My Sexuality and Jesus.

It's easier to label someone as gay/drug-addict/alcoholic/sex-addict than it is to talk about the pain and see the truth of why they're making certain choices in life. This isn't my ignorant opinion that much of the world likes to shove in people's faces, this is from personal experience. It's part of my story and I'm not afraid of it. I've shared my story a couple times through my blog and on Facebook, so it's not new for me to share it. This is a little more in depth and will explain why people grow up with certain struggles. I've watched over the last couple years the amount of breakthrough people have experienced through sharing my story and I fully believe God has taken what the devil intended to destroy me and instead use it to heaven's advantage. It's amazing. But also scary for a lot of people who find sharing their hearts frightening. I completely understand the awkwardness, but know it soon will pass.

When I was sexually abused as a child, it was by a boy a few years older than me who happened to also be my closest friend at the time. He was cool. He was liked by everyone. And I was close to the family. It was great. But eventually things changed. The inappropriate touching happened for about a year. I had no idea what was going on. How should I? I was only 7 or 8 years old. He was someone I trusted so I assumed whatever was happening was normal. I'm not going to blow up the situation and make it look worse than some people experience, in my case, it was just a lot of inappropriate touching followed by shame. But that moment in my life dramatically affected me emotionally and even led me to question my own sexuality at some points. And then I was ashamed of what happened and didn't share my story for 15 years because I didn't grow up in a place where it was safe to talk about that kind of stuff. I lived in pain for a long time.

When I decided I wanted to be intentional about fully loving myself and becoming self-aware of my feelings and emotions, I had to look to the past to see what lies I was believing about myself. I took a inner-healing and counseling class at school and learned all about how childhood traumas affect people the way they do. We learned why some children experience certain feelings and build walls and why people have certain struggles later on in life. Most struggles people have in life started from a negative experience as a child. I had to look at why exactly I was viewing situations with a certain lens. When I was going through a healing process, I was oblivious to the fact that I didn't trust men, at all. At school, I was surrounded by hundreds of incredibly loving, intentional men, but deep down I didn't trust a single one of them. I knew they were worthy of trust, but there was a wall that was protecting me from experiencing a pain that they weren't even going to cause me. But to me, past experiences proved otherwise. As I spent a season looking through my past, I began to discover why I was feeling a certain way. And this is where my confusion of sexuality came into play.

I've always been attracted to women, I've always dreamed of marriage and having children. There's no doubt of my attraction towards women. I will be an incredible father and husband, I know that. But throughout my pre-teen years, after being sexually abused by my friend, I slowly began shutting boys out of my life. I quit playing baseball and soccer. And that's when all my friends started becoming girls. I could trust girls. I liked girls. So it was simple. But what happened was in one of the most crucial times for growing into my masculinity, I lacked the influence in my life. Even though I had brothers, some of them were drug addicts and alcoholics my entire childhood. They were in and out of jail all the time. And I never experienced them as emotionally healthy people as a child. They either caused problems at home or were absent. It was hell. So I grew up resenting them. As a young kid, I also witnessed two people having sex. So those images also stuck in my mind when in reality I shouldn't have seen that for a very long time. To me, boys were unsafe. They either caused emotional trauma, or were otherwise just after sex and taking advantage of people for that need. And I was in the middle of it all. Along with all of that, at school I experienced a lot of rejection from the boys my age. They were verbally abusive towards me, and being "Words of Affirmation", that was where I was emotionally hurt. There were other situations growing up that affected my view of men. I wanted so badly to trust boys and experience that camaraderie. I wanted to be a part of it all. But my past showed me what would happen if I took the chance. Much of society says boys should not be emotional, that hugging and loving each other is "gay", that being a man means being emotional shut off. But in reality, men need healthy physical male affection and emotional connection just as much as women need healthy womanly affection and connection. It's an innate need. Jesus is the epitome of what bromance is. He was there for His men emotionally and physically. It's in the bible.

I was having a conversation with my family about homosexuality in society. I talked about my own experiences growing up. But I know most people fall into believing that they're gay comes when they believe their desire for and lack of healthy same-sex affection can only happen through sex. It's natural and completely healthy for men to need men, like I said earlier, but when men aren't getting their needs met in a healthy way by other men, there's comes a point where they believe the only way to get that need met is through sex. Their desire becomes their identity. And that's where it's unhealthy and unnatural. I told my mom that even though I don't want men in that sexual way, if I wouldn't have eventually pursued healthy relationships with the men in my life and dealt with my past, I believe at some point my healthy need for men in my life would've moved to unhealthy and I would've believed I was gay--if I would've believed then that that was the only option for receiving male affection, I would've probably done it. What happened was I then became surrounded by people who knew my pain and struggle. They knew who I really was and weren't afraid of my past. They knew who God created me to be. And they knew God also needed me to have healthy men in my life who could fill those needs. God knows my needs. I compare homosexuality with drug abuse/alcoholism/porn addiction etc because it's all a heart issue. I know the deep struggle with wanting and needing male affection so bad that it made me wonder what the hell was wrong with me. I know what it's like to think I was a pervert for wanting guys in my life and even wondering if I was gay for needing guys to the measure I did. I now know what it's like to have amazing men in my life. I have more compassion for those struggling with homosexuality than I ever imagined I would, because I know the struggle. But I know what I need to fill those holes in my heart. I know how to get my needs met in a healthy way. People struggling with heterosexual issues and people struggling with homosexual issues have a lot more in common than led to believe. Though everyone has different experiences, and abuse was one that influenced my struggles, not everyone who struggles with homosexuality has been sexually abused. It's ignorant to assume that. There are many reasons why people struggle with homosexuality. Reading "Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual" by Andrew Comiskey changed my life and created a compassion in my heart that will only make me more able to love people unconditionally.

If you don't view your situation from heavens perspective--you won't reach true freedom. This is why the world struggles to remain free from their feelings and addictions. When you have a world that would rather be passive and not talk about what's really going on in a person's heart, you have a culture that enables peoples' problems instead of helping them heal. Laws are even made to protect their struggle. The world says, "You are a drug addict/alcoholic/homosexual. You will always struggle with this problem. There's little hope for you. Let's make your feelings your identity." Heaven says, "This is not who you really are. You were created for more than this. You were created for joy. You were created to change lives. You were created for real love. Let's look at why this really started in the first place. Here are the holes in your heart. And these are the things you were lacking. This is the root of your pain. This is what will heal your wounds, and this stuff won't. Now this is who you really are. You are loved." That is where breakthrough occurs--that is where healing happens. When we are surrounded by people who continue to view us as someone who will always be _________ (insert feeling/addiction), of course we won't see the hope and experience freedom. But when we're surrounded by people who call out the gold in our lives and tell us the "truth" instead of remind us what's currently "true", hell has very little chance of survival.

With love,

Ben 

My Sexuality and Jesus