Juliet4402
Member
I still remember my first time in church. The preacher was carrying on about Eve and sin and how all women had to suffer as a result. My five year old self didn't think that was fair. At five years old, what had I done to deserve that? I decided then God was mean and I wanted nothing to do with Him.
I proceeded to run my life the way I thought it should go. I did a real good job of destroying every opportunity that crossed my path. Despite graduating high school with honors, I drank and drugged my way into being suspended from college my sophomore year.
At 19 I was introduced to AA and by 21 I was shipped out to a treatment center in Arizona. There, I came out as gay and got myself sent to a sober house for gays in California.
Although I cleaned up and stayed dry for 12 years, I never had any spiritual experience and so I was still the miserable selfish child I had always been. I looked that whole time for a higher power I could relate to and accepted me the way I was. I became a practicing witch and medium and thought I was all that.
A speaking engagement exposed me for the dry miserable person I was and so I walked out of AA, slammed the door behind me, and set out to drink myself to death.
Twenty-one years later, an uncle reached out to me and asked me if I wanted help. I did. That weekend I was on a plane.
When I started recovery this time, I knew I was going to have to do things differently. I told the woman who was to become my sponsor that I did not want to know the "god of my understanding". I wanted to know God. Then I told her I might be gay. She told me that in the Bible, God's mind on that matter has never wavered.
I knew then that I don't get to tell God who He is. I don't get to tell God who I am. He made me the way He wanted me to be. I have not looked at or thought about a woman that way since. He changed my heart!
I have since joined a church and been baptized. I am over 3 years sober now and my relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in my life.
I proceeded to run my life the way I thought it should go. I did a real good job of destroying every opportunity that crossed my path. Despite graduating high school with honors, I drank and drugged my way into being suspended from college my sophomore year.
At 19 I was introduced to AA and by 21 I was shipped out to a treatment center in Arizona. There, I came out as gay and got myself sent to a sober house for gays in California.
Although I cleaned up and stayed dry for 12 years, I never had any spiritual experience and so I was still the miserable selfish child I had always been. I looked that whole time for a higher power I could relate to and accepted me the way I was. I became a practicing witch and medium and thought I was all that.
A speaking engagement exposed me for the dry miserable person I was and so I walked out of AA, slammed the door behind me, and set out to drink myself to death.
Twenty-one years later, an uncle reached out to me and asked me if I wanted help. I did. That weekend I was on a plane.
When I started recovery this time, I knew I was going to have to do things differently. I told the woman who was to become my sponsor that I did not want to know the "god of my understanding". I wanted to know God. Then I told her I might be gay. She told me that in the Bible, God's mind on that matter has never wavered.
I knew then that I don't get to tell God who He is. I don't get to tell God who I am. He made me the way He wanted me to be. I have not looked at or thought about a woman that way since. He changed my heart!
I have since joined a church and been baptized. I am over 3 years sober now and my relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in my life.
to R.F.
That's really the message of God's Word isn't it?
