JASON

Warum hat Er mich so gemacht - Why Did He Make Me This Way??

If you’ve never struggled with same-sex attractions, you may find it difficult to understand the pain that those who do are going through. If you do struggle with homosexuality, you know that pain all to well and may be having a difficult time not allowing that pain to overwhelm you and damage your relationship with God, with others, and with yourself.

For these reasons we are including (with their permission) the correspondence of two men in one of our HA groups as one cries out for help and the other offers encouragement.

And here is the full correspondence of the two:








Don’t read this if you are concerned about getting discouraged because
I am letting off some steam.  I think you are right on all of this you
just wrote on a purely practical level.  I cannot have what I want,
what I need.  There is this experience though.  Other people get it all
don't you see.  They get to fall madly in love, the love at all those
levels, emotionally, sexually, and can bond and enjoy every aspect of
oneness with another person.  So in principle it isn’t evil to be in
love and to enjoy sex and to bond and to live with another person.  It
is called falling in love and getting married.  It is a well respected
practice in Churches everywhere.  We just don't get to have those
emotions or enjoy that connectedness with another human - that one
special unique person that we are completely and utterly joined to and
with whom we share everything.  We are at the window of the candy store
and all we can do is look, maybe just a sample so that we really really
know




 exactly what we are missing, while the others get to go inside and
feast - all with God's blessing.  It isn't just that it is unfair - it
is cruel.  How does God do this.  How do I reconcile this internal
wiring in me with a personal all powerful loving God who hates sin.
 God has created me a social animal with social needs to bond in this
way and yet tweaks me so that the need is more intense than it is for
most and then says - sorry guy - the desire that I gave you you are not
allowed to fulfill because it is a sin.  Don't say God didn’t give me
the desire because at so many levels He did.  First He is sovereign and
whether it is nature or nurture or a combination this sovereign God
certainly managed to orchestrate my being born to a bastard of a father
and an overbearing domineering mother and set me in a group of peers
that treated me like a fag pariah long before I knew what either of
those words meant.  Good grief, who do I blame for orchestrating all
the things




 necessary for this - the tooth fairy.  It was God's doing - now was it
for my sin or my parents sin that I should be born or be nurtured into
faghood - or was it for the Glory of God - well thank you very much but
hey Mr. God how's that working for you.  Not a lot of Glory noticeable
down here.  How does God not answer this prayer?  I have been a born
again Christian for almost 40 years.  I have been at various levels of
personal devotion and faith, I have gone through long periods of a deep
and close walk and gone through periods of great struggle.  I have had
periods where I was accepting of my condition and periods where I cried
out to God in the deepest anguish and desperation.  I have devoted
myself to service to God and thrown myself on his mercy depending only
on his grace.  I have walked the walk of devotion to God.  I do not
think God should have answered this prayer because of what I have done
for Him.  I don’t expect God to be impressed by me.  I expect God to




 answer this prayer because that is the only action consistent with
what every word of the Bible breathes about the nature and character of
God.  God designed us and gave us the need for human closeness and the
need for sex.  I was wonderfully and made inside my mother's womb (my
genetic origins) and nothing I experience is not filtered by God's will
(my problem’s environmental origins).  God created me and created the
circumstances of my environment - put in place the structures necessary
to create this need and then unlike 98% of the population make it
impossible to fulfill the need without committing a sin which God
hates.  Hey God, there is this little peculiar thing going on here.
 You went to a lot of trouble to orchestrate things so that Don would
be a fag - don't exactly know what eternal plan that was supposed to
further but he is about to turn 50.  Not much time left to get in on
this so since he really is not likely to go chasing skirts all around
town at his age




 how about giving him a chance at some of the pleasures in life that
everybody else both takes for granted and couldn’t imagine living
without.  Pardon the sarcasm but really the whole thing is ludicrous.
 I have to admit that as I read the posts lately with all the flowery
stuff it just hit me the wrong way and I just couldn’t stand it and I
found myself getting more and more angry.   God has either given or
orchestrated in me this need.  I don’t want to fulfill the need – I
want to get rid of it and have the same need everybody else has.  I
want to be fixed.  I don’t really care whether God designed me this way
or took a perfectly good model and smashed me to bits in my childhood –
it got me to this condition as a very young child when there was not a
thing I could have done or not done to cause it or prevent it or to
deserve it one way or another.  You know what really irks me.  In high
school my classmates – lots of them churchgoers – were screwing girls
right and left.




  I have had fewer sex partners than any heterosexual man I know.  What
the hell did I do before I was 11 to deserve this.  I have prayed for
this for 40 years and it is pretty clear that not only did God
orchestrate my environment and or genes to get me here but that He has
no intention of doing a damned thing about it.  He likes his handiwork.
 How hard can this be?  A little rewiring in my limbic system and I am
as straight as John Wayne.  Oh yes, God is all powerful so of course it
isn’t about how hard it is, it isn’t a matter of what God can do – it
is a matter of what He wants to do – HE WANTS THIS – IT IS HIS WILL
THAT I WANT SEX AND LOVE FROM A MAN AND IT IS HIS WILL THAT I NEED SEX
AND LOVE FROM A MAN AND IT IS HIS WILL THAT I NEVER GET IT BECAUSE THAT
IS SIN.  IT IS HIS WILL THAT I CAN NEVER NEED OR WANT IT FROM A WOMAN
AND IT IS HIS WILL THAT MY PRAYER TO NEED IT AND WANT IT FROM A WOMAN
IS NEVER FULFILLED AND IT IS HIS WILL THAT I NEVER GET IT FROM A WOMAN.
 IT




 IS APPARENTLY HIS WILL THAT I LIVE IN ISOLATION FROM ALL OTHER HUMAN
BEINGS UNTIL I DIE.  That is what makes this all so different than any
other kind of problem.  There is nobody to blame but God and I have
really tried for a long time to find some way to get around it.  A
sovereign God could have remedied this so easily – a stable group of
affirming male friends – a different mix of stress hormones during my
mother’s pregnancy – my parent’s early divorce and my mother’s
remarriage to a decent man.  A little tweaking of my brain.  Whatever
the cause God could have easily prevented it and God could have at any
point easily fixed it.  It wasn’t like I was asking for wealth – I was
asking for God to take away a condition whereby the only way I had to
meet a basic human need (which he had given me) was through a channel
God had declared to be sin.  To make it possible to meet a basic need
without sinning.  Sounds like a pretty reasonable request to me.  And
God’s silence on




 the matter tells me something about God.  There is something about my
view of God in the bible that simply has to be false.  Either God is
not so powerful, or he is not so loving or he simply isn’t paying any
attention to us one way or another.  Giving us a basic need for sex and
emotional closeness and then orchestrating our lives to make the only
channel we can get that met through a sin is a cruelty on the order of
a child plucking off the wings of a fly to see how the fly will react.
 Will the fly still love me?  Something about the sweet loving God of
the Bible is just plain wrong.  God does not particularly love me or
care about my pain or my situation.  Either he doesn’t give a damn or
he doesn’t have the goods or he is interested in more important things
than me.  This is not just a pity party – these are serious ethical and
theological issues that place my theology I have been taught in direct
conflict with the God that created my universe.  This is not at all




 helped by the concept of original sin a fallen world or the biblical
doctrine of suffering.  I have read Job, I have read the problem of
pain, I have read The Imitation of Christ – none of that theology that
explains suffering applies or makes this make sense.  It makes a lot of
sense if God does not exist at all – is a figment of wishful thinking –
and homosexuality is an evolutionary way of creating males who do not
leave the pack and therefore who provide ongoing protection for members
of extended family groups assisting women in the rearing and protection
of children while most males are pushed out after puberty.  Or it even
could simply be a recessive genetic trait – be what it feels like – a
mistake – a genetic screwup that is not bad enough to be eliminated
because it is carried by the mother to son, or it could be a way of
limiting the passing of particularly antisocial male aggression.
 Aggressive males should produce more offspring but allowed to be
selected for




 exclusively the species would eventually fail due to the inability of
groups to work together as successful social units.  Destructively
aggressive violent males successfully procreate, but they produce
disproportionate numbers of homosexual male children and so they don’t
produce as many grandchildren as the more mild mannered men do.
 Genetic mistake that has not been eliminated or adaptive genetic
mutation with some benefit for the survival of the family group –
either way it makes more sense than a loving all powerful god who gives
the gift of sex and the need for human bonding and yet hates the sin of
homosexual activity and goes to all this trouble to produce me with all
those needs and no way to get them met without sinning.





D.

Dear D.,

 I thought a lot about what you wrote here.

A lot.

You think there was too much flowery stuff in here?

You know what? You sound SO MUCH like myself some time ago. Sometimes even today those thoughts are coming up again.

And I guess everyone in here can relate very well to that.

So, D., if you remember:

I had what you are looking for so desperately. I was one of the very
few gay guys that had a longterm love relationship. I stress the word
LOVE - because there was a lot of love involved. The wrong kind of love
- and looking back at it now, it had a lot to do with narcissm, being
self-centered and just wanting someone to fulfill your emotional and
sexual needs and stuff. But it was love. Sort of. Kind of.

And that's where we get to the point: Sort of. Kind of.

So if this all that we really want, why did it not fulfill me and make
me happy? Why did I lay night after night beside him in our common bed,
after we just had sex and felt terribly alone? Why did I always feel
that this was not what I was looking for (and I am not just talking
about THIS relationship - I am talking about gay life in general)? Why
did it even change my personality - much to the worse? Also my moral
standards?

Why the heck did it NOT fulfill my basic needs? Actually, I had it all:
a hot, masculine man, lots of "great" sex, someone to love and share my
life with till the end... So what's wrong with that?

Let's start with some of what you said: 

Forget about the hormones. They have nothing to do with your same-sex attractions.

As to the genetic thing: well, let's assume that it IS in our genetic
code. That there is a "gay gene". So what? First, the next thing they'd
invent would be a "cure" for it. Then: we are NOT the slaves of our
genetic code. If you have diabetes caused from your genes, that does
not mean you should go for it. It means you have to take care of what
you're eating and how you live. Also certain forms of criminal behavior
and also alcoholism are said to sometimes have genetic causes. Now does
that make alcoholism or criminality "normal" or "right"? I don't think
so.

So why did He "make" me that way? Why did he put me in such an evironment/family?

Dear D., my ex was an Israeli and we sometimes talked about the Jews
under Hitler. He told me that many of them lost their faith when they
had to suffer so much. And how they chased all of his relatives in
Poland into the synagogue and set it on fire. The dying Jews cut their
arms till they bled and wrote last messages on the synagogue walls.
They wanted to be taken revenge of. They wanted not to be forgotten.

Why did He let that happen? Why putting them in such an "environment"? 

Why not just putting us all back into paradise?

And why did He "make" you that way? Why did He set the love and lust for men into your heart?

I have come a long way, Don. I've been there. I've done that. And I hope I'll never be back there again.

There is no answer to that question. An ex-gay ministry would tell you
now that God did NOT make you this way. He gave you the free will and
he does NOT make you sin. Only you do that.

But I won't come up with that now.

I've been there. I've done that. And I hope I'll never be back there again.

You know how much I yearned for the "perfect" man, the one that truly
loves me and will never let me go? That lives with me till the end of
my days? 

You know how many times I cried out: "I WANT SOMEONE TO LOVE ME BEST!"??

And now?

I've been there. I've done that. And I hope I'll never be back there again.

Really, D.: forget it. It just doesn't work the way you think it does.
Heterosexuality is so deeply engraved in our hearts, that even if you
feel nothing for women, you do feel VERY strange and weird when you
enter a same-sex relationship. Even if everyone of your family members
and friends and the people at your job fully approve of it: you feel
VERY strange and weird. And at least one of you has to change or bend
or something to make it somehow work. Heterosexuality is just too
deeply in us.

Even if you have such a relationship: you will soon find out that this
is not what you were looking for. You will get embittered, sad,
disappointed and the gap between you and the male world will become
bigger and bigger. Your way of talking, your personality, your moods,
your attitude, even the way you walk and talk, your thinking and
behavior patterns, the way you look and dress - EVERYTHING will change.
And certainly not for the better.

So why did He "make" you that way? 

Think about it, D.: is it REALLY so bad?

I have come to the conclusion that it ain't that bad at all. Sure - I
am different. No way of denying that. And sometimes very lonely. And
hurting. Very much so. But is it REALLY so bad?

NO!!

We are different - but that's not a bad thing. It does make us lonely
at times, but we have qualities no straight man will ever have to that
extent. We can see and feel things so deeply every hetero guy would
envy us if he only knew how that felt. Like every blessing that can
feel like a curse.

But it's not. Really: it's not. 

I just worked at a brother's house doing some construction works with
other brothers from my church. And you know what? They all love me and
I love them. Honestly. They know about my same-sex attraction and they
know about my past life. They know I am struggling. So what? Everyone
out there is hurting. If you don't realize that, you're either very
naive or believe in other people's fassades (see our workbook for
that)! And they love me like they love each other. Even in a much
deeper way sometimes: the men hug me, touch me, take care of me - and
have no problem with that. That is such an incredible feeling!!

And I do not feel like a relationship with a man would satisfy all of
my needs anymore - because I know it won't. I have come a long way and
I know I can have a satisfying life. Now I needed to change a lot of my
old thinking and behavior patterns and also attitudes to come to that
point. But it works! I can have a fulfiiled life as a man with same-sex
attractions!

I also came to know a lady now. I do not know where this will lead up to, but it sure is a very good feeling!

Dear D., if I have learned one thing, then this:

We need to trust the Lord. Even if we do not understand at all, even if
the world and especially science and "modern psychology" tell us other
things. Even if our human "wisdom" or "common sense" or the genetic
code tells us something different: we need to trust Him. That is what
faith is all about.

Just for discussion's sake: let's assume God exists. Now He should know
what's best for us - He created us and knows where this will lead us to
if we don't obey. But He alsoe knows how stubborn we can get.

So all the feelings you described: loneliness, unhappiness, anger,
self-pity and so on come if you turn away your face from Him and try to
do it your own way with your own wisdom.

I KNOW you resist to act out and have sex with another man - but it
doesn't seem to be in your heart yet. And that's where the Lord looks
first! 

Dear D., I know how hard it is. I really know. You think for just a
moment how I felt when I came here: For so many years I shared my life
with another man. Every night he slept by my side and I could hear him
breathing regularly. He was there when I went to bed and when I got up.
And we had sex together. Lots of sex. Now do you realize how lonely you
can feel at night in your bed after that? How much you miss him - or
just someone - in your bed?

I cried many tears. And I prayed the Lord would help me and give me back "my man". Or some other good man.

Well, He did help me - though not the way I wanted Him to.

And I am truly thankful for that. Honestly. He saved my life.

And He can save yours - if you just let Him and forget about your own
wisdom and reason. Let Him rule your life - even if you don't
understand it.

And read my lips, D.: HE LOVES YOU. HE IS TOTALLY KNOCKED OUT ABOUT YOU!

Your friend

Robert

Robert



  Thank you for your reply.  Your effort and your concern for me that
comes through here does help a lot to make me feel less isolated and a
little loved.  I have no problem with you using anything I write if it
can help someone else - I suppose this was textbook self-pity and angst
for people like us in this stage of things.  You don't have to convince
me that the lifestyle does not satisfiy.  That is part of the
frustration with God - He has created me a being who cannot get any of
these ordinary human needs met anywhere.  The emotions I feel in
limited ways only hint at what others are able to enjoy.  I appologize
for specifics but the only kind of man I can be drawn to at an
emotional or physical level is hetero - which means I am not just not
able to find true fulfillment due to the inherant falicy of the gay
option, but I am not just dealing with ssa, but with attraction to same
sex heteros - completely unavilable icons.  I have to find meaning in
the relationships



 that are possible - and sex with a man is a fantasy in the purest
sense.  Like the fantasy of making love to a Martian.  There are no
emotionally self confident, handsome, morally outstanding hetero guys
who want to sexually assault me - they are a species that does not
exist.  So the gay option has never been an option.  When I was young
and would cruise I would fantasize about the guys I encountered but any
willingness by them to actually act out immediately meant I no longer
was interested in them.  They were only intriguing when I could imagine
them to be hetero.  So when I say I have to seek meaning in the
relationships that are possible I mean the relationships that are
possible and by coincidence those that meet the God seal of approval.
 The difficulty of course is that these relationships seem so surface,
so shallow, so limited.  Limited by this male blindness to any sense of
need on their part, but it is all that is available.  Thank you for
your prayers.  You



 can pray very specifically that God gives me the grace to find meaning
in these relationships and that God grants me the mercy of meeting and
bonding with men who have a capacity to and desire to reach for the
limits of male to male bonding.  Did you see Lord of the Rings.  The
profound thing in those movies was the love those little men had for
one another.  I want to be somebodies Sam, which means I need to meet a
Frodo.  That is what I am praying for, and it will take God having
mercy on me for it to happen.  Time is going by, Lord I am almost 50.
 Please give me some real years of a friendship of this calliber.



  d.

Dear D.,

no, I have not seen Lord of the Rings. 

D., do you realize how common your attraction is among people with same-sex attraction?

For some reason we lost the contact to the male world when we were
boys. Maybe we witnessed physical, verbal or emotional abuse from our
father. We were both disgusted and frightened and decided we just
didn't want to be like him. Or he didn't do his job - for whatever
reason. He was either away (divorce, death) or emotionally distant. So
we withdrew to the world we felt comfortable in - the women's world -
and adjusted our thinking and behavior patterns to our environment. We
became the "kitchen window"-boy, that sits at the kitchen window and
watches his peers playing rough and tumble plays outside. 

Maybe we still desperately tried to get in contact with our daddy or
the male world in general, but at some point we just gave it up. The
heck with it.

The male world became a myth. Later on we will say that we've always
felt homosexual. But think about it - what does a young boy know about
sexuality (homosexuality above all!) unless someone told him or left
some magazines laying there or whatever. So far there is not a single
proof for the "gay gene" (not that this would matter for a Christian,
but it does indicate that this is a man-made thing!).

We already spoke about all of that.

Tha male world became a myth to us - and with upcoming sexuality during
puberty we sexualized the "other" - those who had what we thought we
didn't have: masculine men. Hetero men. REAL men!

We already spoke about your image of a perfect bonding partner, too
(hetero, unavailable - the perfect myth). And that the first step
towards real bonding would be to give up your image of a perfect man
and let the Lord guide you in this. Acknowledge your own helplessness
and that your human wisdom lead to nothing so far. You're still alone.

You keep on telling us that you could never bond with someone who has same-sex attractions himself. Only with a "hetero".

Did the thought ever cross your mind that we are all "hetero's"? That
such a thing as a "homosexual" does not exist - only heterosexual
people with a homosexual problem? And that even your "perfect hetero's"
sometimes have sexual experiences with other men, too (like in puberty
- which does NOT make them homosexual!!)?

I am serious, Don: forget about your own image of how your perfect
bonding partner should look like. Don't keep on telling yourself that
he HAS to be like this or like that. Looks like a self-fulfilling
prophecy: that man simply does not exist and like that you'll forever
be alone, while getting more and more embittered, desperate, angry and
sad.

Also work on developping your own masculinity. You need to see yourself
as part of God's heterosexual creation: as one of the guys. The more
your masulinity develops, the less you will eroticize other "masculine"
men. Because you will see yourself as masculine, too!

What has really helped me is Robert Lewis' material (I started reading
"Raising a Modern-Day Knight" and then went on to his other stuff).
You'll find more on www.mensfraternity.com or www.rmdk.com. 

Sometimes I do get the image that the Lord really wants to bless you,
but you are so busy in running away from Him that He has a hard time
doing so - you just won't stand still and let Him do His job!

Don, you don't have to believe a word I'm saying. But you might believe
the creator of all things. Just show enough patience and trust Him
enough to let Him heal your wounds, build up your self-esteem by
showing you your true identity as a heterosexual, masculine man and
blessing you richly by letting you use your talents for His purposes.

Maybe wqe are just a bunch of homosexual guys for you - but maybe the
Lord reached out to you and brought you to HA to help you restoring
your relationships with others and with Him. And who could help you
best in this than those who know EXACTLY how you're feeling?

May the Lord continue to bless you always ,

Robert

LINK:

Helpful Book:

Introduction

 What Is Anger?

 What Angers God?

 Where Does Selfish Anger Come From?

 What Does Our Anger Do For Us?

 What Are The Ways We Mishandle Anger?

 How Can We Handle Our Anger In Godly Ways?

 The Ultimate Perspective Of Anger 

On we go...

1) Do you feel that you connected with God this week? Please explain.

No, This has been a very difficult week. I struggled with issues like
how much more my life makes sense if there is no God and merely
evolution - I seem to be an engineering mistake resulting from some
engineering compromise that makes more sense if a purposeless
evolutionary process does the designing instead of a loving perfect God
is doing the work. I struggled with whether or not God was telling me
this is as good as it gets and I am not going to ever have a friend and
I just have to learn to be content with the current situation. I really
struggled with self pity and depression. Why would God dangle this in
front of me and then snatch it away.

(...)

d.

Dear D.,

you are certainly not a mistake. You are different. Not better and not
worse than anybody else. And you are loved in spite of all that you are
and have done! The sooner you understand that, the better.

But I do know what you're talking about.

After some months in here in HA, one of my best friends (up to this
day), Christopher came from the USA to pay me a visit for a couple of
days.

He knows about my leaving the gay life and accepts and respects it. He
is the one out of a million who would not try to seduce you (we had sex
many years ago) or talk you out of it. He would even prevent me from
doing it with anothr man. A wonderful guy.

Now we spent some incredibly great days. We had deep conversations, lots of fun and good times. 

The day he left, I broght him to the station. We sat at a café and talked.

We were both hurting. And when he had to go, we just couldn't stop hugging each other. That was early in the morning.

I had to go to my job afterwards. It was November and raining.

I had a meeting with a customer this day and I went there with the
subway. When I walked to that place on the rainy streets of Munich, it
hit me like a truck. I felt like someone opened the door a little to
show me what life could be like and then slammed it in front of my nose.

I didn't care about the sex (though I was tempted), but for Christopher's love and affection. We just had a great time. 

So on my way to that customer I couldn't control myself anymore. I went
into the entrance of a building where nobody could see me. There I
stood - wet with rain and crying heavily. I felt like I would be
forever alone and missed the chance to ever find love. Boy, that hurt.

And now? I found great friends. Godly friends. And I have learned to
love the right way. To bond with other men like God wants me to. And I
learned to fill my need for male love and attention the right way.

I do not feel alone or unoved, because I am not. Any relationship that
is not according to God's will, will end up in total disaster.

Hope that helps,

Robert

Robert

Yes, That is exactly what I am talking about. The relationships I have
had let me taste let me know the intensity and the emotional wonder of
emotions I will never be in a place to fulfill in a free and acceptable
way. 

I feel so lonely and isolated. A question. I know exactly the kind of
emotional connection you had with this guy. No sex was really needed
for you to feel the love I know you felt. Do you truely feel the same
wholeness, the same connection with your current friends as you felt
with this guy?

d.

Yes,

even more so:

I have learned to break the gay thinking and behavior pattern:

I do not check people if they kind of turn me on and then I start
bonding with them. The Lord brought me all kind of men - some would
have turned me on in earlier days and some were totally against my
usual pattern. And what was most surprising to me: I really learned to
overcome my gay way of thinking and looked at them and loved them like
the Lord would. I also still love Christopher - but not in a gay kind
of love.

Sure there is always something that doesn't belong there. Temptation
has to be in this world. But if you turn to the Lord, He will guide you!

There is no gay stuff involved in my current relationships with men -
and this is what really makes them so dear and precious to me! I really
love each and everyone of them - and this time the right way!

Robert

Robert

Sorry to keep asking for clairification but I am trying to understand
myself and a bit of the universe as well - what is, what can be, what

should be, and the difference between them. When I talk about the
intense feelings I am not talking about sex. I am talking about the
kind of intense in love feeling with someone with absolutely no chance
of anything ever getting physical. I presume that if I have a "healthy"
relationship with a male friend I will not be "in love" with them. None
of the brain chemistry that normally and appropriately bonds
heterosexual couples will be creating any of the euphoria that I feel
at those times because I won't be feeling those feelings. I won't feel
either the intensity or the sense of bonding that I do when "in love"
but at the same time I wont be feeling the intense longing for
reciprocation that is so painful because I know he cant reciprocate the
same feelings. I have to achieve three challenges first, that I must
not allow myself to have that kind of bond with another man, This will
require me to go through a grieving process for some feelings and
experiences I will never have again, and some I will never have period.
Second, that there may still yet be an intense level of intimacy and
bonding that is less stressful and less painful because it is something
that can be reciprocated. This is a faith process. I have a hard time
believing right now that such a relationship can be as satisfying as
this other "in love" feeling seems to have the potential to be. Third,
I have to walk a tightrope. Allowing myself to trust and bond without
falling in love. That is a lifeskill issue.

d.

Dear D.,

that was probably the hardest part in my recovery:

Changing from that "love feeling" that you describe to something godly.

Had you told me back then that such a thing exists - forget it. No way ever never.

But again: once you break that wall (yes, that truly is a wall that
hinders you from seeing people with God's eyes) and get it over with
(deal with that "love feeling" and ask the Lord to turn it into
something good), it will change the way you look at people and life in
general.

I've been on both sides. And let me tell you: the second one is so much better.

To love someone for what he is, for the wonderful person he is on the inside - WOW!

To learn to see someone like God would see him and love him just that
way was something that was totally new to me. A totally new way of
looking at people and relating to them.

Yes, Don, that can be learned. And prayed for.

What it takes to do that? I don't know a cool advice for that. 

You might pray about it. Be more open for new ideas and new ways of
looking at things. Try out new things and new ways of relating to other
men. Hang out with them (I am talking about hanging out in the sense of
having fun, going to a football game, playing cards, going fishing,
hiking, doing sports with them or whatever...).

Also try to find some fun time in your life. Sounds simplistic, but
seems to work pretty well. Try not to see yourself and the whole world
so dead-end serious. Watch some good dvd's (take some sitcoms: "King of
Queens", "Home Improvement" or stuff like that). Learn to laugh at
yourself, at others (a healthy way! lol) and don't see your problems so
seriously...

I KNOW how dumb that sounds. But I also know the incredibly positive effect such a new way of seeing things can have.

Don, you are truly a great guy. And I am honest about that. You are
something really special. And you could be an incredible blessing for
many others - including yourself.

I'd like to ask all of the guys in here: pray for your brother Don.
That he finds someone to bond with. That the Lord opens his heart to
see things a new way. That He finds hope and comfort.

And fun...LOL

Rob

Thanks for this clarification.  I got some encouragement from this
letter - that is I got a glimmer of faith that maybe there is a
different way of bonding with other men that can be really emotionally
satisfying without quite the in love thing that comes from erotisizing
the relationship even subconsciously.  Right now for me it is this
emotional wall keeping out strong emotions - this emotional wall is up
there to protect me from falling off the edge of the world and I think
at some point I can let it down, but right now the wall is so high that
I am a bigger impediment to bonding than the other men are.  The reason
is the really difficult time I had with several men in the past few
years, particularly a guy named Jeff.  I can't go through that again,
and so I don't know how to proceed or more accurately I am hesitant to
allow myself to feel.

  d.

Dear D.,

can I ask you something?

If you haven't done so far, watch the movie "Pay it Forward" with Kevin
Spacey and Rachel Hunter (and the little boy from "Sixth Sense).

Mr. Simonet (Kevin Spacey) is so much like myself some years ago - and
you now - that it totally broke me up when I saw it the first time. How
that grown man is so locked up in his sad and lonely world. And how
that little boy says in the end that some people feel so secure with
that even though it means lots of hurts and loneliness for them that
they would rather hold on to their private prison than to reach out and
accept other people's love.

And Mr. Simonet runs out to the women he was just about to leave, but
that he loved so much and told her in tears that he doesn't want to end
up like one of the guys that little boy was just describing and would
she please get him out of this prison and save him.

THAT WAS SO MUCH ME!!!

Dear Don, sometimes we are like little babies who desperately grab on
to the next best thing they can find instead of trying the first steps
on their own. Trying to walk in spite of all their fears and insecurity.

Somebody once tole me he feels like someone that jumped off the edge of
a cliff and doesn't know if somebody will catch him down there or if
his parachute would open - or waht's down there at all.

Or like an eagle baby that is sitting on the edge of its nest and doesn't dear to jump off, spread its wings and FLY!!

Because that's what we truly are: eagles - bound to fly.

Your friend

Robert

I havent seen the movie but I have heard of it.  Fear of flying is an
interesting phrase and probably describes me right now - fear of
getting close and wondering exactly what this new kind of relating to a
male looks like.  I suppose I just have to work at it and allow or
maybe even make myself let go a little with some friends and work past
the destructive feelings if they come.  By the way you really should
see the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Powerful stuff.  But give yourself
a long weekend to watch all three.

  d.

Guys

As I said last week I have given myself permission to initiate meetings
with friends. I called Alan over the weekend and it was a washout. I
suggested working out together, he didn't feel like it, I suggested a
movie, nothing was on he wanted to see, I suggested going to have some
overpriced coffee at Starbucks and he said he would check on his wife's
plans for the weekend and call me back - he didn't. Apparently it was
too soon since I had seen him the week before and I am still dealing
with some arms length issues there. I called Vic Wednesday about
getting together after he got out of choir practice. He said no that he
would probably be visiting with his friends in choir afterward. Well
this chain of events just felt like a real slap down. Not that I had
done anything wrong, but that I had made a  terrible mistake. How
had I misread the signals God was sending me. I had recalled two issues
I had grieved through - been done with. First I would never have a
really close intimate friendship with someone who knew and understood
and liked being with me. I had accepted that God simply would not allow
that and now I had been stupid enough to get my hopes up. Why would I
put myself through this again. And then Vic. I had grieved for years,
been suicidal after Vic abandoned me and went on with his life. After
having been through that hell how could I allow myself to think that
friendship could be restored. I was lonely and I was isolated, but I
was not being stupid enough to let anybody hurt me, I had resigned
myself to the situation and knew it was the best path I could take and
now I had reached out to some guys and gotten put in my place. I was
pretty low. Thinking frankly that this whole thing of attempting again
to get into HA and work the steps and seek out this friendship thing
was a big mistake.

Then I looked on my phone and Vic had called me back. When I got hold
of him he said he could go out with his choir anytime and since I was
free tonight that we should go out tonight. It took a while for me to
realize what had happened, but God had worked me over a bit. I got to
see that I am still really vulnerable to some really destructive
dependency issues, that I had already handed over to someone else my
sense of self worth and allowed someone else to be a trigger for self
pity and anger at God, myself and my situation. We had a really good
visit. I did some self talk on the way over, managed to think through
and therefore avoid doing anything stupid like talking about how I had
reacted to the initial turn down. I had wanted to ask him why he had
changed his mind - had he felt sorry for me - had

he heard the hurt in my voice when I had said "no problem I will catch
you next time see you later" and quickly hung up because I didn't know
if my voice would crack. But I didn't. He actually talked about himself
in a why he had not in a long time. Talked about the stress in his life
from all the changes he was facing - empty nest with last child moving
out this summer - the special needs school he teaches at being
dissolved and the remnants being split into two entities and not
knowing if he still had a job, his oldest daughter getting married, the
death in the last year of both his mother and his father. I don't
remember the last time any male friend has opened up to me at all about
how he was feeling. At the end of the evening he reached over and gave
me a hug. I still couldn't receive it or even reciprocate. I still
don't fully understand that, but it is a fear compounded by the public
nature of the thing - getting a hug out in front of a restaurant. I so
want to just be able to let loose and get and receive a hug from this
guy. To any who have been praying thanks and keep it up. This is a war
in me and there are battles going on in places I cannot see or know
about that are affecting this. 

d.

Dear D.,

ok, now you really got me with this. You moved me to tears.

Seeing that little boy in you coming up and crying out that he wants to
be loved and being totally insecure and desperate once someone would
get a little closer... Boy, that's something to break the hardest
heart...

D., you might stop analysing every move someone makes and being totally
insecure about what it means - if it ends your frienship with that
person.

Just try to relax in those situations and not think about it at all. 

Also you might have realized that other - hetero - men are hurting, too, and the want someone they can talk to and hold, too...

Please never give up hope, D..

And trust. Trust in Him.

Robert

You are right - I need to not mull over what people do - not
ascribe motivations to what they do - when I let my mind work that way
I always come up with rejection at some level as an explination - I see
rejection everywhere and most of the time it is just people and their
own self absorbtion.  

d.

THAT'S my man!!

Robert

 Robert

One other thing.  I am glad for this group because I have a place
to go with all this instead of just having to stuff it down.  It
helps to

release it and it helps me be able to have a conversation like I had
with Vic last week and not bring up all my craziness and scare him.
 Thanks.

d.

D.,

that is the best compliment you could have ever made us.

THANKS.

Robert

Either this is God's will or it is His will for now and somehow I have
something I have to do or accomplish or something before God has mercy
and changes me.  I just don't think He is going to change me, it isnt
that I have to do anything, it is just what he has decided I have to go
through.  Somehow I am supposed to endure it.

  d.

Dear D.,

it all depends on the question: do we consider homosexuality (acting
out or pursuing it on purpose) sinful? If so, then of course God can
overcome it - like any other sin!

Basically, this is a question of faith. We do not heal by our own
efforts, but by our faith - and the grace of God. Now does that mean we
can lean back and wait what happens? NO! He is a loving father who
teaches us - sometimes the hard way. It is a long and painful process,
but it is so much worth it. "Deny yourself, take your cross upon you
and follow Me!" - doesn't sound like all that much fun being a
Christian, huh?

It is a yoke - but a the only yoke that can give life. True life.

I know, D., how hard it is at times. When we are so lonely and "those"
feelings are still there and we'd like to raise our fist against the
sky and yell up to Him: "Why can't you do something about it? I don't
want to be that way!"

Yes, sometimes I have my downs, too. Satan does a great job at times lying to us. 

But then again I have those dear friends that have become lifetime
friends to me: good men I am bonding with and that fulfill the need
behind my same-sex attractions a healthy way.

I am not alone. It is hard sometimes - but it is hard for everyone out there. At some point, it will all make sense, Don.

I guess when we are with Jesus we will realize how much it was worth it.

Your friend

Robert

We are not victims now. I have been thinking about this idea. I dont have any teenagers raping me or degrading me, My father is not cussing me or hitting me, but I am affected still. For sake of discussion lets suppose the injury I had received had been something more concrete. Suppose my childhood had been uneventful except that at some point someone had attacked and blinded me. I know it would be healthy to no longer consider myself a victim, to become as independent as possible, to work around my disability as much as possible, to lead as much as possible a normal life, but of course in many ways it would not be a normal life. I would not be expected to "see" by my church or friends, I would not be expected to go through a course of study and prayer so I could see. The difference in my example appears only to be that blindness is immutable whereas HA claims that through this process I can not only learn to tollerate my condition, but can be healed of it. You
should know that I have not been idlely standing by the past 40 years waiting for God to heal me. I have dedicated myself to the process of healing, including 2 or 3 years in HA at very nearly the inception of the online groups (I do remembe Bill) and about 5 years of therapy as well as some years of pastoral counciling and continual bible study and attendance at a number of excellent teaching seminars from "Exchanged Life" to Gothards Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts to the Purpose Driven Life. There are many more but I have absorbed and adapted to and understood a lot of good teaching and through this I have enjoyed a lot of healing of the emotional hurts, develped a greater sense of my place in the world of men as an equal to any of them and largely through therapy to think of myself as "one of the club" so to speak. Despite all this, the fundimental sexual urge is utterly unchanged. I had dealt with this over the past couple of years with a sense of resignation.
I would make the best of it, find meaning in my life as it was, remain resolute in no acting out and make sure I did not fall into another destructive codependent friendship. I was ok for a while, but the isolation was beginning to create a real emotional problem and I frankly reached out again to HA specifically to explore again the hope - or at least the possiblity of actual healing. That is the place I find myself. I find myself wondering if healing is a rational pursuit or if I am not simply putting myself through a lot of unnecessary pain and emotional trauma and I should simply return to my strategy of acceptance. The jury is still out I suppose. I have seen considerable evidence that God wants to provide me with some contact with a male I can bond with, but frankly that has not manifested itself with a new friend or with additional contact with old so much as tring to see value it the limited friendships I currently have - essentially just finding acceptance
and contentment with the situation as it is, which is my old strategy. I know coming here has helped me do that.
d.

Dear D.,

first:

read "A Life That Wins" by Watchman Nee if you would, please. I am honest: read it. It isn't a big one.

then:

you think way too much in an intellectual, human way. Human wisdom. You are so busy fighting any attempt to help or change you that you're not even at step one yet: admitting your own helplessness. Admitting that the way you've tried to work things out hasn't lead you to anything good so far. Letting everything out which is "you" and let God in.

What does "healing" mean? First, it means obedience. Following God's will. Then, it means refinding your God-given heterosexual identity. That does NOT mean you should marry and have kids. It means to realize there is no such thing as a homosexual - there is but heterosexuals with a homosexual problem. Thus the goal is NOT to lead a pure, chaste life. That would mean missing it. Some will develop feelings for the other gender, other will stay single.

Why do you feel that ongoing lust? Well, welcome to the real world! You think that is an exclusively homosexual problem? How do you think a married hetero guy feels when a hot girl offers herself to him? Or when he has marriage problems, the lust, however still being there?

Temptation has to be in this world.

So why are we this way? Why didn't He make us all "perfect"? Why are there "unperfect" people in this world? Why do bad things happen (being a victim does not mean you have to be raped. It means that homosexuality is always pain-driven. ALWAYS. Yu find something in everyone's past).

To help you think about this, read the following little story.

God bless you.

Your friend

Robert

And - last but not least - a word from another brother: André:

Here we go:

People always say how mean kids can be, never how nice they can be. This story will either make you cry, give you cold chills or just leave you cold, but it puts life into perspective!

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the school's students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all that attended. After extolling the school and its
dedicated staff, he offered a question. "Everything God does is done with perfection. Yet, my son Shay cannot learn things as other children do.
He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is God's plan reflected in my son?"   The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. "I believe," the father answered, "that when God brings a
child like Shay into the world, an opportunity to realize the Divine Plan presents itself and it comes in the way people treat that child."

Then, he told the following story:
Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they will let me play?"
Shay's father knew that the boys would not want him on their team. But the father understood that if his son were allowed to play it would give him much-needed sense of belonging. Shay's father approached one of the boys
on the field and asked if Shay could play.

The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates. Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We are losing by six runs, and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and
we'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning." In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.
At the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the outfield. Although no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him
from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base. Shay was scheduled to be the next at-bat. Would the team actually let Shay bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.   However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have ended the game.
Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman Everyone started yelling, "Shay, run to first, run to first." Never in his life had Shay ever made it to first base.
He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, "run to second, run to second!" By the time Shay was rounding first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second
baseman for a tag. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher's intentions had been, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head. Shay ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home.
As Shay reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "run to third!" As Shay rounded   third, the boys from both teams were screaming, "Shay Run home!"
Shay ran home, stepped on home plate and was cheered as the hero for hitting a "grandslam" and winning the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of the Divine Plan into this world."

And now, a footnote to the story: We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices, people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar
and sometimes the obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of decency is too often suppressed in school and the workplace.
If you are thinking about forwarding this message, you are probably thinking about which people on your address list aren't the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message. The person who sent this to you believes that we can all make a difference.   We all have dozens of opportunities a day to help realize God's plan. So many seemingly trivial interactions between people present us with a choice;   do we pass along a spark of the Divine-love that God gives to us every day?   Or do we pass up that opportunity and leave the world a bit colder in the process?

   I do not believe that God would want to keep you in a way that is
contrary to His moral laws. Though it may seem that he is dragging His
feet at this time in dealing with ssa with you, be assured as it says
in the poem, " Foot prints in the Sand" that He is always with you and
is always carrying you even in the worst of times. he may be allowing
you to struggle on a while for purposes known only to Himself, but for
which are in your best interest. Change of course does not occur over
night especially with habits that we have been in for some time. As
with any bad habit we need to replace and change that habit with
something else to fill what may seem like a void until such time as the
bad habit no longer exists. It is said that to develop a habit takes 21
days of constantly doing the same habit over and over again, This is a
quote I learned when I was training to drive school bus several years
ago. 


   


  So, please do not be discouraged thinking hat you will always
struggle with this, or that God wants to keep you there. Those types of
thoughts come from only one place, and that is from the father of lies
himself, Satan. John 8:44  He will do anything to keep you where you
are at, to discourage you and to drag you down. He does not want you to
change.He is working on you big time because you pose a threat to him
these days as you are struggling to do the will of God. He hates God
with a passion. He hates you as you struggle with change because you
are a likeness of God and he hates anything that reminds him of God.


   


  Therefore, do not give up, keep working on believing that change is
possible and will happen though not perhaps as fast as you would like.
God is not finished with you, but has only just begun. Be sure of this;
".....that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until
the day of Jesus Christ." Phil. 1:6


   


  have a great and Godly week, keeping you mind and heart firmly fixed
on Him.."...setting your mind on things above not on earthly things. "
Col. 3:2-3


   


  andre

This dialogue appeared in the HA Newsletter:

http://www.ha-fs.org/



Working Through the Pain!

If
you’ve never struggled with same-sex attractions, you may find it
difficult to understand the pain that those who do are going through.
If you do struggle with homosexuality, you know that pain all to well
and may be having a difficult time not allowing that pain to overwhelm
you and damage your relationship with God, with others, and with
yourself.
For these reasons we are including (with their
permission) the correspondence of two men in one of our HA groups as
one cries out for help and the other offers encouragement.

The man in pain, D—., writes, “I cannot have what I want, what I
need. Other people get it all, don’t you see, They get to fall madly in
love, the love at all those level— emotionally, sexually—and can bond
and enjoy every aspect of oneness with another person. It’s called
falling in love and getting married. It is a well-respected practice in
Churches everywhere.
“We don’t get to have those emotions
or enjoy that connectedness with another human being—that one, special,
unique person that we are completely and utterly joined to and with
whom we share everything. We are at the window of the candy store and
all we can do is look and, as we watch others, see exactly what we are
missing while they get to go inside and feast—all with God’s blessing.
“It
isn’t just that it is unfair—it is cruel! How can God do this? How do I
reconcile this internal wiring in me with a personal, all-powerful,
loving God who hates sin?
“God has created me a social
animal with social needs to bond in this way and yet tweaks me so that
the need is more intense than it is for most people and then says—sorry
guy—the desire that I gave you is something you are not allowed to
fulfill. It is sin.
“Don’t say that God didn’t give me the
desire because at so many levels He did. He is sovereign, and whether
it is nature or nurture or a combination of the two, this sovereign God
certainly managed to orchestrate my being born to a bastard of a father
and an over-bearing, domineering mother and set me in a group of peers
that treated me like a fag pariah long before I knew what either of
those words meant. Good grief, who do I blame for orchestrating all the
things necessary for this—the tooth fairy?
“It was God’s
doing. Was it for my sin or my parent’s sin that I should be born or be
nurtured into faghood? Or was it for the glory of God—well thank you
very much, but hey, Mr. God, how’s that working for you? Not a lot of
glory noticeable down here.
“How does God not answer this
prayer? I have been a born again Christian for almost 40 years. I have
been at various levels of personal devotion and faith. I have gone
through long periods of a deep and close walk with God, and I have gone
through periods of great struggle. I have had periods where I was
accepting of my condition and periods when I cried out to God in the
deepest anguish and desperation. I have devoted myself to service to
God and thrown myself on his mercy, depending only on his grace. I have
walked the walk of devotion to God. I do not think God should have
answered this prayer because of what I have done for him. I don’t
expect God to be impressed by me.
“I expect God to answer
this prayer because that is the only action consistent with what every
word of the Bible breathes about the nature and character of God. God
designed us and gave us the need for human closeness and the need for
sex. I was fearfully and wonderfully made inside my mother’s womb (my
genetic origins) and nothing I have experienced was not filtered by
God’s will. God created me and created the circumstances of my
environment—put in place the structures necessary to create this need
for closeness and for sex, and then, unlike 95% of the population,
makes it impossible for me to fulfill this need without committing a
sin God hates.
“Hey God, I am about to turn 50. Not much
time left to change this. How about giving me a chance at some of the
pleasures in life that everybody else both takes for granted and
couldn’t imagine living without. I don’t really want to have sex with
another man. I want to have the same need everybody else has. I want to
be fixed.
“Do you know what really irks me? In high school
my classmates—lots of them churchgoers—were screwing girls right and
left. I have had fewer sex partners than any heterosexual man I know.
What did I do before I was 11 to deserve this?
“I have
prayed to be fixed for 40 years and it’s pretty clear that not only did
God orchestrate my environment and/or genes to get me here, but that He
has no intention of doing anything about it. He likes his handiwork.
How hard can this be? God is all-powerful so of course it isn’t about what God can do—it is a matter of what He wants to do. It
is his will that I want sex and love from a man and it is his will that
I need sex and love from a man and it is his will that I never get it
because that is sin. It is his will that I can never need or want it
from a woman and it is his will that my prayer to need and want it from
a woman is never fulfilled and it is his will that I never get it from
a woman. It is apparently his will that I live in isolation from all
other human beings until I die!
What makes this so
different than any other kind of problem is that there is nobody to
blame but God. I have tried for a long time to find some way around it.
A sovereign God could have given me a stable group of affirming male
friends, a different mix of stress hormones during my mother’s
pregnancy, may parent’s early divorce and my mother’s remarriage to a
decent man. God could have easily prevented my homosexual struggle and
God could at any point have easily fixed it. I was asking God to make
is possible to meet a basic need without sinning. Sounds pretty
reasonable to me.
“And God’s silence on the matter tells
me something about God, There is something about my view of God in the
Bible that simple has to be false. Either God is not so powerful, or he
is not so loving, or he simply isn’t paying any attention to us. Giving
us a basic need for sex and emotional closeness and then orchestrating
our lives to make the only channel we can get that need met a sin is
cruelty! Something about the sweet, loving God of the Bible is just
plain wrong! This is not just a pity party—there are serious ethical
and theological issues that place the theology I have been taught in
direct conflict with the God that created my universe.”
The
man to whom D—wrote, Robert, answered: “Dear D—., You sound so much
like I did some time ago. Even today such thought come up. But I had
what you say you are looking for. I was one of the few gay men who had
a long term, love relationship. I stress the word ‘love’
because there was a lot of love involved. But it was the wrong king of
love, and looking back at it now I see that it had a lot to do with
narcissism, being centered on self and wanting someone to fulfill my emotional and sexual needs. But it was love—sort of, kind of.
“So
if this is all we really need, why didn’t it fulfill me and make me
happy? Why did I lie night after night beside him in our common bed
after we had just had sex and feel terribly alone? Why did I always
feel that this was not what I was looking for? Why did the gay life
change my personality—much to the worse—and lower my moral standards?
Why did it NOT fulfill my basic needs? I seemed to have it all—a hot,
masculine man, lots of ‘great’ sex, someone to love and share my life
with to the end. Why did I still feel so empty?
“Forget
about hormones. They have nothing to do with your same-sex attractions.
And even if we assume that there is a ‘gay gene,’ we are not slaves to
our genetic code. If you had diabetes (which is genetic), would that
mean you should inundate yourself with sugar? No, it would mean you
should to take care of what you eat and how you live. If, as some
argue, certain forms of criminal behavior have genetic causes, does
that make them right? Neither of us thinks so!
“My ex was
an Israeli and we sometimes talked about the suffering of the Jews
under Hitler. He told me that many of them lost their faith when they
had so suffer so bitterly. He told my how they chased all his relatives
in Poland into a synagogue and set it on fire. The dying Jews cut their
arms until they bled and wrote final message on the synagogue walls.
They wanted to be remembered and avenged.
“Why did God let
that happen? Why did he put them in such an ‘environment’? Why did he
put lust for men into your heart? Why didn’t he take it away? Why
doesn’t He put us all back into paradise? I know of no simple answer to
these questions.
“What I do know is that I’ve been where
you seem to want to go. I’ve done all you seem to want to do. And I
hope I’ll never be back there again! Forget it, D—, it doesn’t work the
way you think it does.
“Heterosexuality is so deeply engraved in our hearts that even if you feel nothing for a woman, you do feel very
strange and weird when you enter a same-sex relationship. Even if
everyone in your family and all your friends and the people at your job
fully approve of your choice, you still feel very strange and
weird. And at least one of you have to change or bend or something to
try to make it work. Heterosexuality is just too deeply in us.
“Even
if you find the relationship you long for, you will soon find it’s not
what you were looking for. You will become embittered, sad, and
disappointed; and the gap between you and the male world will become
bigger and bigger. The way you talk, the way you walk, your entire
personality, your moods, your thinking, your behavior patterns, the way
you look, the way you dress—everything will change—and not for the
better.
“And from my own experience, I can say that our
struggle isn’t that bad at all. Sure—we are different. And we hurt.
Sometimes very much . But is it really always that bad?
“It’s
not a bad thing to be different. It makes us lonely at times, but it
also enables us to see and feel things so deeply that many heterosexual
men would envy us if they knew how that felt. Everything has its up
side and its down side.
“I recently worked at a brother’s
house doing some construction work with other men from my church. They
all love me and I love them. They know about my homosexual struggle and
they know about my past life. They know that sometimes I struggle. So
what! Everyone out there is hurting. If you don’t realize that you’re
either very naive or believe in other people’s facades. 
“The
men at my church love me like they love each other. They hug me, touch
me,—and have no problem with that. They care about me—not, as in the
gay life—just sex! That’s such an incredible feeling!
“And,
as I said earlier, I know that a sexual relationship with a man won’t
satisfy my needs. I’ve come a long way and I know I can have a truly
satisfying life. I needed to change many of my old ways of thinking,
attitudes, and behavior patterns to get to this point, but it works! I
have a fulfilled life as a man who still has some same-sex attractions.
“I also have made friends with a lady now. I don’t know where this will lead, but it sure is a very good feeling!
“Above
all, I’ve learned that we need to trust the Lord instead of how much we
think we understand with our human ‘wisdom’ or ‘common sense’, or how
we feel. Isn’t that what faith is all about?
“Just for
discussion’s sake, let’s assume God exists and knows what is best for
us. He created us and knows what happens who we choose to disobey. He
also knows how stubborn we can be. Don’t all those feeling of
loneliness, unhappiness, anger, self-pity, etc. come when we turn our
face away from Him and try to live our own way according to our own
wisdom and/or feelings?
“D—, I know that you have resisted
acting out by having sex with another man—it just doesn’t seem to be in
your heart yet. Believe me when I say I know how difficult this
struggle is. When I got into recovery it was after sharing my life with
another many for years. Every night he had slept by my side and I could
hear him breathing regularly. He was there when I went to be and when I
got up. And we had sex together—lots of sex. Can you realize how lonely
you can feel at night in your bed after that? I cried many tears.
“Still, God was with me. He helped me and I am truly thankful for that. He literally saved my life.
“And
he can save yours—if you will only surrender to him and forget about
your own wisdom and reason. Let Him rule your life—even when you can’t
understand what He is trying to do with it. And as you do this, never
forget that He loves you with a love that passes knowledge.
“God bless you, D—,
Your friend,
“Robert.”
[To be continued. Next issue John J. will address some of the theological issues raised by D— which have troubled many of us.]






What follows are some additional reflections which came out of my
own struggles that I thought might help D— (and you) as he tries to
hold his footing on the sometimes painful, confusing, difficult and
treacherous road to recovery.
Dear D—
Thank
you for your good letter to Robert, for permission to share it with
others, and for the honesty with which you wrote. Your letter brought
back memories of things I felt in my first days of recovery and again
and again I found myself saying, “Been there; thought that; felt that.”
Let
me stress, D—, these feelings and thoughts are now memories. I can
assure you from my own experience that things will not always seem so
grim. If you stick it out with Christ, work your program faithfully,
things will get better—much better if my experience is any guide.
I
went back over some of my journals from those early days and your
letter and my experiences back then brought up these thoughts that I
hope will be helpful to you.
As you read, please remember
that I do not know anything about you save what you wrote in your
letter. If I inadvertently step on a land mine in your soul and you are
wounded, please forgive me and believe me when I say it is totally
unintentional. You have enough pain to deal with now without anyone
adding to it, and that’s the last thing I want to do.
Also
please remember that I am not writing as someone who is or was better
than you are. I am only writing as one God has mercifully brought
through the darkness you are battling now. I have thought much of what
you are thinking; I have felt much of what you are feeling. Neither one
of us has any hope of standing before the judgment throne of God except
that found in the blood and righteousness of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.
I remember that when I was in such terrible pain,
I responded much like an animal caught in a trap. I would snarl and try
to bite those who wanted to help me—especially God Himself.
I
regret all that now that I am enjoying sunnier days, but it was there
when I was in darkness. As someone has said, “When God takes us through
the fire, dross is what comes out!” The result, in my case, is not yet
pure gold, but it is purer gold than it once was. I’m sure you too will
find it so in the not-too-distant future if you “keep yourself in the
love of God” (Jude 21).
You are very astute when you
write: “there are serious ethical and theological issues that place the
theology I have been taught in direct conflict with the God that
created my universe.”
It seems to me that you are
struggling with the doctrines of the love of God and the sovereignty of
God. I’ve struggled with those doctrines too, so please bear with me as
I share the things that have helped me and hope will throw at least
some light on the path you are walking.
Back in my own
dark days, I’m afraid I often reacted toward God much like a sullen,
spoiled child who storms out of the room, shouting at his parents, “If
you don’t give me what I want, if you don’t do what I think you ought
to do, you don’t love me!” Like a child who assumes he knows what is
best for him, I assumed I was wiser than God and surely knew what was
good for me better than He did.
You’d think my own childhood would have taught me better. I had been told by my parents never
to ride double on a bicycle because it was dangerous and I might get
hurt. But I, in my great wisdom, thought I knew better. “I’m tired of
being treated like a little kid,” I told myself, “I’m going to act like
a man!” So I got on the back of a friend’s bike and we took off down a
steep hill. We were flying! Everything was fine until we got to the
curve at the bottom of the hill. We were going so fast we couldn’t make
the turn. The bike crashed and I landed on my face. I broke my two
front teeth and my face looked like a cross between hamburger and a
skinned knee! So much for knowing better than my parents.
I
wish I could say that I learned the lesson of humility from that
experience, but it should be clear from what I’ve said about my
dealings with God that I am a very slow learner!
So how
did God teach me that He loves me even when He doesn’t do what I expect
and give me the things I think would be good for me?
Fortunately,
I knew the Bible was the Word of God and even in my worst moments
continued studying it. As I did so, I found something that at first
seemed strange. The Apostle Paul could write that “the love of Christ
controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all,
therefore all have died; and he died for all that those who live might
no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and
was raised” (II Corinthians 5:14,15 ESV). Yet this same man who says
the love of Christ controls him also, in this very letter, describes
his life as involving “far greater labors [than the false teachers who
attacked him], far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and
often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews forty
lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.
Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea;
on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers,
danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city,
danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in
toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and
thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure” (II Corinthians
11:23-27 ESV). How could he be controlled by—even believe in—the love
of Christ when his life involved so much hardship and suffering? It
didn’t seem to make sense!
And then I read this: “Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is
written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as
sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present not the
future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in
all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39 NIV).
While I
was puzzling over these seemingly strange verses, I came across the
story of a Bible-believing pastor’s wife who was dying of cancer and
was in considerable pain. Her doctor was not a Christian and,
forgetting her own problems, she sought to be of help to him by telling
him of the love of God in Christ Jesus.
The doctor was
irritated and responded with that cruelty which only those who despise
God and His people are capable of. He shouted at her, “Love of God!
Love of God! How can you talk about the love of a God who lets you
suffer so? How can still talk about God’s love?”
The woman
was taken aback and leaned back on her pillow for a moment as she
prayed for him, and then she smiled gently and quoted two verses to
him: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and
only Son into the world that we might live through him” (I John 4:9
NIV). “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us
and sent his Son to be the propitiation (the word means wrath removing
sacrifice) for our sins: (I John 4:10 ESV). I don’t know what the
effect of those words was on that doctor, but they made a light go on
in my head and that light dispelled the fog of confusion and doubt.
Another
passage popped into my head: “When we were still helpless, Christ died
for the wicked, at the time that God chose. It is a difficult thing for
someone to die for a righteous person. It may be that someone might
dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves
us: it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us” (Romans
5:6-8 TEV)!
There are other passages that teach the same
truth, of course. I won’t tire you by repeating them. If you wish, you
can look up the cross references in your Bible for the passages I have
quoted. I picked these because they were the ones that helped me.
Those passages showed me that there is only one place I can look to and be sure of the love of God. That place is Calvary
Later
I read that others had seen the same truths that God had used to help
me (surprise, surprise!). Dr. James Moffatt wrote: “One of the
surprising results yielded by any close examination of Christianity as
revealed in the New Testament literature is that apart from the
redeeming action of the Lord Jesus Christ the early Church evidently
saw no ground whatsoever for believing in a God of love.” [James
Moffatt, Love in the New Testament, (London: 1932), p. 5 quoted in Leon Morris, Testaments of Love: A Study of Love in the Bible, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), p. 129]
To
be honest, as I think of the things of which I am deeply ashamed, and
think of the great love God showed someone like me—a rebel, unclean, a
sinner—in allowing Christ to die in my place and take the punishment
that I deserved, I feel ashamed of my former “what have you done for me
lately” attitude.
You might ask, why is the cross the only
place we can look to be sure of the love of God? First, our experiences
will change from day to day. We live in a sin-cursed world and
therefore we can expect that, because of God’s mercy, things will
sometimes go well; but, because of the curse, things will also
sometimes be difficult. We must learn to rejoice in all that is good
and to accept that which is difficult until heaven (where there is only
good) is ours.
Again, we live in the midst of sinners who
hate Christ and may hate us (see John 15:18-21). Their rejection and
persecution can be a real source of pain. We must accept that, “deny
ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him,” and remember that to
save our life is the sure way to lose it (Mark 8:34-38).
Finally,
while I cannot speak for you, I know I am still a sinner with many
rough edges that need to be smoothed down. God sometimes allows
difficulties in my life to, like sandpaper, get rid of those things
that make me unfit, at present, for the inheritance of the saints of
light. He is not only preparing heaven for me; He is preparing me for
heaven. I suspect it is so with you as well. So we can learn to obey
the injunction of Scripture: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers,
whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the
testing of your faith develops perseverance (the ESV translates this
steadfastness). Perseverance must finish it s work so that you may be
mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4 NIV).
That
will be ours when we either go to be with Christ or when He comes back
to take us to be with Himself. And, as the old hymn say, “That will be
glory for me!”
Since Calvary has shown me the heart of
God, I am learning to trust that heart and His wisdom to give me, not
what seems good to me, but what is actually good for me at any given
time.
It means living by faith, not by sight, but this is what God calls us to do (see II Corinthians 5:7).
Dear
brother, I know I have not answered all your questions. I will take up
the question of the sovereignty of God next time. These are tough
questions you raise and I hope I can help with them. But do look to
Calvary and see the heart of God toward you and me with all our
weakness and folly and rebellion and rest your weary soul there. If you
can do that, it will be well with you. God bless you, D—.
John J., 
Reading PA

Don't Hate Yourself!

Viele Menschen mit gleichgeschlechtlichen Neigungen hassen sich selbst dafür, dass sie so empfinden. Das muss nicht zwangsweise an der Gesellschaft liegen - manch einer kann Homosexualität einfach nicht mit seinem Glauben, seinen Zukunftsplänen, seiner Identität oder was auch immer vereinbaren.

Hier sei zunächst einmal ganz klar gesagt, dass sich niemand schämen oder gar dafür hassen muss, so zu empfinden. Wir haben uns dies nicht ausgesucht. Aus welchen Gründen auch immer - diese Gefühle sind da. Das macht uns nicht zu schlechteren (auch nicht zu besseren!) Menschen. Allein die Tatsache, dass man so empfindet, macht einen auch nicht zum Sünder. Ebensowenig ist man deshalb "krank" oder ähnliches.

Sich selbst erst einmal mit dem annehmen, was man hat und ist, mit all seinen Gefühlen und Empfindungen ist wesentlich - auch und gerade bei uns. Gott hat uns nicht nur aufgetragen, Ihn selbst und andere zu lieben - wir sollen auch uns selbst lieben.

Es liegt uns also sehr daran, mit den Menschen, die zu uns kommen, an diesen Punkt zu gelangen: sich selbst zu lieben und anzunehmen. Das heißt nun keineswegs, dass man deshalb auch ein Ausleben gleichgeschlechtlicher Neigungen oder ähnliches befürworten muss.

Es heißt was es heißt: sich selbst anzunehmen und zu lieben, wie Gott uns liebt.

Acts International

YOU TUBE

African-American male says being gay is not an ethnicity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-MFDod9Rkc
"Our parents did not march with Dr. King so Tom and John could get married."

Dr. Robert Spitzer, a renowned psychiatrist who helped remove homosexuality as a disorder from the medical manual, is sympathetic to gay rights and maintains that some gays can change their sexual preference --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qdeoh_ruI0

Gay rights also includes the right of gays who want to explore their heterosexual potential.

Links

Evangelism Resources

vimeo.com / purepassion.com: Self-Hatred, Lack of Affirmation