Question:
Hi,
First of all, thank you for allowing people to come to you with all of their questions and concerns. It’s admirable to take time and do this, so thank you.
When I was little, about 6 probably, I was taken advantage of by two older girls who were my cousins. They would tell me to do stuff to them and I would. It got pretty bad. Around this time, I started to find some vintage porn magazines lying around in the garage, and I would look at them and look at the women on them.
I play sports. I have always been a tomboy and never really associated that with being gay or anything. I just enjoyed playing and was comfortable in the clothes I wore and playing with the boys. I was focused on sports my whole life. I had crushes on boys but never had the opportunity or time in high school to even experiment with anything else. I truly didn’t have time for boys, they were just crushes. So I never went to prom with a boy or even went on a date with one, and never brought one home to my parents. I understood that wasn’t my main focus at the time, but I still noticed that I didn’t do those things like the other girls. I was kind of scared to in a way. I was shy around the boys I liked.
I was raised my whole life in the church and I know what’s right and what’s wrong, I’m not confused about that. I go to a university associated with the church. I came here to play sports and grow closer to God.
When I got to college, it was a different story. I was off alone. I didn’t have my parents watching me. I could do what I wanted. In my hometown, we didn’t have really any openly gay people, and I didn’t even think about it, honestly. I’m from a small country town. But where I go to college, it has a bigger variety of people and I started to notice some girls who sparked an interest in me. They dressed kind of boyish, and I just found myself being attracted to that. I still had crushes on boys, but this was something else. I got into a relationship with a girl, my first ever relationship, and was on and off with her for a long time. But the whole time I was with her, I felt guilty. I felt scared because I knew I was sinning and felt like I was going to hell. I was anxious and sad because I knew that I had feelings and didn’t know how to make them go away. It started to make sense to me why I never truly could live a normal teenage girl life, go out with boys, and all that comes with that. I didn’t kiss anybody until I was 18 years old. I went on a few dates before I was with her though — with a boy — but I just wasn’t feeling it.
The relationship with that girl ended, but I found myself falling back into homosexuality with another girl before school dismissed for the summer. I thought I could separate myself this summer from it, but I am having a really hard time doing that. We both fell in love, as weird and as wrong as that sounds. And I’m just scared. I keep having panic attacks that feel like heart attacks because I know I’m in sin. I literally feel like I need to go to the hospital all the time because I feel like I’m having a heart attack and it’s so scary. I try to focus on God, but this sin has a hold on me like nothing else I have ever experienced, and I wonder why it has to be something like this. I know it’s not natural, but it feels natural to me. I feel like there’s something wrong with me, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to let it go. It just hurts.
I’m just struggling really badly right now, I am fighting and trying so hard. I ended things with her several times, but I know when I see her in person it’s going to be so hard for me not to be with her. I just need some guidance, because I’m tired of feeling like I’m going to die all the time and feeling like there’s no hope for me. I don’t know why I just can’t let it go and I’ve prayed for forgiveness and help, maybe it’s a lack of faith that he can’t help me. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m fighting and it’s really doing a number on my body and my soul. I’m just exhausted.
Answer:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9-10).
A question you need to ask yourself is: Do you have your own faith toward God or do you only follow your parent’s faith? Regardless of the emotions involved, God clearly states that homosexuality is sinful (Romans 1:26-27). Thus, the attitude of the Christian must be that I must serve my Lord regardless of my own personal feelings.
“Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’? But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’” (Luke 17:7-10).
God has done so much for you and me that we owe Him everything — including our very lives. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). That service to God will be difficult at times. There will be times I don’t feel like doing the good I know I ought to do, but as a servant of Christ, I do it anyway. There will be times I don’t understand why God commanded this of me, but I will do it anyway. I do it because I owe God everything and I trust that God knows what is best.
Therefore, sure, you like this girl and find her attractive. That is just the facts. But it doesn’t go any further because that is what God requires.
I’m really sorry to hear about your abuse as a child. Jesus has choice words to say about people who do things like that to children (Matthew 18:6). Generally, what happens is when the child reaches puberty, she doesn’t know how to deal with the realization of what actually happened. The conflict of knowing that what was done was wrong and yet remembering that at the time there was pleasure causes people to act out in a variety of different ways. I suspect that this has caused you to treat friendships as sexual situations. The pornography that you got involved with reinforced that warped view of relationships.
If you are still involved in pornography, you have to remove that from your life. You can’t change the way you see the world while putting polluted views in your mind. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). To stay out of sexual sins, you have to know how to control your body. In order to control your body, you have to control your mind. In order to control your mind, you can’t be feeding it sinful ideas.
Fill your life with good things so you don’t have time to get sinfully involved with this girl or anyone else. What you will find is that over time your feelings will shift to match what you are doing. Your feelings toward boys will change and you will be more interested in dating a man. It won’t be tomorrow, but it will happen. Trust God.