Hi i am a 43 year old disabled male that lives in Tasmania, i became a christian in 1986 , for all of that time the "black shadow" as i call it has always been there a constant battle between my sexuality and my faith, over the years like many i have read i prayed, i asked for forgiveness, i went for prayer , i kept giving my feelings to God and felt i must have kept taking them back because maybe i did not want to let them go who knows except God. The last 10 years i have battled illness which on top of battling my sexual thoughts bought be to a place in late 2013 when for me everything came to a head. I had some experiences happen in my life which just got me further down and i felt a black shadow just engulfing me. I had tried in the past to reach out to someone years ago to talk about my struggles but it ended up being a mistake as the person who i spoke to tried to take advantage and make advances. There was no one to talk to with whom i felt and believed would not judge me ,where i live i know if anyone found out life would be harder still.

At the height of the black shadow i went searching for help, online and found an organisation that for the last three months i have started to be able to talk about my sexuality, but not able to discuss in the sense of the correlation to my faith. Then today going through face book i came across a video of a young man who was on the project and heard about this website im desperate to find peace if this is a possibility, people to share with and listen and hopefully learn. Three months ago i would not have written anything like this down regardless of the anonymity .Baby steps is what i know can happen i am further three months down the track since janurary but still feel so tied up in knots. I do not believe at this point in time that i will ever be able to reconcile my differences, or feel loved for me and the complexities of me and who i am in this world. But theres a tiny bit of me that has to believe even if.000001% it can change.

Thank you for your comment Miss muppet,

One of the posts that i read in regards to the" witch is dead" in regards to the pastor who passed away recently, great debate in some circles in regards to whether the community should take the high ground in attitude, for me it brings up a thought in regards to turning the other cheek, and being forgiving, towards someone who was so full of hate but then it got me thinking about forgiving myself there are times where i hate myself for feeling the way i do , feelings and facts ,feelings can be so fickle ,then facts can be very different depending on the view of a person or persons , i know i sound very jumbled up in writing and thought, but then i realize its part of the process.

thank you for the post , i was beginning to feel very isolated this website is a wonderful place but it is very disheartening that at this point in time there is no support groups of freedom2b here in tassie , But with being a smaller place we seem to get left off the map at times. And also the stigma in tasmania is something that is hard for me to deal with.I am grateful for freedom2b exsisting.

thank you ann maree,

i have contacted working it out and am in contact regularly with someone from there and also have subscribed to tas prides newsletter. One of the issues that i am trying to work through is this if its ok to be gay why did God make adam and eve and not adam and steve, if what God ordained marriage between men and woman is right in the eyes of God . This is one of the main conflicts i have , the other conflict i have is , excepting my sexuality giving in to something without fighting to try and change if a person accepts is it just giving in because its to difficult to try otherwise this is the first time i have ever written those thoughts down i feel like one big knot tied so tightly.

HI Rob,

Sorry for the delay in saying hi and welcome to F2B, I have been very busy. I hope you have taken the time to read through some of the amazing stories on this site. You will find you are not alone in trying to reconcile your faith and sexuality. Many have found peace and accepted they are very much loved by God and indeed reconciled their faith and sexuality. It might take some time, we all had a lot of unlearning to do, but their is hope 🙂 Hang in there, this is a great place to reach out to people, find acceptance and encouragement.