My Walk With Jesus

A note before you begin: this story includes childhood sexual abuse, addiction, and my own experience with same-sex attraction. If any of that feels heavy, please take care of yourself — and know this story ends in hope, not condemnation.

I am going to briefly share about my life to give context to my walk with Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. The main purpose for this is the hope that others may receive comfort, guidance, love and most importantly a relationship with Jesus.

Before I go any further, I want to say this plainly: nothing here is meant to judge you or tell you who you are. It's an invitation, offered in love, to the relationship that changed my life. I have spent an enormous amount of time trying to find the reason that had made me believe that I was homosexual. No matter what cause seemed to make the most sense, it never sat well with me.

I was born to a single Jewish woman 1965 in the Bronx, NY. There was no father figure, not even a photo that could fill the blank. A couple of relatives still lived in New York, but most of them moved out to Southern California. When I was 6 1/2 my mother decided to move out to SoCal and be with the rest of the family, uncles, aunts and cousins. I was not necessarily brought up Jewish, I was not going to have a bar mitzvah. My mom had celebrated Christmas with the reasoning that she didn't want me to be different from my peers. Even our relatives celebrated Christmas but there was no faith among any of us.

During the first few weeks in SoCal I was molested. I do not think that event alone led to my attraction to other guys. I think the absence of a father figure had a lot to do with it as well. At age 10 we moved into an apartment building where I would meet my best friend. He was a year older, stronger, more outgoing and was definitely the decision maker of our friendship. We lived in the same apartment building, and he would spend the night at my place most of the time. This is when the grooming started and it developed over a period of time. It wasn't until several months ago when I learned what sexual grooming was. In order to serve at my church I had to take a course that helps ensure the safety of the children at our congregation. It was during this course that I realized what had happened with my best friend and myself played a real part in shaping my own attraction to men.

I want to be clear that this is only my own story. I'm not suggesting this is true for everyone, or that same-sex attraction always traces back to something like what happened to me. This is simply how I've come to understand my own path — not a claim about anyone else's.

I had dated a couple of girls in my early teens, so there was an attraction in that direction as well, it just wasn't as strong as the one that had been created by the grooming I had gone through with my best friend. I would say I learned about physical intimacy through experimenting around the age of 10. My best friend taught me to masturbate as well. Why am I discussing this and why is it so important. I believe this opened a door for a struggle with sexual sin that has been attached to me for years. This would be the main reason for my leaving the church when I was 22. We experience many different things in life that land us in a certain space. I know others had it worse, and others had it differently.

When I was almost 20 years old I met an older man at an 18 and over club I used to hang out at. It was a dive, but it was local. He was married and had four children. Like myself and many others, he struggled with his sexuality. There is a lot of drinking and drug use in the gay community I was part of, at least back in the 80's. People would say they believed it to be because of the way society frowned upon that life, having to live a double life and do things in secrecy. I believe it was to mask the way I felt about myself living a life I didn't yet feel at peace with. I will do my best to stay on track, as I want this first public sharing to be of my experience and how it pertains to my walk with Jesus Christ. I will also speak from the truth of my experiences and commonalities shared by others I was close to. My older friend had offered me a job at a private telecom company, it was one of the few jobs I had taken that was outside my career in the signage industry. I got to become close with my friend and his family. He is the one who had originally invited me to attend church with his family. I was a bit taken back but I realized he was struggling with the same thing that I was. I started to go to their church. It was non denominational but had a baptist leaning. I got my first bible and went to a mid week bible study. I was baptized and started to get active in the church. I worked with a youth group and even taught a Sunday school class for a short time. I remember we started going to this breakfast once a month held by an organization called Full Gospel Business Men's International. This is where I learned about the gifts of the spirit, praying in tongues, prophecy, healing, etc.

I had always felt that homosexuality wasn't right with God, and now I was able to read about it for myself. One of the ways I was justifying my homosexuality was by saying it was one of God's ways of population control. God created me in his image the way I was, etc. I spent about two years attending church, reading my bible and staying active in the word. I can remember believing that God had lifted the desire to smoke marijuana, then in suite stopped drinking. I had tried to quit both in the past and was always unsuccessful. Now my life seemed to be clear in ways it never had. Not only did these things keep me from feeling what was true they also acted as blinders to keep me from seeing the truth.

I had stopped going to the church when I was 22. I told myself it was because of difference of opinion on some scriptures, but more than that I was having trouble with lustful thoughts and getting my mind away from those old patterns. Physically, I was gone from it, but mentally it appeared to still have a stronghold on my mind. Then I stopped attending the bible study, the men's breakfast and started seeing my friend and his family less frequently. I'm just now realizing, because of this exercise I am doing, the enemy does a really good job to keep us from feeling too much guilt. My studying the bible and certain areas of human behavior would be a blessing throughout my life. It was during these two years that I came to believe, for myself, that children are created to receive love from both a mother and a father.

I was now going to go back to the life that had kept me from the truth and would do so again but for a much longer period of time. I was going to start telling myself some of the lies that were used on me before, however this time they didn't work because I had been exposed to the truth. The truth that we all have a sinful nature and sin keeps us from God. Enter new lies and justifications. As long as I am a good person…, as long as I don't hurt anyone else… there are so many. There was always an uneasiness about being gay. I did not believe that I would ever be in a healthy gay relationship. To quote the words that were in my mind, God will not bless a homosexual relationship.

We must remember that satan is the prince of this earth. The great deceiver, etc. I never considered myself part of a "lifestyle." In my mind sexual orientation was a choice and it certainly did not define who I was. My sexuality was a part of what made up my life. Pride. Never felt pride in being gay. I would just drink or get high and be ok with it. Pride befalls a man and a man before his pride. Two years into my first real relationship my partner was diagnosed with cancer. I also, as a gay man did not believe in same sex marriage. Something always told me that it was sacred. If you're willing to have an open mind especially with uncomfortable issues more will be revealed. I could see how individual choices which were believed not to hurt others had ripple effects in my own life and relationships that I hadn't fully accounted for at the time.

I'm now 60 years old, single, struggling to stay afloat and can say I'm a good person and strive to always do the right thing. I am shortly going to relearn that isn't good enough, and why. Along with being a good person I always believed and shared my gratitude for the things in my life. I still had believed that my gifts, talents, blessings or whatever you want to call them were from God. I treated others the way I wanted to be treated, at least most of the time. I was susceptible to remorse, felt a lot of empathy and taught myself not to cry over spilled milk. Regret is bad, so is resentment and unforgivenes.

I have come through several events, diseases and tragedies. I have always had the desire to make the world a better place. Perhaps by making people laugh, or just listening or being there for them. Even sharing things that most people would not be comfortable sharing can make a difference. Now I want to share what happened within the last year and as I think about putting it on paper, as a Texan pastor would say, my eyes are starting to sweat. Staying on message, it's so easy to veer.

What follows involves a public figure whose politics you may see very differently than I do. Please stay with me — this isn't really about him. It's about what happened in me.

It's September 10th a Wednesday morning. I'm sitting at my desk and my production manager is sitting at his across the room from me. I noticed him checking his phone and I ask if everything is ok. "My friend just texted me that Charlie Kirk was shot", he replied. I was in shock. I had only recently become aware of him and had started paying attention to how openly he shared his faith. The most beautiful thing about him was his fearless love for his Creator and his desire to share that with others.

Within about 30 minutes it was announced that Charlie had passed away. I sat at my desk dumbfounded. I couldn't get him out of my head. I was in such disbelief. Over the next few days I would watch many videos of him on social media. I got to learn about him, his family and his desires. In the past two years I had my two closest friends pass away, and I was more affected by Charlie. I thought this was weird and didn't understand it. It would become clear very soon.

Saturday September 13th around 6am I woke up. I reached over for my phone so I could watch more Charlie. The only way I could describe it is as God was calling me back. The video on my phone was one of Charlie's daughter running over to him. At that moment I lost it, the flood has come. I'm sorry God for turning away all those years ago. I recommit my life to you, I want to serve you and do your will. I surrendered every part of my life to Him — including the parts I had hidden and the parts I was most ashamed of — and through the strength of Christ I will no longer live in the enemies deception. In a sense this is a culmination of something brewing in me for many years. There is so much evil happening in the world and through the grace of God I will fight for the Truth. A spiritual battle is under way. I was flooded with a lot of emotions and I knew the Holy Spirit was going to convict and clean me. I felt remorse for having turned away from the Lord all those years ago. I thought what would my life be like if I had kept fighting, would I have a beautiful family and purpose of a greater good like Charlie did. I just kept letting the Spirit cleanse me. I found a local church and joined it. The people there are wonderful examples of what it is like to walk with Christ. I was so moved by how welcoming they were. It feels wonderful to be somewhere without judgement.

How beautiful the world would be if we all just did the two most important things. 1. Love the Lord our God with all our hearts and minds and put no other god before Him. 2. Love our neighbors as ourselves.

He takes care of my needs, He guides and directs me. He fills the empty space that is within me. My hope and prayer is that God will reveal His Son to you, that you may call Him Lord and surrender yourself to the Way, the Truth and the Life.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and who so ever shall believe in Him will have eternal life.

1 John 4:19

We love Him, Because He first loved us.