The story we need to hear

We have heard many stories in the media by same-sex attracted people who have “come out” and proclaimed that finally they feel liberated.  Typically, they say that living openly as a gay person brings new freedom.

But there are other stories the media do not carry.  I mean the stories–and actually there are many of them–of people who have come out of the gay lifestyle and now live as celibates or else in relationship to someone of the opposite sex.  For them, living the gay lifestyle was bondage.  True freedom came from departing from the gay lifestyle.

Here is one such glorious story.  Jean is an ex-lesbian.  Interestingly, her story confirms the finding of psychologists, increasingly suppressed, that same-sex attraction arises in many cases from sexual abuse in childhood.

“At age twelve, I began to experience same-sex attraction, which greatly added to my confusion. By the time we were fifteen and sixteen, I was clinically depressed, wearing a tuxedo to the school dance, and contemplating suicide.

“In college I abandoned my faith to embrace a lesbian identity and life. My brother’s life lacked direction, and his penchant for numbing his pain through alcohol increased to full addiction. In our quests to quell our aches, we both walked away from our Creator and His revealed will. This demonstrated that our problem went much deeper than our hurts. We were not only wounded. In C.S. Lewis’ words, we were ‘rebels who needed to lay down our arms.’

“Eventually, by God’s grace, we were both roused to repentance by the “megaphone of pain.” For my part, to shorten a story told in other places, I traded my lesbian-centered identity for one centered in being a beloved child of God, and I sought to obey Him once more.

“We were created for life and freedom. But true life and true freedom can’t be found apart from the Creator, the source of Life. And as any recovering addict or repentant sexual transgressor knows, the one who commits sin is the slave of sin. Real freedom comes only in walking in harmony with God and thereby maturing into virtue, goodness, and self-mastery.

“. . . [After asking God to explain the suffering in my life,] there were two days of silence. I received no answers to my questions. I reread Job and was reminded that I was the one who would give account for my life to God, not He to me. In my final time of prayer before departing on the third day, under the cross once more, I laid down my life’s list and declared that I would choose to trust Him though I could not understand His ways. Then in the silence, as clearly as I have ever heard anything, I heard His Spirit whisper: “Love would not allow what Love could not restore.” In this gracious promise, I was given something far better than understanding it all. I was given the peace that surpasses answers and understanding, along with the hope of the gospel.

“As a same-sex attracted woman, I was offered a rewritten script from some Christians in which celibacy was not required of me. While I’m sure they thought it was compassion, it was also an easier path for them than accompanying me in the midst of my storm. If I thought I was transgendered today, I’m sure they would encourage me to seek surgery and applaud my “courage” to change, considerations for husband, children, and my long-term health and well-being notwithstanding.

“I am many years down the road from being twenty-seven and the words I heard on the hillside. Since then, I have known joys I never could have dreamed or planned along with trials so stunning they left my prayers wordless and tear-filled not just for weeks or months, but for several years. But I have also now lived long enough to catch glimpses of at least a few “other sides” of these sufferings. There is a beautiful work in progress. God can triumph over any twist of plot the enemy of our souls scrawls across our pages, and He writes a much better story than we do.”

Jean C. Lloyd, PhD, is a teacher and a happily married mother of two young children.