Mine was a story of nothing as it seems. On the outside I appeared to be a great man of Faith, walking with God in pious devotion, but on the inside I was a man at war.

How does a young boy make sense of the fact when he looked at the Sears catalog, he would be turned on sexually when he got to the pages of the men in their underwear?

How about the the urge to be physically close to his male friends and men of significance in his life?

A christian boy makes sense of it by letting the shame in. Feeling dirty and detestable because of the “forbidden urges”. When puberty hits and now there are hormones in the mix, the shame and guilt escalates to emotionally destructive levels.

I learned to put on masks. I would date girls and pretend that the same sex feelings didn’t exist. I would be real involved in church and religion so that God would somehow overlook my lustful gay dreams and fantasies. By the time I was ready to face some of my feelings, I convinced myself that they were just from Satan and they were his plan to destroy my soul. I thought, “some people struggle with drugs, I struggle with same-sex attraction”. It was my cross to bear.

The trouble with masks is they have to eventually come off and when they do the view in the mirror is a hard one to look at or accept so I learned to hate myself without the masks on. This self-hate turned into depression and this depression at times was close to being suicidal. I couldn’t love who I wanted to love and I couldn’t love myself. Maintaining the deception within a church context took so much energy and was exhausting.

Eventually I told some bothers in Christ of my struggle and then it was the accountability groups, the online bible courses to rid my mind of homosexual thoughts, and even the exorcism prayers. When none of this made me straight, I assumed it was me and my inability to do those things right and of course Satan’s relentless desire for my soul.

Luckily God was working in subtle ways to reveal Himself and His love for me. I felt led to move from my small town and change up my life a bit. This gave me space to figure things out away from the church fish bowl I was living in. It gave me space to take off the masks from time to time and realize my reflection wasn’t detestable after all but beautiful. God put some great people in my path that challenged some of my traditional conservative thinking and I discovered some great books that helped me truly understand the heart of God.

So after 30 years of hiding behind masks, I was ready to put them away for good and love myself. The war within is over and I’m at peace and comfortable in my own skin. What’s even better is I know God loves me for who I am and celebrates that guy. He never required me to wear the masks in the first place, but those masks were donned out of fear and ignorance. Now I want to help other people realize that God doesn’t hate homosexuals and isn’t asking them to change and become straight. He’s asking them to love and experience life in abundance. This abundance starts by first loving and accepting one’s self which frees us to truly love others.

-TK