11/24/10

It is no longer I who live...

The following is my testimony of the work of Jesus Christ in my life. Most of this was written in an email, explaining to an old friend what had happened to me, and some of it was added when I posted it to my MySpace profile. The purpose of this is to warn those who are leading similar lifestyles and to give them the hope that change is possible in Christ. 
God tells us in the Bible that homosexuality is a sin, just like lying, stealing, and idol worship are sins. The question is do you really believe that God freely gives us the power to change?

I do, because God transformed me. Below is my story. Please, if you read this, read the entire message to the end.
I went to college at UCR between 2001 and 2003. My favorite place in the world to hang out was the LGBTIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association) Center in the quad. I regularly volunteered to sit on panels in various large classes, answering peoples’ questions and attempting to increase public acceptance of homosexuality. My proudest memories were of marching in a gay pride parade. I was an ‘avid’ pot user. My partner (I’ll call her Kay) and I eagerly yearned for the day when same-sex marriage would be legalized. I felt I was changing the world, and I had everything that I wanted.

Fast forward to the summer of 2006; Kay and I had overcome a long period of hardship in our relationship, and things were getting better again. Kay was embracing a new identity as a male through hormones and surgery, and I was elated, supportive, falling in love again. I had found a tiny budding church that was openly welcoming of all sexualities, and was excited to be a part of its growth. Then by January I had completely separated myself from everything I knew. All my friends, my church, Kay… I left suddenly and without looking back. What happened, you ask?

I wrote a letter to a friend to explain: “I love you. And for a long time I have wanted to tell you why I left everyone so suddenly and without a word. I hope that your heart was not hurt by it. And it's so important to me that you really understand that I did not leave because of Kay's transition. Nor did I leave because he was flirting, or anything like that. I want you to remember back... do you recall how I spoke about Kay’s transition? Do you remember how excited I was about it, do you remember my sincerity, and my commitment? And the difficulties that we had were no reason to permanently end a five-year relationship, a lifetime relationship. You know me, my penchant for loyalty at all costs; I was willing to wait years if need be, for our relationship to be on the right track again. And yet, I called Kay from my work and said that I would never be coming back home again.

But first, let me rewind. I want you to get the full story before I explain that part. I was saved January 23, 2004. Kay held my hand as I prayed to Jesus. I told Jesus that I knew that I had a stony heart, and that I knew this was what was keeping me from loving Him the way that I should. I told Jesus that I wanted my life to belong to Him, and I wanted to be with Him and follow Him forever. I also acknowledged that this meant I was seceding all of my rights over my person and my life to His will, to let Him change me in any way He so wished for His glory forever. I was changed. Immediately I started reading my Bible every day, and I loved every word. Everything was new, and God's Word spoke to me in a living way, just like it said in the Bible that it would.

I knew that God's word could be trusted (after all, it says in the first chapter of John Jesus is the Word of God, and this One had saved my life) and now after a week I had to know what God said about my relationship with Kay. I cannot express to you the urgency and the seriousness of this search. With childlike faith, I understood that God's Word agrees with His Will, and to follow Jesus and be with Him in the kingdom, I must also live by His Word ("My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." John 10:27 "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me." John 14:21).
I went to the library. I got out Bibles, various translations, concordances, dictionaries in Greek and Hebrew, commentaries, and spent my day endeavoring to understand exactly what those ancient texts said. I wanted so badly to find something that condoned our intimacy, but there was nothing. In fact, the original understandings of the words concerning homosexuality and sex outside of marriage were far more specific and devastating than I had anticipated. All of the commentaries  and all of the verses agreed together "that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5:21. But I could not believe it, I would not believe it, I refused to believe it. Now, at that time I was a fan of Dr. Gene Scott, a Bible teacher on television that Kay had grown up listening to. I figured that if anybody would find me a way out of this through some deeper interpretation, it would be him, I trusted his interpretations and I felt that no one could uncover the true meaning of a text like him. (This was the man that convinced me that the Bible is the Word of God.) I went into the online archives, to hear his teaching on Romans one. And you know what he said? "The text is quite clear," he said, same-sex relationships are a deadly sin, and that no one who does these things will enter the kingdom of God. "... God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lust of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves that the penalty of their error which was due." Romans 1: 24 -- 27.

At that moment, I was stabbed to the heart and I knew, I understood, in every part of my being that this was unquestionably true and that I was living in sin and was condemned. I really experienced what it says in Hebrews: "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account."
The Word of God had pierced me, and I wept and mourned for my lost relationship. Kay came home, I told her, she said this had been on her mind for some time now, and revealed to me that she had made a commitment to Christ a month ago (which explained her unusual behavior), and she said she knew that somehow we would get through it. But the following days were the hardest that I have ever been through with another person because I did not want to leave, I would not concede to the end of the relationship and neither would Kay. We fought, pleaded, screamed, wept, rationalized, and despaired.

For the next two years I became totally double minded, and switched back and forth between searing conviction against being with Kay, and decided cause to live out life with her as I had always planned. Fun times together were always cut to pieces by my mounting anxiety and depression over the matter, which I would lie about and would haunt me until I would confess it to Kay and we would have the same exact fight over and over again. Every time, Kay would convince me to stay. Meanwhile I watched Kay’s faith wilt and fall away till she would hardly even pray or go to church anymore.

I don't know if I ever told you what was causing that severe anxiety that I had for three years. Actually, I don't think I really admitted to anyone why I was having panic attacks all the time. When I told you that they were caused by me quitting marijuana, I was lying. They didn't start for more than six months after I quit anyway. They started the moment I heard Pastor Scott quote Romans 1. Thereafter, every time I thought about God, or about Kay, I would have a panic attack.

I never went to anybody in the church over this. I never listened to what I heard pastors on the radio say, or Christian speakers on television. I filled entire journals with long pleadings to God to let me keep Kay. I filled pages with why I should stay. I had uncanny dreams that convinced me to stay. I collected verses that I could use to convince myself to stay. I talked to psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists at length, who convinced me to stay. I spoke to my boss at work, who convinced me to stay. I confided in my mom, who convinced me to stay, and there were many others, who convinced me that everything was all right. And yet, the pain never stopped. The panic attacks kept happening.

The panic attacks were my conscience and the Holy Spirit, telling me that I was willfully sinning against the Lord. "For Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin." Psalm 38: 2-3. (It's interesting to me that the entire 38th Psalm describes exactly what I was going through.)

I ignored and medicated the panic until after two years, it finally ebbed away. And then my life was back the way I wanted it. In 2006, I started going to an affirming church, and Kay became a man. I had everything, and could do anything I wanted without guilt. It was like, when I refused to hear what God was trying to say to me, God just let me go. Then towards the end of the year, my life began to crumble, slipping through my fingers like so much sand. God took it from me. Instead of working on my heart to change my life, God began to work on my life to change my heart.

Around Christmas time, after I had been living at my parent's house for awhile, I went to go visit Kay’s mom. When I sat down at her table there were tears in her eyes. She said that she couldn't hold it in any longer, and we began to talk about Kay and I in light of the Bible. I could see how much she loved me, and her sincere concern. I wanted to comfort her, so I began to explain myself at length. I felt that she just didn’t understand.

After a while, she stopped me and asked me a very interesting question, "you don't have to answer me," she said, "this is simply between you and God. At the last judgment, when we all must personally give an account to Jesus Christ, what will you say to Him when asks you what you have done with His word?"

I was cut to the heart, though I didn't say anything. I was right exactly in the same place that I was on the day I first heard Romans 1. Instantly, I saw myself in my mind’s eye beginning to give a long rationalization to the King of Kings as to why those verses didn't apply to me.

Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the LORD, And their works are in the dark; They say, “Who sees us?” and, “Who knows us?” Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, “ He did not make me”? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, “ He has no understanding”? Isaiah 29:15

"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day." John 12:48, because I had rejected His word, outer darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth awaited me on that last day, and I knew it. I also knew that this was my last chance. I may not ever get another chance to respond to God's call. She gave me a Christian book to read, and I spent the next six hours in my car under a street lamp, reading the book and my Bible, and crying out to God.

"Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11. When I called Kay on the phone, and said I would never be coming home again, it was one of the hardest and most painful things I've ever done. But alongside me was Jesus Christ, and in me was "peace that passes understanding." When Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow Him, He means to take up the sentence of death in ourselves and DIE TO SIN. Deny yourself of your very nature.

"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you to that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell." Matthew 5:29 Leaving Kay and completely turning from my own sexuality was like digging my own eye out of its socket. Until now I had found no place for repentance.

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." Matthew 16:25

For the first time in three years, I had that peace that I had read about, but had never known. For the first time in my life, I'm not "going through" anything. I'm not taking Zoloft, I don't have panic attacks, and I know that Jesus Christ lives in me and is perfecting me day by day. And the promises God are right in my hands, touchable, knowable, active and real. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." "I have been crucified with Christ; 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 for me.” Galatians 2:20. I am free! I did not believe that that God could change a person's sexuality or desires, or one's inner identity, but now I am living proof.

There is only one thing that tortures me inside still. God has turned my attention to see you standing before Jesus Christ on the Last Day, being cast away to the place that I was going to go, into an eternity of burning, darkness and weeping, separated from God forever. Every day I fear for you. I plead for your life before God. If I love you, I cannot sit idly by, knowing these things, and saying nothing.

"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 homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:1-2

"Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body." 1 Corinthians 6:18

"If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." 1 Corinthians 3:17. "Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “will render to each one according to his deeds”" Romans 2:4-6

I know that you know these things, friend. I know that you have heard them before. Just as I am, you will be held accountable for what you have known of God's Word, and I pray to God that you submit to Him today, because there may never be another chance between you and eternity. Is it worth it to go on with even the slightest possibility that you may face hell on the other side of your last breath? Please let me know what you think of all this. But please don't ignore it. You must make a decision.

You have been a wonderful friend to me, and I want you to live in the eternal joy that awaits those who take the narrow road in Christ. Please read this letter over again, think about it carefully, ask God to search you and know your heart, to see if there be in the wicked way in you that must be forsaken. I could be totally wrong, so give yourself a moment to consider. Present yourself to God, as belonging to Him, and He will never lead you the wrong way.

If you have any questions that you want me to answer, or if there's anything you want talk about, I'd be happy to do that. I'll be checking to see if you reply. You're welcome to share this letter with whoever you wish.

Sincerely, Stacy