Recovering from Sexual Brokenness

Sometimes it seems that there was not a life before my struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction, that all of life is wrapped around it, dipped in it, painted with it, squeezed between its beginning and end (?), tainted with it, determined from it, sorted through it, distorted by it. The pre-struggle days come in brief glimpses -- memories I guess -- but even they seem to play out like a prelude, an intro to the big number.

It's not true, of course. The years before the sexual abuse were precious to the little boy that was and those who were with him. I look back and I think I would have liked him and perhaps who he might have been. He would not have been me -- abuse and abandon change people -- but someone similar I'm sure. The experience re-directed him, as experiences do.

Fortunately, we are not bound by our experiences. The victims of horrendous accidents, disease, warfare or violence pick themselves up to see what is left of self -- mind and body and spirit and soul -- and adapt, changed but able, to live their lives in different, maybe even better, ways. While life allows excuses, they are usually disguised as limits and, in many cases, we choose how bound we will be by them.

I was greatly heartened by a discussion on another blog recently that went on for days, sparked by the question "What If You Don't Change?" The comments that came from the readers are honest and open and, in some cases, gripping. More than anything else, they are incredibly enlightening about the desire of the believer's heart to please God and be the person He created them to be. No matter the reason for being drawn into the struggle of sexual brokenness -- and especially same-sex attraction -- so many strugglers refuse to give in for one inescapable reason: it's not God's design. Succumbing is the easy route; it ends the struggle. Striving and believing and discarding and leaving is the harder route, but the only one that leads to sanctification. It is heartening to see so many of these primarily young people believing in the Word of God and rising to proclaim they will build their lives around it no matter how hard our culture works to lay out an easier path. Sometimes it requires us to be long-suffering. Sometimes that suffering almost smothers us and others around us.

We all know about the woman who knew long-suffering. Suffering defined her. For twelve years, she had bled. Nothing -- no one, no physician -- could ease her pain and humiliation. There was no cure. Twelve years. She asked herself: "Why can I not live like other women?" And she asked herself "Why can I not die?"

It was as if she had never seen the glory and the promise of the sun. She had only felt the draining, blistering heat. She had only thirsted for life as the sun bore down upon her . . . but she had never seen it.

It was as if she had never noticed the flowers . . . only the weeds in her world's cracked, dry ground. She had never known the precious softness of the petals, the sweet perfume of the perfect bloom. No, her life was thorns and thistles . . . not blooms.

All she knew of life was that each day was worse than the one before.

And then . . . He came.

She was just one among the gathering crowd. She would never be noticed. But suddenly she knew with all her heart that if she could just move closer, just reach out and touch the hem of His garment, her suffering would end. The current of blood would cease to flow. Her fruitless search for a healing physician could end with that timid touch.

Faith flowed through her body as she fingered that fabric . . . and the bleeding stopped that instant. She was healed in an instant. She thought her soul would burst with joy. But then, in the midst of that crushing crowd, He stopped, He turned, and she thought she would die.

"Who touched my clothes?" He asked gently.

She was horrified. She wanted to shrink, to disappear among the grains of hot sand on which she lay at His feet, trembling. She wanted never to have been . . . not to have had eyes to see That Man . . . never to have had a heart to beat so uncontrollably in His presence.

"Who touched me?" He asked again, as gently as before.

Then her eyes met His. Eyes so filled with love they overflowed into her own to see inside and wash away the years of painful sobbing. And she felt pure.

Despite her trembling, she told Him her story. That it was she who touched Him. Despite the loudness of the crowd, He listened to every word.

"Your faith has made you whole," He said. "Go in peace and suffer no more."

Her faith. His touch.

Her heart, which beat uncontrollably out of fear only a moment before, still beat uncontrollably, but out of joy now -- the joy that flooded her soul as fear left her in the presence of Jesus.

And her soul? That tired shadow of a weary, regrettable life? In that touch . . . that soul became brand new. It crossed a burning desert to drink cool water from a well so deep it can't be measured. Twelve years of suffering became as nothing. It was over. Now she could see the sun. Now she could smell the sweet fragrance of the perfect flower. The dusty dry sands of her life became the rich, moist soil of a new fertile garden.

All because of that tender, timid touch. He was there . . . she reached out . . . and He turned to her. He knew all her pain . . . all her problems . . . all her sorrows . . . all her needs. He knew all . . . and He touched her.

"In an instant." Oh how I wish that were my story.

When my sons and my daughter found out about my sexual struggle and my wallowing in the sinful acting out of my addiction, I went swiftly from pain to panic . . . I lied and rushed right into repair. Too swiftly. Having declared my own "hem of the garment" experience, I went rapidly into rebuild mode. When I fell again, the next "R" word for me was ridicule. There's another: regret. Regret that in using the story I damaged in their minds the truth of this woman's suffering and the reality of her healing.

When I was confronted about my sexual sin, I saw in an instant the possibility that my life might crumble and my very-strong survival instinct kicked in fast. What about my career? My marriage? My children? Clearly questions I should have pondered more deeply and much earlier. Admitting to same-sex attraction . . . admitting to sending e-mails and making phone calls . . . admitting to having actually met men -- even though I was that married father of five -- seemed like a mountain too high to climb . . . unless I intended to jump off when I reached the top. So, I lied. I believed the lie would buy me time to conquer my problem once-and-for-all, repair all the damage, reconstruct the relationships and carry on with life. I lied out of fear.


I lied because I believed in time I could reestablish truth and carry on with life. I lied because I believed I could finally face the reality that my same-sex attraction was reaching a consuming point that made it to hard to keep it in the shadows, and I believed that since I could finally face it, I could finally defeat it. I lied to protect myself, but I also lied because I wanted to keep the things I thought I might lose, my sons and my daughter and, most of all, my wife. I lied to others because I believed in myself. My "self" let me down.



Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, -- Colossians 3:9-10
I had everything to lose and nothing to gain, I believed, by telling the truth.

In the end, I lied because I wanted to be someone else and not myself. I asked myself, "Why can I not just be like other men?" And I even asked myself, "Why can I not die?"

Most people who struggle with unwanted sexual brokenness believe the struggle will end before it hurts too many people beyond themselves. The struggler's energy goes into covering up, recovering from guilt, trying to maintain composure, and sometimes into concocting elaborate lies to buy time to overcome, to claim that elusive victory. Energy that should go into the struggle itself is consumed by the overwhelming labor of deception. The struggler can become double-minded; develop an alter-ego; maintain two existences and worry all the time that one is seeping into the other.

A person who struggles does not just "accept." Some see the struggler as using the life he shows -- church, family, career -- to enable the life he hides, a life some think he would prefer if he were not trapped by his past decisions. Decisions like salvation, marriage, fatherhood. Those who do not struggle often believe the struggler should just face reality and stop doing what he knows is wrong. It's that simple.

I wish it was.

I don't know if my relationship to my children will ever be restored. That lies with them more now than me, and is a complicated mish-mash of forgiveness and trust.

But . . . just as there was life before this struggle -- a little boy I think I would have liked to know -- there is a life after it -- a man I hope to know for certain.

It's a matter of faith. My faith. His touch.

It is not too late for those who struggle to see what is left of self -- mind and body and spirit and soul -- and adapt, changed but able, to different ways.
Thom Hunter http://thom-signsofastruggle.blogspot.com/