A Place to Belong

For as long as I can remember, I knew that I was different. Even when I didn't know why, I felt like I didn't quite fit in with the other kids. Teachers used words like "unique" and "creative" to describe me, but most often, what I heard was "weird". I had always had different interests, I spent my time playing in my own imaginary world, and rather than play sports with the other guys in my neighbourhood, I would often curl up somewhere and read. I was an emotional child, very sensitive, who loved to show affection and who cried easily. Often I felt rejected for showing emotion, particularly for crying which wasn't seen as masculine. But despite my difficulties with my father I knew my parents loved me, and having been raised in the church I was assured God loved me too, and I loved Him back.

Then in grade four my whole world changed. One day, while playing at a playground near my home, two older boys approached me in my school. At first I was flattered that they paid attention to me, but then things became uncomfortable and, though I didn't have words to understand it at the time, the two boys sexually molested me. I remember afterwards them laughing at me, calling me "faggot" and saying that if I told anyone what had happened then everyone would know what a fag I was. I didn't even know what the word meant at the time, but I felt so ashamed, it took me years to try and talk about it. Instead I went home and locked myself in the closet and cried. I remember my father coming and asking why I was locked in the closet, but I had no words to tell him what had happened, I was just a kid, and so he pulled me out of the closet and told me to stop crying.

From that day on I believed that there was something wrong with me, that I was weird. I also felt that God mustn't love me very much because, as I grew older and got into junior high, my feelings of alienation grew. I was younger than most of the kids in my class and slow to develop, I was kind of geeky, and had poor social skills, I always felt awkward. The popular guys in my class who could play sports, and always had girls paying attention to them would often tease me, and even beat me up. I hated them, but even deeper inside I wanted to be them, to be cool, to be athletic. As I grew older and puberty set in, these desires and admiration for the guys became twisted into physical attraction. And the shameful words that had been spoken to me years before became branded into my heart. I was different, I didn't belong, and I was a fag.

Through this whole time, I continued to go to church, Sunday school, a Christian camp and even a Christian school. I was very good at playing the good Christian and felt great pressure to keep up appearances because my parents were very involved in my church and school. The church was a place where people loved me and praised me when I would sing, or act, help lead children's church, but I knew deep inside that if I told them what I was struggling with that they would reject me.

Then I began experimenting sexually, and met another boy who messed around with me. I began defining myself as gay, and split my identity into two separate people, the good Christian one, and the one who was angry at God and was gay. As I got older it became harder and harder to play the parts, and my life started falling apart. I felt like I had no friends, and the one I was messing around with decided he didn't want to do anything anymore. I was very depressed, full of shame, and thought often about killing myself.

One night I finally had enough and while my parents were gone, I went into the kitchen, filled up the sink and got out the sharpest knife I could find. I was just about to slit my wrists when for some reason I paused. In that moment God met me, He pulled me back and showed me what I was doing and said "Is this where you want your life to end?" I told Him no, but that I felt there was nothing else I could do. I felt God calling me to let Him have control of my life, and in sheer desperation I cried out to Him. God took that prayer of desperation and answered it ways I could never have imagined.

Over the next few years God sent me several caring understanding mentors with whom I could share my struggles and who loved and cared for me even if they didn't understand. As I grew older I began to find that the intense hurts in my own life gave me special heart for reaching out to other hurting kids, and eventually left for Bible college to train to be a youth pastor. While I loved college, I still felt very isolated, like I didn't belong and felt a lot of shame about my struggle. But one night while at a revival meeting on campus another student shared how he was struggling with homosexuality, and when I went to talk to him afterward he connected me up with the local Exodus International ministry. I joined a support group there, and for the first time in my life I met other people just like me that struggled with homosexuality but were determined to follow God with their lives.

The road to growth and wholeness over the last seven years has been long and at times frustrating, but God has been faithful. While I still deal with attraction to guys in the last few years God has begun to slowly develop an attraction to girls as well, and I have recently begun dating, something I never would have thought possible! But most wonderful is how God has taken the hurts in my past and used them to make me an effective youth pastor. In the last nine years God has allowed me to share my story to reach out to other teens who are hurting and speak His healing, grace and love into their lives in ways that others who haven't been through some of the things I have can't. I used to feel like I wasn't worth anything, that I was weird and didn't belong, but God has given me a new identity: I belong to Him now, and that is the best thing in the world.