Hebrews 12:1 encourages us with these words "Therefore" SINCE we are surrounded with SO great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth] let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active and persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us..."
The woman you have met is doing that. She found herself struggling with same sex attraction in her twenties and early thirties and she is a believer. She was a believer when she was struggling and she is a believer now. She is an amazing woman of God and I am excited that she has agreed to share her story with us. This is not a "typical" blog (not that any of mine are) but it is being conducted in an interview format. She is telling us how her friendship with another Christian woman developed into something sinful, how she believes she came to "be" that way, and how by God's grace she was delivered.
My UTMOST prayer is that YOU will be blessed by this, and that YOU will find victory as you seek to "strip off and throw aside every encumbrance and unnecessary weight and that sin that so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles you" and that you REMEMBER that YOU are surrounded by SUCH a great cloud of witnesses.
We pick up our interview where none of us ever wants to find our selves, exposed in our sin. God will often do exactly that to show us His greatest mercy. Let's get back to our interview:
So how did God expose your relationship?
I made a vow to God that if Helen and I crossed the line and became physical (again) I would walk away forever. Of course I broke that vow, and of course I didn't walk away. There was a ravenous beast patrolling the dungeon where I was enslaved, remember? So, back and forth I went with this relationship until God did exactly what He promised. There was a person I felt close to and I felt the Lord tugging at my heart prompting me to share my story with him; his name was Alton. So I gathered my courage and lay my broken heart before him, not sure what to expect, but remembering the fears I fretted over sharing my story with anyone and how those fears always ended with my wearing a scarlet letter. What I found in his eyes was compassion, what I heard from his lips was truth, as he shared with me counsel from God's Word.There was no judgement here, just another sinner on the road to heaven, like me. His words were like a healing balm to my heart.
Still, I justified salvaging my relationship with Helen because there was so much "good" in the relationship. She had encouraged me to overcome my fear of dogs after being bitten, I had helped her learn memorization techniques while studying that helped her with her classes, and together we worked on numerous projects that benefited each of our families.Our lives had become intertwined. Part of what had drawn me to her in the first place was her kindness. Surely we could salvage at least the friendship part of the relationship and no one would ever need to know what happened, right?
The Lord used imagery from the Psalms to show me that I was entangled by my sin and that I was bound tightly by its cords. I was like a dog returning to its vomit. All the while I cried out in my sorrow and despair for mercy. The Holy Spirit was like a bull dog barking at my conscience. The sound of His "voice" came at me from without and within. I was convicted in so many ways. Through sermons, through bible studies and other Christian teachings on the radio, through Christian music and through the lives of other believers who were being broken by their sin and gently restored RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES! All the while I continued to dole out godly counsel and to exhort my friends with Scripture, but EVEN those words were being used by the Holy Spirit to convict ME.
Then, just like that we were exposed.
Helen and I were cuddled up in bed when my mother walked in, saw the situation and confronted us. I really resented her at the time, and I did a lot of blame-shifting to try and take the focus off of the homosexual relationship Helen and I had been sharing. It still sounds weird to me to say homosexual relationship in referring to myself at the time, and even now, I would never think of myself that way. But that's what Scripture calls it, so I must do the same (even if I was/still interested in men, am now too...well, I digress) I began to attend biblical counseling sessions with a married couple, and despite all the wriggling I tried to do, God had exposed my deepest shame and He was in the process of showing me His deepest grace through the love and support of Alton, my mother and this couple. I believe this is what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 5:29, "If your right eye serves as a trap to ensnare you or is an occasion for you to stumble and sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body is cast into hell." So I acted on the counsel I received, to end all contact with Helen. Of course, the flesh does not wish to die so easily, and I was inconsistent. The battle was not quite over.
Have you done any soul searching to try and figure out what things in your life may have contributed to your struggle with this temptation?
I don't think my story is unique. Many times as we reflect over the course of someone's life who is trapped in the cycle of sexual sin, we find in their past lies the ugly truth of abuse. Someone fondled them, someone exposed them to pornography, and someone approached them sexually before they were mature enough to understand what sex was. There are several stories like this in my past. At five years old, I was fondled multiple times by the husband of my day care provider. A few ears later the older brother of another day care provider took an opportunity to fondle me during what should have been an innocent viewing of the childhood classic "Old Yeller". Later, while playing in the neighborhood with friends they shared with me a pornographic magazine that had taken from their father, and while away at summer camp, the female counselors offered us girls an extra cookie if we would take off our tops, exposing ourselves. Those experiences and others led me to the path where sexual lust would find a more fertile ground to grow in. As I grew and matured he movies and culture we live in fueled this sin bent. I was drawn toward carnal, sensual things. I was allowing the scenes in movies where physical relations took place to distort my view of what love is (or should be biblically) and this only increased my appetite for sensual things. It also shaped my ideas that seductiveness is an acceptable way to attract a man. These false ideas about love and relationships led to an abomination of the real thing.
I hope you have been encouraged...you are not alone...no matter where you are in your struggle God's Grace is sufficient for you. He hears your cry for mercy and He will deliver you. Keep working out your salvation with fear and trembling friends...He is an amazing, awesome God, Whose timing is never late, and Who uses all of EVERYTHING we encounter for OUR good and HIS glory...remember that when you hate the thing...that the thing you hate is being used to make you MORE like Christ...
XOXO
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