I Choose Celibacy

1 May 2008

*cel-i-bate Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation [sel-uh-bit, -beyt] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation

-noun

1. a person who abstains from sexual relations.

2. a person who remains unmarried, esp. for religious reasons.

-adjective

3. observing or pertaining to sexual abstention or religious vow not to marry.

4. not married.

Short blog here today. I feel the need to make a clarification. I have written several blogs on homosexuality and referred to myself as being gay. To me being gay is just my sexual orientation it means nothing else. But I guess to a lot of people the term gay means someone is actually involved in the lifestyle. Maybe I should use the term SSA which stands for Same Sex Attraction which is the politically correct way of saying it. But two things, I’ve never been politically correct. Just a bad habit. And I am so used to the term gay and to me it just means that I am not straight, I am not attracted to the opposite sex.

So with that being cleared up I also want to clear up the fact that while I am not a virgin, I have had sex with both men and women in the past. I have been and I remain to be celibate since March 1995 which is over 13 years now.

I was in an LTR and the Lord called me out of it. The Lord convicted me that it was wrong for me to be in that relationship and I had to make a choice my boyfriend or God. I chose God. I would rather choose God over sex or anything else that this world may have to offer. I was not a happy camper about the situation and I protested. I gave God an ultimatum that He must make me heterosexual within a year and let me get married and have a family of my own and if He didn’t I was going to go back. Well, obviously that one year has turned into 13 years. And I see that God is not going to make me straight and I see that I am not going to have a family of my own. I was 33 years old when I broke off with my boyfriend, I am now 46 years old. And while I realize that for a man he is never too old to have children. I can tell you to rest assured at my age I do not want an infant waking me up in the middle of the night crying. So for me it’s too late.

I realize that I have options and some of them are tempting. Such as I can leave my religious beliefs completely and live the gay life. Or, I can go to a gay friendly church and carry on in a gay relationship as well as being a Christian at the same time. I can stay in my current church and have a secret love affair. But I do not want any of these. Especially the last one because while I may be able to fool man I cannot fool God. God is all knowing and He will know if I am in an active relationship or not and I do not want to take that chance.

So, my last option is to remain celibate. I have included the meaning of celibate at the beginning of this blog because I realize a lot of folks do not know what it really means. I have chosen to not have sex, no sex with men or women for the rest of my life unless God sees fit to make me heterosexual and I get married. I believe that sex is sacred and is only for the marriage bed whether a person is gay or straight sex outside of marriage is wrong.

This is not an easy life to live. I hate being alone. I hate not having a companion. I hate not being able to have sex. There’s just so many negatives to being celibate. But the benefits are going to be well worth it when I die and come face to face with my maker. Yes I lived in sin for years but I have also made the choice to change my ways and follow His lead. The only way I could have and the only way I can remain celibate is with the help of Jesus Christ. There is no way I could do this in the flesh. This is most assuredly a spiritual thing. My flesh battles me all the way each and every day. If I did not have the promise of God, if I was not filled with God’s Holy Spirit there is no way I would be able to remain celibate. There is no way I would be able to remain this faithful.

Do I ever want to give up? You betcha!! And I come close many times of just chucking the whole thing and going back. Egypt looks so good when you’re in the desert and I fight God on this tooth and nail. But I have given Him my will and ask Him not to let me win when I battle Him. Because the truth is I don’t want to give in. But at the same time I do fight Him at times and when those times come I will argue with and get mad at Him. But He is a big God and He can handle my little temper tantrums.

So if my blogs have given you the impression that I am currently sexually active this is not true and I apologize for not being clear on that. But I cannot stop calling myself gay because this is just pushing myself back into the closet. I am gay, I am not straight. I am attracted to men, I am not attracted to women. I realize to a lot of people the term Gay Christian is an oxymoron and it just doesn’t go together. That is ok, the way I prefer to say it is that “I am a Christian man who happens to be gay.” I am a Christian first and foremost. God comes first in my life for everything. Being gay is very much a part of me and I will not deny it anymore. However, I am not living the gay life.

So, for now…

*American Psychological Association (APA):

celibate. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved May 01, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/celibate

Ex-gay…or not?

04/22/2008

 

Once again I must start by saying that I have not done extensive research into this topic. Most of what I am going to write is from personal experience and from my perspective. Ok, lets go back to the beginning, sorry if you find this part boring but I know an awful lot of you do not know the whole story so please bear with me if this seems redundant to you. The first time I left the gay life I was 22 years old. I was convicted at that time that having sex outside of marriage was wrong, whether it be with a man or a woman. I believed that God intended sex for the marriage bed and for no other purpose. So I gave up my sex life. Now I had been involved with both men and women and this is how I knew I was gay. I did not like sex with women, I thought if I had sex with women that gay desires would go away but they didn’t. I would fight with my girlfriends over sex because I hated it, I thought it was gross. And I really wasn’t fulfilled unless I was with a man. So I came to the conclusion that I was totally gay and not bi or just plain old confused.

 

So now here I am at 22 years old and I give up sex totally. I lived for the next seven years without any sexual contact with anybody, male or female. My prayer life was that the Lord take away my desire for men and give me a woman that I would desire so that I could get married and have a family. I wanted desperately to have my own family. I wanted nothing more than to prove to myself and to the world that I could and would be a good father and husband. But God never saw fit to answer my prayers. And to be quite honest with you those seven years went by pretty fast because I got myself very involved with the church and church related things. Plus, I spent most of my spare time with a very good and very close friend. While he did not know I was gay, I was deeply in love with him and I would do anything for him. But I knew if I made a pass at him, I knew if I told him how I felt, I would lose his friendship and so instead of loosing him completely I kept my feelings to myself. I cherished our friendship too much to jeopardize it by a few moments of pleasure that we both would regret. The main reason for my feeling this was is because he was not gay and I knew he was not gay and I knew enough to know that a man does not convert to being gay. You’re either gay or your not. Having gay sex is not going to make you a homosexual any more than having sex with a woman made me a heterosexual.

 

By the time I was 29 years old, it was seven years later. Things began to happen in my life, bad things, things I could not handle. My best friend was getting married, I was so jealous of his girlfriend that I could not learn to like her. I resented her for taking him away from me. Even though we didn’t have a homosexual relationship we did have an exclusive relationship and I felt that she got in between us and I was very jealous of her and couldn’t bring myself to like her. Of course I had to act like everything was fine and I played the role very well but it tore me up on the inside.

 

Then my oldest sister died, she was five years older than me so that put her at the age of 34 years old. She and I had a special relationship a relationship like I’ve never had with anybody else. In our entire lives we only had one argument and that was in our early 20’s. Otherwise, we always got along and would do anything for each other. She became a Jehovah’s Witness and I didn’t approve of that I tried to make her see the errors of her ways but we still remained very, very close. Plus, Diane knew I was gay. She knew I was gay before I knew I was gay. I could tell you lots of stories but I will spare you except one, I never outright told Diane that I am gay but she never outright asked me either. It was just a mutual understanding and when I turned 18 years old she took me to my first gay bar. I didn’t know if I should be happy or insulted I sure was surprised by it was my clue that she not only suspected but she knew.

 

Anyway, I was 29 years old when Diane died. Two weeks after Diane died a very close friend of mine died who happened to only be 29 years old. I was devastated by these two deaths and so close to each other. When I was 29 years old was the worst year of my entire life. I never had such a bad year, each and every month of that year was a disaster or tragedy and that is no exaggeration. From a niece being hit by a truck to my getting into a major car accident to almost losing my other sister to a disease that she had to go through major surgery for. It was all more than I could bear.

 

I got very discouraged with my walk with the Lord and I got very angry with Him. So angry that I rebelled I needed love in my life. I needed to be understood and I needed to be loved and I mean physically not spiritually, or so I thought. I was looking for real tangible experiences to replace all these other real and tangible experiences of tragedy that I was going through. I ended up back into the gay life. I don’t know what happened except I know I answered an ad in the newspaper and it started from there.

 

I hate to admit this but I was a male whore, I went from one man to another. I was never satisfied and as soon as I was finished with one I was looking for Mr. Right. But I never found Mr. Right so I just kept looking and looking for him to no avail. I never practiced safe sex it was my hope and desire to contract HIV/AIDS so that I could die. It was the only method of suicide that I could attempt at that time. But during that whole four or five year episode, God kept me disease free from any STD’s as well as from HIV/AIDS. I don’t know how I got so lucky but the Lord was obviously watching out for me.

 

Then I met him. I met the man who was the perfect man he was who I was looking for and he was who I settled with. We were going to make things work and we were going to live happily ever after. He was 12 years older than me which was something I needed. I needed a man to take charge. He was a runner so he was in excellent shape and he had all the attributes I was looking for and he was nice, kind, soft-spoken and most of all he was a Christian.

 

During this time period I did not give up totally on church I still went to church on occasion and for some reason I stayed in the Word. I continued to read the word almost every single day. I was in such a habit of reading the Word that I never gave that up.

 

My relationship with this man was only three months old. Believe it or not that was a long term relationship for me. Before him I was not with anybody longer than a week. Before him a week was a long term relationship so three months was just amazing to me. But something began to happen and instead of going into all the specifics and details lets just say that the Lord began to work on my heart and convict me of my sin of rebellion. He was calling me back. I did not know what to do. Here I had the perfect man, the man of my dreams, the man that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. And on the other hand I had God calling me out of the relationship. God wanted me all for himself. I was very confused and I went online to look for help.

 

I met a Christian man who had been in a 12 year gay relationship with his lover and he ended the relationship because God called him out of it. The two of us hit it off, he was in a different country so there was nothing to worry about. But he basically took me by the hand and told me exactly what God was telling me so finally one day I broke up with my boyfriend. It was very hard to do and he didn’t make it very easy. For the next five years he kept coming around, buying me gifts you name it he was relentless. But I told him I had to make a choice and that was him or God and I chose God. I told him that no matter how much I loved somebody the only one that was going to own my soul was God.

 

I was 33 years old, that was 13 years ago. I have not been with, nor inappropriately touched another human being since that last day of that relationship. I broke things off and I never turned back, I never looked behind me. Now this was hard, it was one of the hardest things God asked me to do. I gave God one year to make me straight and let me get married but that one year has turned into 13 and I still am not straight but I am still walking with the Lord. Not that I haven’t given the Lord or a few people their money’s worth of hassle because I have. It’s been very hard to stay alone and to stay celibate but I was able to do it through the strength of Jesus Christ. The Bible says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and it also tells me that God will not give me something more than I can bear. And while there are times I feel I cannot bear this burden, He always does seem to come through for me. He pushes the envelope more times than not and we end up arguing and I end up getting mad at God. It’s been a rough 13 years on God. I am not the easiest person to put up with when I get angry but I have to admit I have remained faithful.

 

Anyway, during this time the Lord had blessed me with a Pastor friend who was a tremendous help to me. He also was from another country but we communicated every single day. And there were many days I called him up crying and yelling and having a fit. But he always had something magical and was able to calm me down before the end of the conversation. I depended upon this man so very much. Our friendship lasted about 12 years and I still try to stay in touch with him but I have pushed him once too many times.

 

Well, during these past 13 years I have spent most of it in group therapy for reparative therapy. Now reparative therapy is what they call therapy that is supposed to change a homosexual into a heterosexual. There was all kinds of homework to do, books to read, fellowship, friendship, accountability partners you name it it was all in this group. This group was a small group from the Exodus International Ministries which is the largest ex-gay ministry in the world. I was faithful at going for quite a few years but then I didn’t find it was all that much of a help so I stopped going regularly but I never totally gave it up.

 

Then there was the Christian Psychiatrists that I went to and believe me it is hard to find a Christian Psychiatrist but the ones that I found I went to. I went to each one for at the very least one year, I think more but I’ll go with a year each. One of them was in a few cities away and it took me about 45 minutes to get to his office. There were several times I showed up and he didn’t and I would get very aggravated but none the less I continued to go to him. Then one of them was from my general area and the third one was at the opposite end of Connecticut. So it was a very long ride to get to him. It was such a ride to get to him that we would meet for two hour sessions instead of one hour sessions so that I could get through his program better. It’s important to note that each and every one of the Psychiatrists promised me if I followed their instructions perfectly that I would become heterosexual within the year and I would be married with children. I believed them and this is why I was faithful for going for at the very least three years. But alas, it never happened.

 

There is a ministry online that sells books on the topic of coming out of homosexuality and I have bought and read so many of those books I cannot tell you how many. But I can tell you I tried everything that each of these books said to do and nothing happened.

 

It is very frustrating, irritating and disappointing to put all this work into something and not have any of it work. Not at all. I am just as gay today as I was before I started any of this therapy. If you do a web search for “ex-gay” you will find the majority of links are now for restoring the damage that the ex-gay movement has caused on its members.

 

I don’t know about anybody else, but I always took it out on God. I always blamed God for not healing me. I believed I was doing everything right, I was doing everything I was told to do and yet He was not keeping His end of the bargain. I was very discouraged with God and I believed that the only reason God was not delivering me was because He hated me. That had to be the answer. Maybe all those Christians are right all homosexuals go to hell. We are not only outcasts to the Christian community but outcasts to God Himself.

 

I was so desperate at one point I went to each and every church in my local area and talked to the pastor’s of those churches and asked them to please pray over me to release me from this evil spirit of homosexuality. I believed that I was possessed and the only way I would get delivered was if a pastor performed an exorcist on me. But the only thing that I accomplished from this was that I met a lot of pastors, and I got a lot of prayers. They all told me the same thing, I was not possessed, I did not have a demon. Some of them prayed with me some of them prayed for me but not one of them prayed over me. That was also a very discouraging time.

 

I write all of this not as a confession and not as my testimony because this is a very short version of what really took place. But the reason I wrote all this is because I want to show you that reparative therapy does not work. It did not work on me, I am first hand proof that it does not work. I did not learn how to post a link so at the end of this note there are a couple of links I will try to just put in. One of them is an open letter of apology from the two founders of Exodus International for the damage they have caused to gay men by making the claim that they could deliver them from homosexuality. The funny part is these two men, the co-founders of Exodus International became lovers.

 

I guess my point to this whole thing is to prove to you that I tried, I tried everything to become a straight man. I wanted desperately to get married and have children. I do not know if God made me gay or not. That is a moot issue, what is the issue is God did not deliver me from homosexuality even with all the work I put into it.

 

Around Christmas time this past year 2007, I finally came out to my family and a few close friends. I have denied being gay to myself and to my family. I didn’t accept it and I wasn’t going to admit it. But I finally did. It is time that I accept who I am so I can become one whole man.

 

I know married men with children who go through the Exodus program because they were “changed” and became “heterosexual” yet they still need the support of the group because they still have SSA {Same Sex Attraction}. If they were totally healed I would think that the sexual attraction would also cease.

 

The problem, the issue is not the fact that I am gay. The problem, the issue is what am I going to do with it. And for now I believe the Lord has called me to live a celibate life. I am not sinning, I am not livening in sin, I am not having sex outside of marriage, I simply am a Christian man who happens to be gay. I happen to be attracted towards men instead of women. It is a big part of myself and it is something I need to own but I think owning it it will eventually become a smaller and smaller issue. All these years it’s been a big issue because I was living a lie and I was hiding it from everybody. I had to keep my guard up at all times and that is very, very tiring to do.

 

So, while I have not participated in the gay life for 13 years now I do not consider myself as ex-gay because I am still a gay man. I just do not practice my homosexuality. I do not believe there is such a thing as ex-gay. I do not see how anybody can claim to be ex-gay and I am very discouraged and disappointed that the ex-gay movement has sold the Christian community the garbage that a person can change their orientation and that it’s a choice because neither of those are true. And it only oppresses gays that much further.

 

Well, I have a lot more to say on this topic but I think once again this is an awfully long blog so I will end it there. I did not figure out how to add a link into the note so I’m just going to suggest if you want further reading on the ex-ex-gay movement just do a web search in Google with the word ex-gay and you will be surprised with how many websites you will have to choose from.

 

I also want to give you a link to the apology letter from the two founders of Exodus International just so you can see for yourself that even the founders of this organization do not agree with what they spread as truth.

 

http://www.beyondexgay.com/article/apology

 

PS

            Suicide has also played a very large role in my life with my first attempt in 1979 and my last attempt in 2003.

 

So, for now…

Do Unto Others

04/12/2008

 

You know I can be a very naïve person there are so many things that I just don’t get and then all of a sudden I realize what it means and I’m like wow all these years I thought it meant that or I never knew that or whatever. I also am very gullible I am easily fooled into believing what somebody is telling me as fact when they are just pulling my leg. And of course there are times they believe what they are saying and so do I only to find out it was wrong information in the first place.

 

Anyway, this “Do unto others” saying is something we grew up with. I have always taken it to mean “Do unto others and they will do unto you.” I thought if I gave you a glass of milk, next time I am thirsty you’ll offer me something to drink. Not a good example but I think it conveys my interpretation.

 

In all reality the saying, without going to look it up is more like this “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And the key words there are “would have” meaning they aren’t necessarily going to reciprocate the same gesture. This must be where Jesus comes in and says to turn the other cheek. In other words you can be kind to others but don’t be surprised if they slap you in the face and instead of slapping them back we are to still treat them as we would want to be treated.

 

I have kept and lived by the saying “do unto others” my entire life and I always got disappointed when I was treated like shit. It just hit me today that this is what Jesus was talking about. Isn’t that ridicules? It took me 46 years to finally understand this saying. Folks are not going to treat me the way I would want them to but I am to treat them the way I want them to treat me. Wow! That’s powerful.

 

I guess this is where I get the “you reap what you sow” saying wrong as well. I thought if I sowed good seed I would get a crop of good plants in return and yet I always got weeds instead. While I have reaped what I’ve sowed when I have done bad things, I have very rarely reaped any benefits out of the good that I have done. I guess God is saving that for eternity, at least I hope so. I hope I’m not living this way in vain. As Paul so well puts it if Christ were not real, we Christians are to be the most pitied amongst men.

 

I don’t want to get into specifics because I don’t want to hurt any feelings so I will try to say this as tactfully and as discreetly as I can without the person knowing who I’m talking about. Although, if the shoe fits then wear it. But there are quite a lot of folks who treat me like shit and I tend to avoid those people as much as I can. It’s not hard for me to do because I am such a recluse. And when I’m visiting somebody like my parents for example if somebody else comes in I always get up and leave. I do not stick around I disappear as fast as I can. I just cannot handle too many people at one time.

 

Anyway, there are plenty of folks but for today I am hurt by something that somebody said to me. I asked this person to do me a favor and instead of just saying no I got a line of bull. And I know it was a line of bull because this person does this for other folks. I know for a fact. And not only that but this person made a very rude comment about what I asked to make it seem not important. But to me it is important if it weren’t I wouldn’t have asked. And the reason this bothers me so much is because I know for a fact if I was asked I would have done it. Whether or not I wanted to do it because it was something that was very easy and would have only taken five minutes of this person’s time. And to make such a snotty comment really just pisses me off royally. But you know what, like usual I am going to forgive, I never forget, but I will forgive and I will do the same thing again at a later date. I never learn my lesson. I repeatedly do the same thing over and over again with the same people. I tell myself that I will not ask this person in the future but I do. I guess the reason I do is because this person would be the ideal person to do what I’m asking and I always hope they will do what I ask. Even though I should already know the answer why do I get so upset about it?

 

But I always wonder why I get so hurt about such incidents when I know in advance to expect them. Why should I let it bother me? Now I see the answer to my own question. It is because I expected this person to respond the same way I would have and because this person did not respond the same way I would have I get hurt. I remember learning many years ago a saying that I try to live by but it’s a very hard lesson to learn and a very hard statement to keep in practice. “If you don’t have any expectations, you won’t be disappointed.” How true is this? This is my biggest problem I have too many expectations of people. I have a very high standard of expectations from myself and I set that bar high for other folks as well. I have to learn that folks are not going to live up to my expectations. Folks are just human beings and since I do not live up to my own expectations most of the time, why should I expect other’s to do so?

 

I don’t know if what I’m saying makes any sense but it makes a lot of sense to me. It is a real revelation for me. Now if I can just apply it I won’t get so hurt so fast and so easily. The problem is I always want to retaliate and I know the Bible says vengeance belongs to God but I am a very vengeful person. I like to see others pay for their crimes and this is a major fault of mine and often times I take it upon myself to dish out that vengeance. Whether it is in the form of an outright argument or it’s a written letter or it’s ignoring that person and that person really has no clue what they have done because I never have the balls to explain to them that they have just hurt me. I am too hurt to calmly respond. I always react and do not respond and this is something that I have to work on. I have learned this from Joe. I have seen Joe respond in situations that I would have reacted and I would have created a scene whereas Joe handles things calm, cool and collected. I realize that this is what I was taught growing up but at 46 years old I cannot keep using that as an excuse. I need to work at this and change it. So it looks like something else I am going to need to pray about.

46 And Still Confused

I think today I’m going to write about my feelings of confusion. I am very confused about this whole gay thing and everything I’m reading and seeing and hearing is only making me more confused. Of course my feelings don’t help me any but I’ve always had fickle feelings and I’ve always lived by my feelings. I do not want to live by my feelings this time, this time I want to do the right thing but I honestly do not know what that is.

 

I joined a website quite a while ago, maybe one year ago or there abouts. It is a gay Christian website. Now I know to some of you “gay Christian” is an oxymoron it was for me at first too. I could never reconcile my faith with my sexual orientation. Therefore I always kept them separate. I’m very good at keeping certain parts of my life in boxes and deny parts of myself. This all goes along with the mental disorders that I struggle with as well as the fact that I have such a strong religious belief system that I just cannot reconcile homosexuality and Christianity. But the bottom line is I must reconcile them because I am both. I am a Christian and I am a homosexual and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is to try and reconcile these two extremes.

 

On this website that I belong to they have two sides they have a Side A and a Side B. Side A are gay Christians who believe that it is ok with God if they live in a monogamous relationship with one partner for the rest of their lives. They have no problem living this way because there is no alternative for them. The Side B folks believe that while we are gay and cannot change our orientation that the Bible is inerrant and therefore sex is only for the marriage bed between two heterosexual people of the opposite sex. So Side B believes that their only option is to live a celibate life.

 

Before I came to this website I believed that there were only two options, either you’re gay or you’re straight. I never knew about these other alternatives. But as with everything else in my life I am a very naïve person and it took me many years to discover these things.

 

My own story goes something like this, 13 years ago I was in a gay relationship and I felt the Lord calling me out of that relationship. I felt it was wrong and God wanted me to terminate the relationship. I believed with all my heart God was going to make me straight and I would get married and have a family of my own. I gave God one year to deliver me from homosexuality and if He didn’t then I was going to go back into the lifestyle because I was not going to live my life alone. Well, that one year has turned into 13 years and I am still single and have not had a relationship since the last one. I have never inappropriately touched another human being since my last day of that relationship. I have remained celibate and I tried everything under the sun that was out there to try and become straight. I thought I had to work at it. So I did just that. I went to several Christian psychiatrists all of whom promised me they could make me straight if I followed their advice. I did this for several years and nothing happened. In the mean time I also joined support groups and read lots and lots of books on the topic. As I have already said, I truly believed with all my heart that God would make me straight and that I would get married and have a family of my own. That was and always had been my dream and I thought by God’s calling me out of the gay relationship that it was finally my turn to get delivered. But like everything else in my spiritual life it didn’t come to pass and I got angry with God. I felt betrayed and lied to.

 

I did not give up on the support groups during these years nor did I give up on reading books. I did give up on the Christian psychiatrists after several years and started seeing a secular psychiatrist because I have some real mental disabilities that need a doctor’s attention and I had to work through these issues and get on the correct medications.

 

I have always hated myself and my life because I was gay. I knew I was gay, yet a part of me denied it. I just could not accept it. I wanted to be a Christian much more than I wanted to be gay so I kept denying my homosexual feelings and remained celibate and alone all these years. I have become a recluse over the years and since I have become disabled I have become a total recluse. I have one very good friend and a couple of friends that I have contact with every now and then, but that is it. The majority of my time is spent alone here at the computer. I do not have a social life and the longer I stay aloof the harder it is for me to get back into socializing and connecting with people.

 

Anyway some things happened and because of these circumstances I began to question what is the truth. I really did not know. Does God want me to become straight? Is He going to deliver me or can I go back into the gay lifestyle? I just don’t know. After doing much studying digging and researching I only found myself more confused than anything else. A movie came out called “for the BIBLE tells me so” and I bought this movie and watched it. This really made me begin to wonder if I am meant to be alone or if I can share my life with somebody. You see what I have neglected to write about is the fact that I finally came to the conclusion at the age of 46 years old that it is too late for God to make me straight and get married and have a family of my own. So that option is out, what are my other options? I don’t really have too many and I am not getting any younger so I have to figure this thing out now.

 

Around Christmas time well long before this, I felt the Lord convicting me that I have to tell my family that I struggle with being gay. But my argument was that I am living a celibate life so what difference does it make? I couldn’t understand His reasoning nor could I understand why I was feeling such a conviction. But around Christmas time I finally came to the conclusion that I have to come out to my family and close friends not for their benefit not for their curiosity but for my benefit. By telling them it forces me to accept the fact that I am gay. I cannot deny it to myself if I don’t deny it to anybody else. So now I see the benefit in telling the family and few friends that I am gay. I am just learning to accept the fact that I am gay and will remain so until I die. It is not a choice, I do not know if I was born gay or made gay but that is irrelevant the fact is, I am gay and I did not choose it. If I chose it that would be silly because I have hated myself my whole life to the point of attempting suicide many times over. I felt I was better off dead than I was alive and defective. I thought for sure God hated me because I am gay and He just is not delivering me from this awful sin.

 

But after joining this gay Christian website I am learning that I am not alone. There are thousands upon thousands of other gay Christians who experience these same thoughts and feelings as I do. It is so amazing. It feels so good not to be alone, not to struggle alone. It feels so good to find a crowd of people who understand me and can relate to me and I can relate to them.

 

As I am learning to accept the fact that I am gay and I will probably always be gay I am having all kinds of questions and they are leaving me very confused. I do not want to grow old alone. I do not want to die alone. I do not want to live the rest of my life alone. This leaves me with a huge dilemma because the church will accept me as long as I remain celibate but they will not accept me if I have a relationship with another man. So once again reconciling my faith and my sexuality is at odds with each other and I cannot reconcile the two. What do I do? On the one hand I do not want to give up my religious beliefs and I believe I do not have to. I believe that God loves me despite the fact that I am gay. I wrote a blog about this already. And on the other hand I feel I cannot practice my faith if I do get involved with a partner. So what is a man to do?

 

I see a couple of alternatives. I can have a secret relationship. I can leave the church. Or I can remain celibate. I have lived the later for 13 years now and I must admit it is much less tempting than my other alternatives. It is very hard to live alone it is very hard to live without love.

 

I just do not know what to do. I guess I rambled on and on in this blog and I have not drawn any conclusions but at least I got my feelings put out there. Maybe if I read this I can see an answer. Or maybe if somebody else reads this they can show me things that I do not see. I realize I have written way too much and I do not know how many of you will have read this to its end. Therefore I am going to conclude here. I may re-read this blog and continue on the same topic, or I’ll re-read it and see that I have said enough. Either way this is a battle that is not over yet. I am in the midst of it and I am very, very confused. I am 46 years old, I am not getting any younger and I need to make a decision soon. I am looking for an answer directly from God Himself because I am tired of listening to man. Man has let me down my entire life. It’s time I look to the one and true God for the answer. My problem with this is will He give me an answer or am I going to remain with these questions over my head and be stuck with making a decision that will ultimately send me to hell?

He Already Knew

Some of you know my full testimony while some of you do not. So please indulge me for a minute to discuss one very important part of my testimony because it is very relevant to this time in my life.

 In my early 20’s while I was still a baby Christian I was preparing to make another attempt at suicide. It was early Saturday afternoon I had everything ready and I was on my knees praying when my room got very heavy. It was very oppressive. I did not know what was going on but I decided to lie on the bed for a few minutes.

 The next thing I remember is waking up and crying, crying like a baby. I just could not stop the tears. I had just had an encounter with the Lord and it left me feeling so loved and so wanted that I could not stop crying.

 While in His presence I had both my hands out in front of me and He placed a piece of gold in my hands. It was gold that was so pure I could see threw it and He said to me “You are more precious to me than this gold.” I do not know if there was more said or not but that is all I remember and that is what I remember crying about when I woke up. It was so real, so vivid I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was in the presence of the Lord Himself.

 The odd part about the whole thing is it was now Sunday afternoon. He brought me through the whole time period that I had planned to take my life and He also spoke with me. This was just too much I could not bear it and so I just kept crying.

As I said, I was a baby Christian at the time it wasn’t until a few years later that I read a passage of scripture that verified my vision to be authentic.

“I will make a man more precious than fine gold;” Isaiah 13:12 KJVR

I’d say for the past several months now I have been going through a period of hell. There is no other word to describe what I’ve been going through. One of the many issues I have to deal with is the fact that I am gay. I am now 46 years old and I have been denying it since I realized it when I was a teen. I always believed that God would deliver me and allow me to get married and have my own family. But things have happened and I realize my age and I realize that now it is just too late for my dreams to ever come true.

 I have tried everything I know of to become straight. All the methods, read a ton of the books, went through Christian therapy went through support groups anything and everything you can think of but nothing has changed me. I am still as gay today as I was when I realized it as a teenager.

 So that aside, one of the things I have to do is realize and accept the fact that I am gay and I probably will be the rest of my life. I have to accept this part of myself or I will never be a complete man. It is very hard to accept something that you don’t want to, it is very hard to accept something that you have lived in denial with for so many years. But accept it I must if I choose to become the man God wants me to be.

For many years I have argued with God about telling my family. I figured two things first I didn’t believe that my sex life was anybody else’s business. And second why do I need to tell them when I am living a celibate life. But recently God convinced and convicted me that I must tell them. It is the only way I am going to accept it myself. I did not tell them for their benefits, I did not tell them to satisfy their curiosity I told them to help me accept the fact that I am gay. It is kind of like if I stop lying about it then I have to accept the truth for myself.

 Anyway, I finally sat down and wrote the family and a few friends a letter telling them I am gay. For the most part there wasn’t much of a hassle or much trouble. A lot of them already knew and others it just didn’t seem to affect them one way or the other. But for me it did a world of good because now I cannot deny the fact that I am gay.

 What I am leading up to is this. I am having such a hard time with myself and with my relationship with God right now. But one of the things the Lord has shown me is this and to me it is an epiphany. According to the Bible Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End. My being gay is no surprise to Him. He already knew. He knew I was gay when He gave me that vision those 20 some odd years ago.

 So with that being the case my trouble verse that God hated Esau in Romans is put to rest. God does not hate me because I am gay, He loves me I am more precious to Him than fine gold. How do I know this? Because He told me Himself and my telling Him now that I am gay is not a surprise to Him He already knew that before He ever even thought to give me that vision.

 This is all being done for my benefit not His. He is not surprised He is not angry He is not shocked because He already knew. And this goes for everything Folks. There is nothing we can do or say that is going to shock the Lord because He already knew. That is just so awesome to me that I cannot grasp the full meaning of it yet. But I felt the need to share this with the hope that it might help somebody else. There is nothing you can say or do that is going to change the way He feels about you because He already knows. Amen. 

PS

As a side note for you guys that do not know me. I left the gay life 13 years ago. I have lived a celibate life since then and I plan on living a celibate life the rest of my life. So, I am not coming out “per se” so that I can go and live the gay life. This is not my intent. My intent is to accept that part of myself as well instead of living a double life, a lie. I just need to be open and honest with those close to me and so that I can be open and honest with myself and become one whole human being.