What does it mean to be a man? Could I be a man? Do I have what it takes? Where can I get what it takes? Who can I get it from? These are all questions that I have asked myself my entire life. When I was young I didn’t even recognize these questions existed inside of me. My life would be one of searching for answers to these questions.
I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. The home I grew up in was filled with love. Love is essential to having a healthy home. Unfortunately, most of the love I felt came from my mother. Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother and am grateful for all the love she showed me, but a boy needs more than his mama’s love. A boy needs to break free from his mother and establish a healthy relationship with his father. That didn’t happen for me.
My dad showed his love for me by paying the bills. He provided for his family and gave as many comforts as he could. He worked tirelessly making sure we had what we needed and some of what we wanted. At times he worked two jobs just to make sure we were taken care of. He wasn’t as good at giving affection as he was at providing. I knew my dad loved me, but I didn’t feel it. I can’t remember experiencing it many times growing up. I was a sensitive kid and my dad didn’t know how to show love to a sensitive boy. I don’t blame him. He grew up with an abusive father and as a defense mechanism he shut his emotions off. Because I didn’t perceive my fathers love for me, I never opened up to him. We didn’t share the bond that a boy and his father are meant to experience.
Without ever having bonded with my dad, I was unable to bond with male peers in school. The masculine was foreign to me. I was much more familiar with the feminine. I grew up with 3 younger sisters and mostly female friends. I was so comfortable with women that I identified myself with them. I thought of myself as girly. It didn’t seem like such a bad thing. I knew a lot of very strong, very kind females. They were people to be looked up to. Not like men. Men were scary and foreign to me. They were unknown to me, and though I wanted to know them I was too intimidated by the males in my life to form the bonds that I longed for.
When I hit puberty the attraction for these relationships with men became sexualized and I became very confused. I grew up in a Christian home and was taught that homosexuality was a sin. More than that, it was THE sin. This was the one that sent you to the hottest most miserable circle of hell. I thought there was a special place reserved for homosexuals. Naturally, being a good Christian boy, I ignored it. When that didn’t work, I prayed. Then I read my Bible. Then I prayed some more. Then I read my Bible. Then I prayed some more. Do you see a pattern emerging? No matter how many times I petitioned God to take away these attractions and temptations that were so clearly against His Word, they remained. I sought the advice of a college student in my church. College kids knew everything when I was 13. This “friend” advised me to take the picture test. I was suppose to get some images of both genders and whichever I was more attracted to, that would determine my sexual orientation. Thus began my addiction to pornography. I laugh now because it seems so silly but I was serious about getting this figured out and since God wasn’t helping I was taking it where ever I could get it.
Once I had made up my mind that I was definitely way more attracted to men than to women than I was to men, it was time for me to experience what these images were telling me would make me happy. I began an inappropriate relationship with a boy from church. This relationship was mostly physical and I took every advantage to explore this new part of my life. Not long after this relationship began, an older boy from church, the pastors son, introduced himself into the relationship and so a triangle began. This boy was 5 years older than me and much larger. He molested me for three years and he was smart about it. He made me feel like I had a choice in the games we played. All this happened while my dad was in Iraq serving in the National Guard and it didn’t completely stop until we moved churches.
With the new church I felt like I had a new lease on life. I thought that this fresh start would be perfect. I would put everything behind me and do my best to live for God. My resolve did not last long. I threw myself into church activities and got myself a girlfriend. When this girl broke up with me, I was devastated. When you’re teenager and a relationship ends, so does the world. I swore off women and dove back into my addiction to porn and I began seeking out men online.
I left home at 17 and began seeing a guy that a friend from work had introduced me to. It was while I was seeing this guy that the word got out at work that I was gay. My sister worked at the same restaurant so it wasn’t long before she heard, and proceeded to tell my parents. Great… I chose to ignore the awkwardness with my parents and stayed away as much as possible. I started to party and see more guys. I was sexually active with more men than I care to think about. I was really into the club scene for a while and everything that came along with it. My living situation was unstable during most of this time. Only during the last two years of my life as a gay man did I hold down a steady job and place to live.
During my life as a responsible gay contributing member of society, I became involved in witchcraft and the like. I read tarot cards on the regular and made a habit of visiting my Wiccan friend who taught me the ways of the craft. I was also smoking weed almost as much as I smoked cigarettes. I was up to a pack and a half a day at one point. Most of the relationships I had were lasting longer than they use to. It seemed like the search for that perfect guy who would love me and hold me and grow old with me would be over soon. The next guy would be it. And then I found him. He was the one. We were so in love… or so I thought. We were together for six months. Not the longest relationship I had but it was definitely one of the more serious relationships. I ended it because I was felt unfulfilled. I had this hole in me that he wasn’t filling.
When I ended my last serious relationship, I went searching again for the one that would fill that hole. I hit the hookup sites and bars again looking for the next Mr. Right. I found myself in my car, one night, with a guy I left the bar with and I felt something telling me that I wasn’t going to find fulfillment in all of the things I was allowing into my life. The Holy Spirit was calling me out. God sought me out and called me out. This was a turning point. Things slowly started to change. I started to change. I began saying goodbye to a lot of things in my life. I let go of friends, habits, and practices that I thought made me who I was. I was on a slow crawl to salvation.
After I crawled toward Jesus for a few months I finally took the plunge. I became a Christian in June of 2010. God showed me what my life was and then He showed me what it could be. He showed me what it means to be a man. He showed me that I have what it takes. He showed me that I can get all that I need from Him. He fills the hole that I had in my life for so long. He showed me that He loves me. I have a Father in heaven, an Abba Daddy, that loves me. When I knew that He really loved me how could I resist Him?
Being a follower of Jesus has not been an easy thing. I still struggle with my attractions for men. I still struggle with temptation of all kinds but walking with Jesus makes the temptations insignificant. The things I thought would fill the empty space that I developed as a young boy pale in comparison to the fulfillment I get from my relationship with Jesus. Walking with Him makes for a sweet existence.
