Holding Back
I want to tell you about a friend of mine, and how I got to know him. I’ll call him “Simmy”.
When I was thirteen, I spent a week at a summer camp with other boys in jr. high. I had started to experience same-sex attraction more overtly by that point in my life, and there was a boy there that I developed a mild crush on over the course of the week. I never talked to him, but I was around him, and I saw him interacting with other people. Notably, I had understood the Gospel message for the first time one year earlier at that same camp, and had decided to follow Jesus from then on. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I was relatively sheltered at that time, so I had only a vague idea of what homosexual attraction was. Thus, I was not influenced by openly gay friends or family members, and I had little direct exposure to pop-culture. I didn’t think of myself as “gay”; I didn’t think about sexual identity at all.
A few months later in November, my family started going to a new church. It turned out that the boy I saw at camp was also at that church, and he was the youngest son of the pastor. I still felt attracted to him, but I was also very shy. After the service, he and I chatted for a few minutes, and we both remembered seeing each other at camp. His name was Simmy. We were friends for the next few years, but I never talked to him very much, or got to know him deeply. On top of being shy in general, I felt deeply uncomfortable about my ongoing desire for a deep and special intimacy with him. I felt both afraid of and guilty for that strange and overwhelming feeling I had when I talked to him, or when he smiled at me. However, I was also afraid to confess that guilt to anyone. My efforts to ignore or avoid it never resolved it; they only produced shame, fear, and regret. 1 Corinthians 7:10 succinctly describes the destructive sorrow I was experiencing, although I did not realize this until years later: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
Fast-forward to 2012, Simmy and I were again at that summer camp, this time as high-school seniors volunteering in a work team. During that time, I confessed to him and the other volunteers that I was struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction. At the time, it was the most acutely terrifying thing I had ever done. I was afraid that this community would fear and scorn me, and I knew there was no going back. Instead, they were all encouraging and compassionate, especially Simmy. He recognized that I was deeply hurting, and needed a friend.
Over the years of high-school, I could have easily indulged in sexual fantasies about Simmy, but I avoided doing so, as I intuitively recognized that fantasizing about him would be to treat him wrongly. (To my own shame, I have not consistently practiced such self-control in regard to some other people I have known over the years.) I understood what heterosexual attraction was and how it felt, but somehow it never occurred to me that homosexual attraction would feel similar. It may sound hard to believe, but I didn’t recognize the seemingly obvious parallel between the strong romantic attraction I felt toward him, and how I sometimes felt about a few other young women I had known over the years. In fact, it was not until I was eighteen or nineteen (it was a gradual process) that I began to understand how similar the two could feel. I could not have described it as I am doing now; it was just an ongoing, unverbalized experience that I was afraid to think about. And I believe there was a notable reason for this fear: I had heard sermons, read articles, and listened to interviews with people who talked about homosexuality. But few, if any, talked about it from the first-person, present-tense perspective of a Christian. The homosexual was described as someone else “out there”. Someone rebelling against God, and presumed to have a childhood full of trauma and broken relationships. They didn’t talk as though it might be me. And so over time, I came to fear that if people knew this was a temptation I felt, that I too would suffer broken relationships, and become someone “out there”.
Choosing Friendship
During the next few years following that Summer of volunteer work, Simmy and I grew much closer. He was instrumental in helping me learn how to pursue Christ with integrity, and he was not put off by the knowledge of the sexual sins and abuse I had committed, which I had also confessed to, later in 2012. By repeatedly demonstrating that he trusted me and cared about me, he melted away the fear and shame that had been crushing the life out of my heart. I was finally experiencing the peace and freedom of repentance, which gives real freedom from guilt, and the freedom to ask for and receive help. But more than that, it was freedom to stand firm in the midst of what temptation remained, and know that God was faithfully with me. I was free to be who God created me to be.
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
-Galatians 5:13-15
I never did tell Simmy about my ongoing attractions to him. Had he asked, I would have been honest and told him, but otherwise I concluded it was neither necessary or appropriate. Over time, those feelings became weaker, although it was several years before they were gone completely. I was continually aware of the potential for them to be strong, were I to indulge them. However, I found that as I got to know him more deeply and developed a healthy friendship with him, that rightly-ordered brotherly love became much stronger and more beautiful to me. This was the effect of repentance in my life as I surrendered myself to God. I was saying “no” to sin in much deeper ways than I had done before.
Simmy treated me with warm love and dignity, and he invited me to treat him the same way. He didn’t see me as a project, or as a potential threat to his reputation and dignity, or as someone to lecture from arm’s length. These were all things I had been afraid of. I also needed to know that my emotional baggage was not too much for him to handle. We were able to look each other in the eye, hug, pray together, and generally go through the ups and downs of life as brothers in Christ. And I want to be very clear that this was not a consolation prize in lieu of a romantic relationship with him (sometimes dubbed “gay spiritual friendship”), an odd trend which Trent has written about, and which writer Bethel McGrew rightly criticizes here. No, this was me learning to set aside the wrong, disordered attraction I felt, and letting it fade as something God-honoring and pure grew up in its place. This was me choosing each day to deny my self-centered passions, take up my proverbial cross, and follow Jesus. It was difficult, but worth the effort. And unlike the pseudonymous Alex Davidson McGrew briefly mentions, my efforts to maintain a fulfilling and God-honoring friendship with Simmy were, by God’s grace, successful. I suppose this illustrates how each person’s story is unique. Perhaps some people would erroneously insist that I should have avoided friendship with Simmy entirely, in order to avoid possible temptation. Perhaps some people will scoff in disbelief at all I’ve written here. Oh well. It wouldn’t matter how many people reject it or why; it would still be true. It would still be Good.
“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.”
-Titus 2:11-14
(With deep sadness, I have to say that as far as I know, Simmy walked away from God a few years ago. Ironically, this was partly the result of someone else close to him coming out as gay, and announcing that they were already in a gay relationship. In his own words, he “deconstructed.” I have not heard from him since, but I pray he returns someday. I wish Simmy and I were still friends today; he is one of the most kind-hearted men I’ve ever known. As I look back at my own life, I know there were times when I was angry at God or hopeless about my future, and I could have walked away. It is not without reason that Jesus warns us that following him may require great sacrifice. May we all have courage and faith in the days of trials, and if we ever reject him, may we soon grieve the error, and humbly return to him. For The Lord will never cast out any who willingly return.)
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
-Galatians 5:16-25
