As a young adult I wanted nothing more than to be free. To make the choices that I felt were right, and to do what felt good. I wanted to define who I was and how I saw the world on my own terms. I had felt oppressed by my parents for so long and the new-found freedom of adulthood was like a breath of fresh air. So who was I to define myself as? I had to get in touch with myself, and the world around me. To figure out what life meant and where I fit in with that. I did a lot of self exploring, and I have to admit that drugs helped play a part in that. I think without the drugs I would have come to the same conclusions however, as I was bent on removing myself from being anything like my parents or what society or religion told me I should be.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions 2 Timothy 4:3
Freedom to me meant that people are free to express themselves any way they wanted. In their dress, appearance, music, who they love, etc. We are all individuals, made to be unique, and we should all accept each other and love each other. The only problem with that was I didn’t love everyone. I only loved those that held the same view as I did. That didn’t matter much to me at that point though. I was focused on me – that is what really mattered. Anyone who had a different opinion was a racist, bigoted, hateful (insert bad word here) and I was living in truth and freedom. Of course Christians were a part of that bigoted group. They were the most hateful of all – telling everyone that they are sinners going to hell. Absolutely sickening to me.
On my journey of self exploration and freedom I began to experiment with many things. Drugs, explicit music, provocative dress, and of course sex. I had already been promiscuous in my failed attempts to find love. That is when I decided I needed to broaden my horizons when it came to love. Love was not just something between a man and a woman, but something soul deep. Something that bypassed our physical bodies and was destined by a higher power. No one could dictate who they would love – it was so much bigger than us. When we get swept away in love, it is something to embrace and cherish with every fiber of our being. I believed this completely.
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:28
So I started to look into bisexual and lesbian relationships. I started seeking out women who were open to those kinds of relationships and befriending them. I went on some dates, I got tangled into a short-term relationship, and had a short tryst with another woman. Truly all I wanted was to be loved and accepted. Unfortunately I didn’t experience any of that with this experimentation. There was a part of me that thought that being with a woman would be so much different from being with a man. That a woman would never hurt me the same way. That a woman would be just like me and we could be best friends. Oh how wrong I was. I experienced the same rejection and pain with these woman who I did with any man. It actually came back to completely hurt me in the end.
Do not practice homosexuality…. It is a detestable sin. Leviticus 18:22
Eventually I met a guy at work and we ended up getting into a relationship. I was very much wanting to bring the experimentation with women into this relationship, by trying a threesome with him. It didn’t happen for one reason or another, but the idea got lodged firmly into his brain. I got pregnant within the first 6 months of the relationship and it changed my opinion on the matter. I wanted to get married and have the same last name as my son. I wasn’t happy in the relationship, it was pretty bad, but nonetheless I felt that marriage was the right thing to do. So we got married in a Celtic hand fastening ceremony in our drug dealer’s back yard. Freedom, right? We were both miserable. Within 6 months of my son being born my at the time husband cheated on me with my friend. He told me that because I wouldn’t have a threesome, he decided to get some on his own. I was devastated. How could this have happened?
However, this didn’t change my opinion of love and same-sex couples. I whole heartedly believed that love was soul deep and unable to be defined by rules. Love was something so much greater than any boundaries that people could put on it. Yet my fascination with the same-sex didn’t quite die. I brought the attraction into other relationships with pornography and again the idea of a threesome. I would fantasize and even try to talk the man in my life into him being with another man. I knew I wasn’t gay, because I loved men, but I couldn’t shake the sexual desire that was somewhere inside me for women, and something about same-sex intimacy got me really excited.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves Romans 1:24
Even after I got remarried and had more children, there was still that side of me that felt this way. I am sure I made my husband feel uncomfortable, but because of his love for me he indulged me a bit by allowing pornography to invade our marriage and strip us of natural intimacy. It wasn’t until I began a love affair with Jesus Christ that those feelings became completely alien to me. As I sit here writing this, I haven’t had any urges to be with another woman in over 2 years. Not since I came into a relationship with Jesus over two years ago. So much so, that I had forgotten some of the things that I have just written about. I feel like a completely different person; like that was another lifetime.
I was so lost in my life for so many years. It wasn’t just the sin of sexual immorality that I was taken captive by. There were so many other things that were a sin that I called right. Those sins only worked to created a barrier between myself and God. The more I lived by my desires and my ideas of what were right and wrong, the more I thought the way I was living my life was right. Yet somehow, with all the freedom I had to live as I chose, I was completely miserable inside. I loved my husband and my children, but there was always a hole inside me that was aching to be filled. That was the place in my heart where I had kicked out the One who created me.
I don’t know why God chose to completely wipe any urge or inclination for sexual sin from me, as well as drug and alcohol addiction. I only know He did, and I am so very thankful for it. I still have other sins that I struggle with and work on today. God does not always take away our sinful desires. Sometimes He meets us right in the middle of them, so we can grow to rely on Him, and know Him more. Through our sin we can learn to trust in God and see that is the Rock we need to have the strength to defeat sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John 1:8-10
I lived a life captive to the ways and thoughts of this world for so long. The world told me to be free to be who I want to be, and to let my heart and my desires dictate what I do with my life. The Bible tells me the complete opposite of that. The Bible tells me that God created me as a woman, to be with one man for my whole life. That the heart is deceitful and sick before we come to Christ, and prone to do evil. The Bible also tells us that we are born sinners, and that sin is a barrier between us and a Holy God. That without the Blood of Jesus we cannot know God and move away from sin. I was a slave to sin, even though I believed I was free.
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin”. John 8:34
While I was dead in my sin and transgressions, Jesus died to set me free. While I glorified in doing what was wrong and mocking God, He was working to bring me into a loving relationship with Him. God did not hate me for all the evil I had done, but He could not be a part of my sin. So Jesus sacrifice on the cross gave me the opportunity to come into the presence of a Holy God, and to receive His free gift of grace and mercy. Me! Who I am that I should be saved? Who am I, that God should ever love me? I purposefully rebelled against God! I happily did all that was wrong and called it right! And still here I am, made free from all my evil desires, and given a new life, and hope.
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
So I gladly rejoice that I am a slave now. Slave?? Yes! And I will shout if from the rooftops that it is true! I am a slave to Christ Jesus and I love it. For we are all slaves to some master, but now the master I obey is Jesus. Jesus wants only what is good for me. He has blessed my life in more ways than I can count. He has protected me and taken care of me, even when I hated Him. He has given me inexplicable joy and unconditional love. So I say yes, I am thankful to be a slave now. Jesus came to free the captives from sin. You no longer need to walk in darkness, for now He has come for you! You, His dearly and beloved children. Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near! God is calling you out, my dear friend! Are you ready to take His hand and be led out of captivity?
And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Revelation 12:11
