I've been thinking about my own journey recently. I know this blog is about 'the church' and SSA but perhaps there is something of relevance to how local churches relate to individuals overcoming homosexuality that may be of interest in what I share...
For most of my life I have been in conflict. Both my Christian identity and the fact that I knew I was attracted to men were aspects of my being that were in deep conflict. I've gone round the block on this issue - 'God doesn't condemn the desire, just the acting out of those desires....' 'God loves the sinner, He hates the sin' etc. It has always been difficult for me to understand why this issue is not dealt with at conversion, because I am convinced that the Biblical position is that no-one is created with such desires. I remember how foreign it was to me to be told that we have a 'story' we should value, and although I know that its was these issues that brought me to repentance ( or perhaps, more correctly, brought me to seek repentance,) I could never really value homosexuality either as a life-style or as a drive within me, even if the pain of it led me to seek Christ.
I suppose now I see that sexuality 'just is'. I didn't chose to have these issues as a young boy and then as an emerging adult - they just were always there. But the truth is I felt so condemned by this reality, that even a deep and lasting conversion felt tainted by the pervasiveness of the issues that surround same sex attraction. I don't see homosexuality as intrinsically a part of myself in a physical sense. I see it as a voice - the voice of old pain - something like a barometer that tells me something about myself...
What has changed in my understanding and experience, that relates to my 'identity' is this: I no longer feel condemned by having to work through these issues. Instead of turning on myself, condemning myself, I just recognise this fact about myself - that God has called me to escape this part of my life and to find new patterns of being, and expressing my sexuality. Here's the point, I'm not living in the self-condemnation of 'Giant's castle' as I think CS Lewis referred to.
I think it's been inevitable for people like me, when hearing 'the church' preach against homosexuality, to fail to value who I am in Christ and thereby to stand against any condemnation of manifestations of my being that don't express the mind of Christ. I'm not expressing this well.... I'll leave it there and edit this again. I just wanted to express a new foundation in my life : one in which I have no condemnation - only a gracious call to find fulness in Him. I guess I can now value 'my story', and at the same time I can see this struggle in perspective. After all, its just a struggle.
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