1. Something of an Overview

Dear Reader,

Lately, God has been convicting me on several parts of my life. Some of that includes being more open about my faith and my sexuality, and some of that includes bringing to light some parts of myself that God is asking to heal. That includes sharing my full testimony, not as someone to set a particular example, but as someone who is simply a fallible human.

Dialogue is critical for the resolution of conflict. Despite this, homosexuality remains one of the most talked about and least talked among subject facing the church today. Regardless of your beliefs about the morality of homosexuality, Christians must agree on two facts. 1) God loves homosexuals very deary, just as he loves all people. 2) The is a rift between the Christian community and the LGBT community. As Christians we are called to no higher action than to love our fellow human, but the church is failing. Christians have earned our reputation as pretentious and overbearing because we have forgotten our duty to be humble and serve others. I fear that I would have become just such a person, had not my life placed me outside the sphere of acceptance.

Because I both accepted Christ and came to understand that I am gay before the age of 10, my experience as a gay Christian is more extensive than my age might suggest. I grew up in a Christian household in the middle of one of the strongholds if conservative Christianity , and as I said, I understood that my homosexuality very early. I truly came to understand at the age of 9 when I first read the word “homosexual” on a Focus on the Family newsletter featuring Love Won Out. Upon reflection, I can recognize the elements of my homosexuality appearing as early as age 6-7, particularly in my associations with another young man of near my age. My mother also assumed my homosexuality very early, as did almost everyone else. Though she first asked me when I was 11, I denied it until the age of 13. After fully confronting the issue with her, there came a confusing period where I was battling my questions, my emotional addictions, my emotionally estranged father, my mother's desire for me to be “healed,” my growing disbelief in the Exodus-type philosophy, and my dissatisfaction with my present concept of gay Christians. From what I had seen, on one hand, the conservative right was choosing to believe in reparative therapy without Biblical basis. There are no promises of the removal of sin from our lives in this world; not addictive natures, not anger, not pride, not even sexual temptation of any nature. All God promises is to give us the strength to face sin. On the other hand, the gay Christians seemed 99% mainstream-high-fructose-corn-syrup-gay with a 1% Christian label on the outside, but God has provided a solid moral standard upon which we are founded. Therefore, neither side satisfied me or convinced me.

Until I was 16, I believed that I should change. It just made sense. I was told that the Bible said homosexuality was utterly wrong, and my experience matched the profile that the ex-gay ministries touted as the cause of homosexuality. I was the victim of a molestation as a child, my relationship with my father was strained, and I was something of a social outcast. The rhetoric matched my situation, and I believed that if I could trust anyone on this matter, it should be the leaders of the church. I strove to be chaste, condemning myself and punishing myself when I made a mistake or when I allowed any homosexual idea entered my head, so I eventually sank into a weariness of myself and the idea continuing to struggle throughout the rest of my life. When I was 15, I told my mother than I could not envision myself growing old. At that age, I finally began to understand more of the root of my own sexual/emotional issues, but I was still left with the ultimate question of “What is God's will for me?” I remember very clearly, one night I was duking it out with God again about the same issues, and I felt God telling me that I was only fighting against myself. I had been spending so much energy in hating myself for who I was and what I had done, that I was preventing God from working in me. I expected to change myself so that I could earn his approval before giving myself fully to him. And failing every step of the way. The conclusion I came to is that God expects me to accept that I am flawed, but if I give myself over to him, he will command the process of healing in ways how he sees best. The instant I verbally relinquished my burden to God, I shed my inflicted anxiety over being homosexual and felt an enormous peace wash over me. I was delivered from my homosexuality in an instant: I was delivered from the inflicted guilty and anguish, from the the stigma and the self-hatred, from the lies and the belief that God could not accept me as I am. Obviously, the self-consciousness arose again, but every time that peace has been renewed, and I am re-awakened to the grace of God over my life.

So, for a while, I let sleeping dogs lie. That moment of understanding was a period of a change in my life; I began attending a boarding school with a much more rigorous curriculum; I began to associate more positively with my peers; I was overwhelmed, for the first time, by all the potential occupations at hand. I could easily bury myself in work, and I had not cause to question the issue further. No promising relationship loomed on the horizon, no one in my new high school asked about or condemned my sexuality. So, I remained in this quasi-apathetic, ambivalent state throughout the rest of high school. Though you can read more about my experiences during this time period, my convictions on the matter were more-or-less stagnant in this time period. My personal growth always comes when the distractions are stripped away. I had few distractions before changing high schools, so this was a period of intense change and intense turmoil in my personal perspectives. One year after changing high schools, my senior year, I was again in such a position. By Christmas I had been accepted to my first-choice university, my grades were well in hand, my activities and leadership positions were running fairly smoothly, so I soon entered another period of change in perspective.

In many ways this time was a period of realization of the change that had already taken place. I no longer denied being homosexual, although I rarely, if ever, volunteered the information. And so has been the case for much of the time sense. I am learning to be open an honest, and to trust my friends love for me to be greater than any disagreement that we may have. Now, as a Christian, I seek a better understanding of God, an understanding that is strengthened by a life of doubting and seeking God for answers. As a homosexual, I seek open dialogue with anyone who is willing to discuss. I know I cannot convince you of any point of view, but I can present to you the questions born of my struggle with homosexuality that altered my view in their exploration.

Though I am certain that God will never change my sexuality, I am uncertain as to whether I am called to marriage or I am called to celibacy. What I do know is that God has a plan for my life, and if it is his will that I marry, then he will bring that man into my life. I believe that if a union with a man is blessed by God, then he has a specific man for me as part of a greater prophesy over my life, but I am also open to the possibility that this is my own wishful thinking. For now, I choose to trust that he will enact his plan as he sees fit, a choice I must re-commit myself to every day.

There is more to this story; I intend to go into many of these general statements with much more depth, but I hope this gives you some idea of my convictions without bogging you down with every detail of my personal experience. In this, I am willing to be 100% open and honest about my actions throughout the entirity of my life, but I believe I have separated these elements in a manner that is prudent for the varied audience that can access internet-based materials.