parental incest, began to ask his dad to “Play the game” because it was the only way he could have any sort of intimacy or affection from his hard drinking father.
I tried my best to keep his status quiet but I finally had to go to the school to get him the help he needed (With his permission) The school administration was wonderful and very loving. They provided private housing away from the mens dorm that we lived in. At the time (late 80′s) AIDS was relatively a gay mans disease and the public was woefully ignorant about how it was passed to one another. It would have, and did, create an uproar after we moved him out of the dorm but Kevin was too sick to stay there even if he had been accepted with open arms.
One thing that was extremely humorous to me was that the guy who yelled and screamed the most about someone with AIDS being in the dorm was the same guy who was eventually assigned to the now empty dorm room that I moved Kevin out of. I took a bit too much glee in informing him whos room it used to be… after he had lived there a few days of course.
Kevin became very ill and passed away about 3 months after he moved home with his family. Out of everyone that knew him… only 3 people from school attended his funeral. While the Seminary was being Jesus to Kevin, some of the students were not.
I’m not sure why I told that story other than to say this..I am contemplating telling my church about my struggles with SSA because I think that God may be leading me to the ministry of helping Christians with SSA.. Some church people know, most don’t. I struggle with telling them partly because of the story above and the reactions I came across so long ago but God will see me through.
“. He wept as he told me of his early life and how his dad would get Kevin to engage in sexual activities with him. ”
Very sad. People try to equate people with adult SSA with pedophiles but it’s an “orientation” all its own, if you even want to call it that. There are married men who abuse both boys and girls. Whatever the source of the impulse, these men forget that acting on them does tangible and measurable harm to their victims.
I have extended family members who were molested by their own biological father (he’s no longer living in the area). They suffered serious emotional problems for years, with a couple of the victims resorting to drugs.
Will Tanker, we have a generation of hurt men. Im finding more and more that its not about sex at all but about love and acceptance. I pray that we can correct tat with the young men that are now in the procesof growing up. I know my interaction with my son is severly diferent from what i had grwoing up.
I’m glad you shared that story. I want you to know that it truly touched my heart. I would like to get to know you and share my story with you. Below is my twitter ID and it has my facebook address. Thanks for sharing.
Matt.. i so can relate tto this mans story . Hell I could have written it, It so similar to mine and others that i know., Keep up the strong work my friend
Praise God for those who are able and willing to share their stories because it brings much healing to thousands who need to hear it!
Thank You!
Matt,
Thank you for posting this! I think sometimes we straight “Christians,” who themselves have sin in their lives, only think one way about LGBTQs, etc.
I want to share something I thought was rather funny and sad. I heard a couple speak about being Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ). The field I’m in is replete with all of the above. Anyway … they spoke about them both being “queer” and what that means. I was curious and asked what was their relationship to each other. They said they were partners. The couple were a man and woman. Both identifying as queer. Their presentation was filled with statistics and I just wonder where their statistics really came from.
They presented the information in a very positive light. But I think really that they are fanning a flame of deceit in our young children today.
My other comment is about people in my own family. Every time I read a post from here I think about my cousin. All the time growing up he acted very feminine. I didn’t think about it at the time. But later in life, he “came out” and has been in a same sex relationship for a very long time.
The reason I bring him up is because I was sexually molested by two of his brothers and wonder sometimes if this is something that may have happened to him as well.
I have issues of my own because of the molestations I experienced but have sought counseling because of it. I am also married to a man who has a lot of feminine characteristics. He told me at one time that if other things had happened to him he maybe could have “been gay.” We have been married for almost 25 years and I’m wondering if he’s had same sex feelings and just never shared them. He was into porn before we met and there are things that he likes to do during sex that seem to come from that but I wonder how would a person approach that subject.
When are gay christians going to wake up and realize that this constant struggle is so terribly unnecessary. From a recent article:
“But, there’s no need for all this teeth-gnashing and struggle. Jesus (remember him?) actually says that he came to give us life “abundantly,” not a life of struggle, depression, frustration and confusion. The religion people invented after Jesus has given us plenty of that, but if we actually go back and base our lives on Jesus’ terms, then struggles disappear. If we are to judge our lives on what Jesus said he brings to us, then struggling is a sign that we aren’t in it. Abundance—as in an abundance of joy, compassion, love, peace, justice and all the other things Jesus prattled on about—would mark how our lives are supposed to be going.
The moment I gave up “struggling” and stopped seeing my sexual orientation as “baggage” was the moment I experienced abundance, in spades. The struggle stopped. God does not give brownie points for extra struggling, especially when it’s unnecessary and self-imposed. As an Episcopalian priest friend once said to me, “God created us because God thought we might enjoy it.”
To paraphrase the Lolcats: If you’re struggling as a Christian, “ur doing it wrong.”
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/candacechellew-hodge/6230/evangelical_writer_%E2%80%9Cstruggles%E2%80%9D_after_chick-fil-a_outing/
I am saddened by your comment. I am a Christian and gay. And no I don’t act on those feelings of lust for another man. I want to tell you, with only love in my heart for you, that the truth is if a person don’t struggle from time to time with sin or temptation then that person is not truly saved. “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:16&17) and again, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:20) We are told repeatedly to deny the flesh and take up our cross and follow Jesus. “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and the table of devils.” (I Corinthians 10:21) These passages are TRUTH. We must “eat” the whole Bible not just the parts we like. The Bible is the “little book” in the angel’s hand in Revelation 10:9, “And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.” Why? When we are first saved the scripture is wonderful (sweet) and we can’t get enough but as we go along, our flesh and the world start to try to pull us back and we find it’s hard not to give in to those again and then the scripture seems to hard (bitter). Please, hear me, I say all of this out of love; God knows my heart and I worry that no one will hear my pleas for their salvation. All my brotherly love to you.
I’ve been free of my “guilt” regarding my sexuality for over 15 years now, so it really is so much easier for me to see more clearly this “supposed” divide between the bible and sexuality. I amazed that I let people convince me that god is some kind of evil and vengeful creature that would purposely allow me to survive my whole life in a psychological gulag of guilt and shame about something that I had no control over. (oh yes, we have control over our actions, but we have no control over our attractions. It gets to the core of who we are.)
Is this seriously the god you people worship? Is this seriously the god you people WANT to worship?
This psychological gulag is one of your own making. God had nothing to do with it. All you need to do is open the door and walk out.
It’s always fascinating to uncover stories from guys who all struggle with SSA, and yet struggle so differently as well. Always love hearing someone’s story I’ve never heard before. Thanks so much for sharing this!
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