For many years, I was on the defensive against my same-sex attractions and strong emotions. My desire to deny and avoid them kept me from being mindful of my thoughts and feelings surrounding them. I was blocking myself from two powerful tools that diminish their intensity:
1. Increase your awareness of what is running through your head and your heart.
2. Slow down long enough to take your thoughts captive and center your emotions.
Entering college, I didn’t believe I had what it takes to succeed. I wasn’t enough. I recall sitting in fear and anxiety while my fine arts professor described our final project. I had a knot in my stomach as perfectionism and fear of rejection fought against my desire for creative expression.
Why am I unsettled? Why can’t I enjoy this?
My eyes landed on a classmate that I admired. His strong frame rested comfortably in his chair as he leaned back and stretched one leg in front of him.
If Aaron would be my friend, then I wouldn’t have to be scared.
If he would look at me and smile, then I would know I’m not alone.
If I had his confidence, I could enjoy any situation.
I zipped my backpack at the end of class and turned to see Aaron walking out the door. A surge of electricity passed through my body. I wanted to go with him.
Over the next few days, the memory of that electric feeling grew larger in my mind. Fear and confusion mixed with excitement. More unquestioned thoughts fired at me:
This is not good.
Something is wrong with me.
Maybe I’m gay.
My mind was compelled to make meaning of the experience, telling me it was a problem, that I was separate from other people, and that my thoughts and sensations were reasons to question my identity. I wanted to run from them, pretend they hadn’t happened, and go on with my life.
I would spend years trying to avoid my attractions, not realizing the action made them bigger. But it was like holding a beach ball underwater. The sphere of thin, air-filled plastic would become a force that drained my energy and inevitably popped back up.
What I didn’t understand is that my compulsion for avoidance was not because of the attractions themselves, but because of the meaning I gave them. For someone who sees them as a blessing, an annoyance, or neutral, rather than a threat, they would respond differently.
If I could sit down with my eighteen-year-old self that day, I would assure him that he is okay, that he is seen, known, and loved by his Creator and by me, and that he was having a human experience in a world that is not as it was meant to be. I would tell him that thoughts, feelings, and sensations are not who he is and they are not facts. I would help him to look at the experience with curiosity rather than rush to a judgment, and avoid reacting long enough to identify the thoughts and meanings entering his mind.
It is easy for me to write that, but in reality, it is messy. The fog of emotions and compulsion to react prematurely can block our awareness of the thoughts preceding them. But trust me, it is worth sitting in that uncomfortable state. It gives you the power, rather than your thoughts and emotions. Stay there long enough to notice and question the sentences in your head, so that you can take them captive, as God directs us to do. Then, hold them up against the truth.
Lies keep serenity out of reach and close me off from growth and connection with others. Living out of the truth brings peace, clarity, and an openness to walk into my purpose and heal in community. Rather than a closed posture, focused on me, God’s truth and love from His church raises my gaze to accept life as it is and believe that the best is yet to come.
The truth is that the attractions I was experiencing were not a threat to my identity or worthiness to receive love. The Apostle Paul states in Romans that “neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39 ESV)
Something was not wrong with me, but rather with the world. “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:20-21 ESV)
And I wasn’t gay. I was a man who was experiencing attractions to other men. Now I know they were something I could observe, not something to define myself by. I didn’t have to follow anyone.
Whatever you are experiencing, my encouragement for you is to be willing to sit in the uncomfortable moments of life without rushing to act or creating distractions, be mindful of your thoughts and emotions, ask God and supportive people for help sorting truth from lies, and trust that He is what is best. You are worth it.