Testimonies > True Love Changes You: How Jesus Christ Loved Me Out of Homosexuality

I grew up in a small town, the son of a Southern Baptist preacher. I was raised on the gospel, and our family remained, by the grace of God, free of any substance abuse, sexual violation, and my parents were never divorced or even separated. If anyone should never have developed a homosexual orientation, it was me. But I did.

I didn't understand the feelings at first. I had always felt different from other boys, isolated because I couldn't play their sports or act tough, even though I always longed for their acceptance. In junior high, an older teenager exposed himself to me in a sexual way. Although it was a scary and confusing experience, I also experienced a strange excitement that got me thinking.

These feelings continued to grow in me and I began to realize with horror that I was actually becoming the "faggot" the other boys in school had always accused me of being. I prayed fervently for God to take the feelings away, but He did not. I felt too ashamed to ask anyone for help, so I tried in secret to make it go away. Eventually I just become weary of feeling so alone.

When I was a freshman in high school, a female friend came out to me as a lesbian and I suddenly felt a liberation I had never known. Finally, I could tell someone about my secret struggle.

Unfortunately, this confession only opened up the path into the homosexual lifestyle. Through my friend, I was introduced to other gay people and their ideals. I discovered pornography for which I had a very eager interest. In my heart I knew I was disobeying God, but I felt He had abandoned me and hated me because I was gay. The homosexual life offered me the first taste of intimacy and acceptance I'd ever had. But on the other hand, I was leading a double life, lying to everyone, and in constant moral turmoil. Despite the pleasure of sin, I couldn't reconcile my gay lifestyle with what I knew of God. I wanted to die.

Meanwhile, my parents discovered my secret life and tried to end it. They tried to monitor me every hour. They took me to Christian therapists and even those professionals tried to tell them there was no hope for me, that I would always be gay. But my parents wouldn't accept that. Eventually they took me to New Creation Ministries to talk to a woman named Donna who was a former lesbian. I thought it was preposterous, but somewhere deep inside a small seed of hope began to grow.

One day when I was in one of the places I went to "hook up", feeling disgusted with myself but hopelessly needy, I was suddenly overcome by the presence of the Lord. I heard a voice in my heart telling me Jesus had followed me there, even to that nasty sinful place, and wanted me to come back with Him. This revelation about His merciful nature began a slow but inevitable change in my mind.

The sinful habits I had made were hard to break because they were more than just habits; sex was how I dealt with life! I had to face the pain of my past and reject the lies I had believed about myself. Through counseling and accountability with fellow Christians, I learned healthier ways of relating.

More than anything, my relationship with Jesus was what changed me from the inside out. At a conference, a complete stranger felt compelled to tell me that God loved me "as though He had no other children at all." What that stranger didn't know was that deep inside I had always felt that God only loved me because He had to, that was his job as God (this was really how I felt about my dad, the pastor). That's just one example of how Jesus' love has undone the lies that so deeply wounded my identity.

As I walk daily in deeper intimacy with Him, and in genuine intimacy with other guys, I experience continuing victory over this struggle. The walk out of Egypt didn't happen overnight and it is not over yet. But God is showing me His power to do the impossible in my life. He is healing the lonely little boy inside, rebuilding my shattered masculinity, and daily extending grace to an imperfect son. In Him, I can be the man I never thought I was.

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