Breaking The Cycle

An Active Homosexual Experiences Healing

At 38, I was leading a classic double life. To our friends, my wife and I

seemed an ideal couple. But I was an active homosexual.

As far back as I can remember, I knew that men attracted me more than

women, but I was naive about homosexuality. That was in a time when a

homosexual lifestyle was so unacceptable that we didn't even talk about

such things. The standard thing to do was to grow up, get a job and get

married. And I did.

I did the best I could to meet my wife's expectations, and for the first

few years our marriage was fairly happy. We had two daughters and by the

time they entered their teenage years we had a lovely big house in the

suburbs, a lot of friends, and we were both active in church.

It never occurred to me, when we married, to think of what I might do to

the woman who joined me. But pretty soon my homosexual desires began to

grow to the point that they totally dominated me. I was cautious at first

about how I acted them out. I sneaked down to Washington after meetings to

visit gay bars and movie theatres, or I planned business trips out of town.

But pretty soon the desires so dominated me that I started hitting the gay

bars in my home town. I started going to the parks looking for other gay

men.

I knew what I was risking. I loved my wife and children and I knew I might

lose them along with my job and my reputation, but it didn't matter.

Fortifying myself with a drink, I could go out and do the things I knew I

had no business doing.

All this time I was active in the church. I taught Sunday school, and even

though I might come in Sunday morning with a hangover, I fulfilled my

responsibility. The God I believed in had created the world, had set up

the physical and moral rules by which we were to live, and was sitting back

watching us to see whether we made the grade or not.

I believed that everyone had his advantages and shortcoming through no

fault of his own. Some people were born too poor, some were physically

handicapped, some were alcoholic, some homosexual. I happened to be

homosexual and felt no responsibility for it. The causes went too far back

in my life, I was either born that way or something had happened early in

my childhood to make me this way. I believed God was just and that in the

end all these factors would balance out. I certainly didn't believe in a

God who could come into my life and change me.

That was the way I thought part of the time. At other times, I was deeply

remorseful about what I was doing. I never kidded myself into thinking

homosexual activity was all right. I believed it to be a sin. And in my

case, it was also adultery, so there was no way to excuse myself. I

confessed it to God periodically, and I determined not to do it again. I

asked God for strength and at communion I claimed power to overcome, but it

never worked.

Fifteen minutes after I had renounced my homosexuality, I could be right

back into it. After a while, I couldn't even confess any more because I

knew I would go back to it. I had no power to control my desires. I was

miserable. My wife had discovered what I was and went through a terrible

struggle. We fought a lot and I took to drinking heavily. I came to

dislike my job and more and more gave myself to degrading kinds of things.

Then two things happened. First, my wife joined a prayer group. Life had

gotten so difficult for her that she knew she needed some kind of support

and when a woman in our church talked about forming a group she jumped at

the idea. Well, those women really had the gift of prayer. They prayed

for me and for our family. My wife never told them the nature of our

problem, but they prayed for us faithfully.

The second thing that happened was that a friend of mine, who did not know

I was homosexual, got converted. He and I met for lunch once a week and

began talking about religious matters. I began reading C. S. Lewis' books

and got him to. He was reading Thomas Merton and got me going on that.

Together, we began a search to understand God and life.

Then something happened to him. He heard of a large charismatic prayer

meeting and started going to it. There he found people with joy and a love

for God most people don't have.

My friend was quiet by nature, but he was suddenly transformed. He just

"lit up"; he didn't know how to express what had happened to him but I

could see the change written all over him. I remember him saying things

like, "The flowers are brighter" and "The food tastes better." He was a

new person, and because we were close friends, I came to believe that what

had happened to him could happen to me.

There began for me the worst struggle of my life. I hated the life I was

living and wanted to change. I hated the deceit and guilt. I hated what I

was doing to my family, but I was obsessed with my homosexual desires.

They were the first thing I thought of in the morning and the last thing at

night. I never chose a route to where I was driving without arranging it

in a way that would stimulate my sexual fantasies. The thought of giving

up all that was terrifying.

On the other hand, the thought of confronting God personally and asking Him

to heal me and having nothing happen was almost worse. And mixed with it

was the fear that I would have to confess what I was to everybody I knew

before God would hear me.

But I decided, at last, to go with my friend to his prayer meeting. It was

on a Tuesday night. The attendance was large and the praying was noisy.

But in the midst of it all, I just quietly said to the Lord, "I'm fed up.

I have tried for 30 years to make it my way -- now I'm ready to ask for

help. I've tried to become stronger and it hasn't worked. Now I just put

myself in your hands, Lord, and ask you to do whatever you want with me,

with no restrictions, no limitations."

I left the meeting with a good feeling. The roof hadn't come off the

building, no heavenly choir had sung. But in two or three days I knew I

had been healed. I was no longer a homosexual and I could hardly believe

it. My friend had said to me, "The Lord is going to work in your life in a

way that is beyond anything you can expect," and I certainly hadn't

expected this.

In five years since then I haven't had a homosexual desire. My wife and I

have a renewed and deepened relationship that is a wonderful gift I never

deserved. And all this came to me without a lot of faith on my part.

The one thing I had the night I gave myself to God was some hope. That

hope had come through my close friend who, as far as I know, had never

struggled with a "life dominating problem." But I watched him change and

just threw myself on the Lord's mercy. So I guess hope is a part of faith

and I would like my story, like the change that came to my friend and

inspired hope in me, to bring hope to others who are caught, as I was, in a

defeating whirlpool.

When we need the love of Jesus most, we are so caught in our inner turmoil

that we can't even think of anything else. Yet it is the love of Jesus

that can heal us. What can break the cycle but a friend coming close and

showing us the love of Jesus in action in his life.

-- Alan

For further information about homosexuality or about other areas of sexual

brokenness, please contact:

LOVE IN ACTION

G.P.O. Box 1115

ADELAIDE SA 5001

Phone (08) 371 0446

This article is reprinted by permission from

Regeneration

P. O. Box 10574

Baltimore, Maryland, 21204

U.S.A.



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