| Sexual Wholeness; My Road With God |
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By Dave J For years I have struggled with reconciling my spirituality and sexuality. I would pray, and even do things that I thought were helpful, (dating women, staying away from gay organizations and much more). In the past four years I have journeyed with God down a long road of addiction, pain, and a lot of stuff that needed to come to the surface and be dealt with. Once God gave me healing, and all the layers of protection were stripped away, I was left with my sexuality. I prayed to God and just gave Him my sexuality and asked Him to guide me, ( Of course, I still had my own ideas...;). Thought I had it all figured out, (trap I fall into quite often really;). To me sexual wholeness meant that God was going to transform me into a heterosexual, and that was it! Black and white, no gray please... I had a lot of stuff to deal with around this, and realized there was a problem at the core: I did not accept myself the way I am. I wanted to be loved, cared for, and valued. I did not want to be different anymore. I did not want to be rejected because of my sexuality, (history: kicked out of military and asked to leave a church because of being gay). I was driving one day and God spoke to me, and said, "Can you accept the fact that I am going to give you sexual wholeness, even if you don't know what it will look like?". I said, "Yes". From that day foward, He has been faithful in providing more and more through scripture, directly, and through other believers. He has reminded me that when He was here, He was rejected, ridiculed, and not very well liked by many. People challenged Him all the time, (I though it was cool that He was relating to me this way by sharing that, as it did not occur to me on my own). He also told me that it is a hard road to be authentic about who we are, and where we are, and that we need not get into the trap of people pleasing, (what my pastor calls being bent toward people instead of God). So, I am now at a place where I feel my sexuality and spirituality are more in sync, (come on it's a process). Do I have all the answers? No. Do I know what God has for me next? No. Do I have to know what everything is going to look like to be o.k? No. All I have to do is trust Him, and keep my eyes and ears open to what He has for me. Sometimes He asks me to do things which I don't understand. With practice, I am getting better at taking these steps of faith, with the mind/heart set being, "He asked me to, and that is enough". I have learned that He is really creative. I now will read the same scripture that my eyes have viewed a dozen times, and see something brand new. I realize now that the Bible is a living work and that God will really speak to us in the word, when we ask, (Yes, and open our eyes and minds to show us what He has for each of us). He let's us know Him and His heart through His word. This is how I start my day, (with my Starbuck's coffee), because it gets my heart and mind in check with Him. I choose to start my day this way to recognize that He is first in my life, so He will be the first order of my day. Honestly, it used to be very hard. I would skip verses and books, because of "All I though I knew." Well, as the song goes, "I don't know much, but I know He loves me.", (Yeah, I changed it a little). I am still learning, and with that, I am becoming more creative in how I communicate and relate to the one who calls me His beloved....... |