Born Again . . . And Again

January 1, 2006

I was raised in a non-Christian, homophobic family. I became a Christian when I was nine years old. After watching a Billy Graham crusade on TV one evening, I went into my bedroom and asked Jesus to come into my heart. From then on I listened to every radio and TV preacher I could find and read the Bible and Christian literature voraciously. I was always attracted to women, long before I knew there was a name for it. The message I got from my mother was, “Someone should line them (homosexuals) up against a wall and shoot them.” When I discovered the name for my feelings, I knew I had to keep them a secret in order to be safe in this world.

In college, I called long distance to Jesus People USA in Chicago. I got the number from a Christian record album; it was the only place I knew to turn for help. They put me in touch with Outpost in Minnesota and thus began my five-year involvement in ex-gay ministries. During that time, I spent countless hours getting counseling by phone, mail, and in person. I read books, tracts, and newsletters, bought audio tapes, and went to conferences. Fifteen hundred dollars later nothing had changed. My sexual desires hadn’t diminished or been redirected to men. I began to be skeptical of the messages I was getting from the ex-gay ministries. They saw the homosexual “condition” as one that was the result of early emotional trauma, such as sexual abuse, growing up in a dysfunctional family, or the famous “lack of love from the same sex parent” theory.

My disillusionment with the ex-gay movement began when I realized that there are many heterosexuals who have been sexually abused. If abuse is the cause, then why weren’t they homosexual? If a lack of love from the same sex parent causes people to be gay, then what causes them to be straight? Does it mean they lacked the love of the opposite sex parent? Anyway, who didn’t grow up in a dysfunctional family? I now know gay people who have grown up in loving, stable homes, and straight people who grew up in chaos. The profiles just don’t fit and there were enough exceptions to make me wonder if there wasn’t more to sexual orientation than can be “healed” or even explained.

Following is a chronological account of the events that led to my actual healing, not from homosexuality, but from depression, fear, and self-loathing:

June 1986 — I attended a week-long Exodus International Conference. That summer marked the height of my involvement in ex-gay ministries.

August 1986 — I went to Reading, Pennsylvania, for a week-long training in the 12 Steps of Homosexuals Anonymous and was certified to start H.A. chapters.

October 1986 — I attended an Outpost Conference in St. Paul. Two weeks later I attended a Mobilized to Serve Christian Singles Conference. I was feeling desperately lonely, and squelching any expression of sexuality,until it began to surface in unhealthy ways. While working at a Christian TV station, I would stay after sign-off and tune the satellite dish to porn channels, waiting for scenes with women together. I felt frustrated and degraded every time I’d do this.

The pornography was not satisfying and I started to realize that I really longed for companionship. I had always believed that as a Christian, sex outside of marriage was sinful, so I tried to believe I had the gift of celibacy. However, I longed to slow dance with a woman, to kiss a woman, and to do the kinds of things most Christians do with their heterosexual dating partners before they get married without any guilt or condemnation by the church. I began to see this as a double standard, and rather than attribute it to society, or the church, I wrongly attributed it to God.

I began to be angry at God for my condition. God seemed cruel and sadistic. Why would God curse me with sexual desires, and give me no legitimate way to fulfill them? Why would God require a higher standard of me than of my heterosexual friends who could date with the hope of marriage? To deal with my anger issues I sought counseling with a male pastor. He soon manipulated me into talking about my sexual orientation and trying to change it. I responded with more repressed, seething anger. At one point, he suggested I have sex with a man, saying, “You’d love it. You’d love it.”

January 1987 — I was at a breaking point. I had sex with the first available woman. I had warned her to stay away from me because I couldn’t handle the temptation. She didn’t, and I gave in to my pent-up frustration and lust. This was the beginning of yet another five-year period. I didn’t want a one-night stand, so I decided to try to make a commitment to this person. It was a disastrous relationship that ended when she left me for another woman. Although terribly painful, our permanent separation in May 1992, was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

June 1987 — I had a nervous breakdown and spent a month in the hospital for depression. When I got out, I felt forsaken by God and wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. I lost my job and my church, and had nowhere to live since my partner and I had since separated. I was not out to my parents, who were clueless as to what was going on. I was staying in a motel, trying to find a place to live in a new town, with a car that kept breaking down. I thought often of suicide as I had for the previous several months. Thank God I never went through with it!

While I was in the hospital, some people who did not see homosexuality as sinful and incompatible with Christian faith, visited me. This was a surprise to me, and I was skeptical for over three years. During that time I stopped praying and reading the Bible. I didn’t listen to Christian music or teachers, and I didn’t go to church.

Then one day, God broke through my defenses with a verse from Hebrews that popped into my head: “I will never, ever leave you; I will never, ever forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5 My translation). My long process of healing was beginning. I realized that I had always accepted what I had been told about homosexuals. I never questioned. I never studied the passages for myself, or read any different interpretations of Biblical passages. I just always accepted that the Bible condemned homosexuality. I began to see that it was not the conviction of the Holy Spirit, based on my own reading of the Bible, that was forming my opinions about my sexual orientation. Instead, my own sense of low self-worth was determining how I felt about my orientation.

I distinctly remember as a child always feeling guilty that I wasn’t a better daughter. I also remember in college feeling that God loved everyone but me — that I was too bad! It was all disparaging of self, but anything but humble. How egocentric! I needed to repent of my pride– the pride that dared to say my lousy opinion of myself overruled the opinion of the God who loved me and gave Himself for me! Years of accumulated self-hatred, guilt, and internalized homophobia were lifted from me.

I gradually began to integrate the sexual and spiritual parts of me. What I once viewed as a curse has now become a gift. I am celibate for now, but it’s not a mandatory, life-long celibacy imposed on me by God or by others to prove my relationship with Jesus Christ or my love for God. It is, instead, an expectant waiting, knowing that God, who knows what I need, will bring a godly woman into my life when she and I are both ready. I know that God wants the best for me. I also want the best for me and am willing to wait for her. I now know the difference between healthy sexual desire and lust. No longer afraid of my sexuality, I accept my femininity and my body. I lost 50 pounds, let my hair grow long, and began dressing in ways that were more flattering to my figure.

I feel like I’m alive from the dead! I see life in Christ as not just being born again, but being born again and again and again! I have a faith that is my own and an optimism about the future because I’ve seen time and again how God uses “bad” things to bring about our growth and ultimate good. My anger has been replaced by overwhelming gratitude! Those who know me understand that I am not looking for a license to sin– I’m looking for a license to serve!

I am convinced that the Bible does not condemn homosexual identity or orientation; neither does it condemn all homosexual behavior, any more than it condemns all heterosexual behavior. I believe God has the same standards for everyone. The church, like the Pharisees, has too often been guilty of heaping burdens on other’s backs while not lifting a finger themselves. Christians regularly impose standards on gays that they would never impose on heterosexuals or embrace themselves.

It’s as if there are two gospels. The one for heterosexuals goes like this: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For God so loved heterosexuals that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but should have the approval of the church and the world to marry, to be sexually active, and to tell everyone about it.” The one for homosexuals goes like this: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, commit yourself to lifelong celibacy, and never allow yourself to have a same-sex romantic feeling or thought (or at least every time you do, feel guilty about it and confess it as sin immediately), you shall be saved. For God so loved heterosexuals that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him and forsakes human companionship might become heterosexual, too!”

I also believe that sometime in the future Christians will look back and be amazed that we could ever have interpreted the Bible to prohibit all homosexual activity for all time in all contexts, just as we look back with disbelief and embarrassment today at the churches that vehemently defended slavery and later, segregation, in the name of Biblical faithfulness. I hope my story helps to hasten that day!

This personal story of faith and reconciliation comes from the archives of www.christianlesbians.com and was originally posted in 2004.

This article is an excerpt from the book From Wounded Hearts: Faith Stories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People and Those Who Love Them, published by Chi Rho Press, and is reprinted here with permission from the author, Donna Brooks.

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