This one is going to be controversial. This one is going to hurt, and if it hurts you to read it, know that it hurt more to write it. I didn't want to, but I feel like there are some things we all need to understand.
I read a Blog the other day written by a former lesbian turned straight Catholic. She wrote about her struggles and how there are some days she has to disconnect from her feelings and emotions, how she has to avoid certain situations and television shows. She wrote how it has affected her marriage and how sometimes she has to avoid intimacy with her husband so that she will not be thinking about women. It was a hard article to read, it was even harder to read the comments, there were a lot about how she was such a poor woman, how terrible it was that she had to deny herself so she could be religious. It went on and on, the funny thing is the woman is happy, she doesn't want to think about being with a woman, she doesn't want to be a lesbian. It was hard to read because I don't think she expressed to others what was really in her heart. She didn't let them know that it is possible to be free, and it is.
It is common in the "Church" these days to follow the "God is Love" line. Let's dig deeper here, God is love, he is the maker of it, and only He knows how to truly give and receive it in the way He designed it to be experienced. What people so easily forget is that God is also Holy. God is set apart, like I said, only He knows how to give and receive love the way He intended it. There is a reason people want to follow this line and avoid the rest of God's character, because they know someone with a same sex attraction, or they have a same sex attraction. They have bought into the "this is the way God made me and God is love, so I can be gay," lie. Yes, I can say it is a lie, yes, I can say I know this, not only because the Bible says so, but because, and here it is....I struggled with same sex attraction, and I lived with a woman who I had a relationship with, and I was set free from all of those feelings.
In Genesis, God made the woman for the man, he made them to be together, this might be graphic, but it is logic, He designed them to fit together in every way. You know what I mean. Also, in Genesis, there is a story about Lot, and the city of Sodom. The LORD was angry with Sodom, they were living in a way contrary to how He designed them to live, they were engaging in homosexual sex. It is all in Genesis 19, you should read it. The point there, and the point here, is that God planned for men to be with women. He is a God of love, and for His own purposes, He designed love in a physical way to be expressed between a man and a woman. This may make you angry, it may make you confused, you may do like so many other people do and discount the Bible, or say that the Bible is meant to be taken metaphorically, I won't get into too much of an argument with you on this right now, just know that when you start picking and choosing what parts of the Bible to go with, you run in to a lot of problems, and then you have to question the whole thing, and then what is the point of Jesus' death... I might add that Genesis is by no means the only accounts of God and how He feels about physical love being expressed in a way He did not design, it is all over the old and new testament. But, I want to get to the good news.
My story is not exclusive, I am not the only person who has had "same sex attraction," or as I will call it, and because I'm talking about myself, I will say it, same sex perversion, and found complete freedom from it. I mean complete, none of this, I have to struggle with these thoughts and feelings and deny myself and make emotional disconnects, no I mean, gone. The skeptics will say that I wasn't really a lesbian, or bisexual, I was just experimenting, etc. I know they will, I've seen those comments on other people's blogs, I'm telling you, I know what I know, you can be free from same sex attraction. You can focus on God, you can stop making romantic love your idol, and you can become what God designed you to be. The truth is no one was born gay, they can't have been, God made them, as I stated before, God made woman for man, and man for woman, there is no such thing as "born gay." A person can struggle with same sex attraction from a young age, just the same as a person can struggle with any sin from a young age, but no one is born gay. I am thankful for the freedom from the thoughts and attractions, I am thankful for the forgiveness for my participation in a lie, I am thankful that God could use someone with a secret that they feel shame over and give them the strength to tell the truth about homosexuality. You don't have to struggle anymore, you can be free.
How do I help my loved one with a same sex attraction? The same way you should help your loved one in anything. Be there for them, don't abandon them, don't disown them, don't avoid them, don't tell them,"you are going to hell," don't get all crazy on them. Do love them anyway, do tell them the truth in a loving way, do offer your help and support, do pray for them, and pray for them, and pray for them. Getting back to "God is Love," He is, and Jesus came to love and save sinners, He wants you to show that kind of love. What you should not do is help them live this lie. You shouldn't encourage them to follow their heart: Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond a cure, who can understand it." NIV. Following your heart can lead to all kinds of sin, the sin of selfishness, the sin of a relationship that is not what God intended, the sin of a physical relationship that God has not blessed in marriage. Another important thing to remember is that sin is sin. The sin of shacking up with my boyfriend was just as bad in God's eyes as the sin of shacking up with a girlfriend. This is the other side of the coin that the Church can get carried away with. We sit and preach and preach about how terrible gay marriage and gay relationships are, and they are a sin, but some of those same people back off and remain silent when their niece goes and moves in with her boyfriend. They are both sin, they are both punishable by death, God is Holy, He has that right, but what He really wants is for us to give Him our lives, so that He can give us eternal life and forgiveness, no matter what we have done.
If this blog has reached just one person, than it was worth the pain of having to expose it. You see, even I forgot that sin is sin, and that the sin of my relationship with a woman was just a bad as my living with my boyfriend. May God help us to live the way He created us to live, in every aspect of our lives.
I welcome questions or even challenges on this subject.
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