I grew up in a non-Christian family, where things of God or of Church were very seldom brought up. I remember myself being very lost, confused yet a somewhat philosophical young boy, searching for something to fill that void in my life that I hungered for.
By around the age of 10, I realised that the feelings and attractions I had towards other boys, from as far back as my memory goes, is not shared with every other boy, and so maybe I needed to hide this.
I remember having sexual experiences with other boys of the same age, from an extremely young stage in my child hood; these progressed until I was 13.
At the age of 14 I found the missing puzzle in my life, that void, His name is Jesus, I was Born Again, and started to attend a Pentecostal Church, the congregation was overwhelmingly welcoming, loving, and passionate about worshiping God, which I was drawn to.
It wasn’t long before I came across the scriptures in the Bible, which at first glance can be interpreted to condemn who I was, as a male who was visually, emotionally and physically attracted to males.
This led me to come out to my Church Pastor as a Homosexual, I remember it took me almost an hour, as the tears flowed, to just utter the words to him – ‘I am a homosexual’ all the whilst he had no idea what the issue was.
He originating from the Caribbean and being a traditional Pentecostal, his response was inevitably that I can change, and that he would help me through this.
I whole heartedly went along with this idea, believing my orientation was a sin, and that I had to change, I attended exorcisms, and constantly was praying for God to remove this ‘burden’ from me.
This was until, after being a Christian for 4 years, I realised that those 6 scriptures other Christians use for their homophobic, prejudice, and hateful ammunition against non-straight people, are simply the result of miss-interpretations, miss-translations, and miss-understandings.
Looking back at that period in my life of false pretence, trying to change who I am, it was the most depressing time of my life, filled with self-hatred, self-condemnation, and restlessness. This seriously affected my relationship with God, and led me to doubt the authenticity of the Bible.
5 years on, at the age of 19 (2011) I still attend that same Pentecostal Church – where I regularly also now Minister, and am currently about to graduate from Bible College, embarking on the calling that God has for me in this life, which shall remain my main priority.
I plan to stay in the Pentecostal denomination, rather than ‘retreat’ to a more gay friendly Ministry, as many in my circumstances do; I feel it’s important for the truth to be presented from within the traditional circles.
Based on scripture I believe that I am to remain celibate, but also that it is not good for any man to be alone, so for me to find someone with similar views as me would be great! 🙂
I thank God for keeping me, for letting me know He loves me, and not allowing me to fall to ignorance – as so many in my position have sadly done.
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