freewill in the eyes of a gay man

[jasJis]

infinitelord1,
You have to ask yourself, are you ready right now, right this minute, to meet the woman you can love for the rest of your life and maintain the relationship? Or is it not possible (even likely) that God has chosen to answer your prayer WHEN you have dealt with some other issues.

If you have grown up feeling so seperated from love, maybe you have to become more comfortable loving yourself before you are ready to love another. Maybe God has chosen wisely to wait a few months, or a year, until He knows you are ready. Why does your healing have to happen overnight when my healing has taken years?

Accept that you are imperfect, and you will be able to accept other's imperfections. Wrap your heart and mind around the fact that God accepts our imperfections and loves us any way. God doesn't HATE us for ANY of our sins. He will forgive ALL of them, even the sin of hating God. Jesus did not come to condemn, but to forgive. All we have to do ask for fogiveness. Your healing won't go far until you realize God's willingness to forgive you. Then you can begin to understand how much God loves you and begin to recognize how much healing He is working in your life.

Guilt and self hate are tremendous burdens. My experience has shown they are difficult to let go of. I thought that God wanted me or was making me carry them forever. The reality that took me way to many years to learn is that the sacrifice God wanted from me was to rip that burden off my back and leave it behind. Easier said then done. More painful than one would think.

God's healing is a process and He will cure the illness, not just the symptoms. Your hurt is more than homosexual attraction. (Which by the way is way more normal in adolesence than you think and means less than we are willing to admit.) Your true wound is rooted in people not showing you enough love and you now difficulty in accepting your love for yourself, God's love for you, and other's who may love you. Why send you a soul mate when you can't accept all their love for you. When you come to understand God loves you tremendously, right now, as screwed up and sinful and dirty as you may 'think' your are, is when you get on the fast track for the healing you're looking for.

God loves you right now. It's okay to screw up and is not a reason to hate yourself. So what if you have little direction in your life. If you are open to God actively and currently wanting something good for you, you are open to a new and positive direction. You will find it.

May you know the peace, love, and accpetance that God has for you right now.

[infinitelord1]

Its been about 4 years now since this issue has started. Im starting to get a little impatient with god as to when and if he is going to heal me.

[jasJis]

[quote name='infinitelord1' date='Jul 3 2005, 07:10 PM']Its been about 4 years now since this issue has started. Im starting to get a little impatient with god as to when and if he is going to heal me.
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"Your true wound is rooted in people not showing you enough love and you now difficulty in accepting your love for yourself,"

Do you think God loves you now?

[Jaime]

Phatcatholic is right and his opinion needs to be reasserted.

Therapy is absolutely necessary.


You will not find the peace you need online. You need to find a therapist you can trust and open up to him/her. We can pray for you but we cannot provide therapy.

[curtins]

dude:

First I will say I am praying for you and please do frequent the board here to let us know how your doing. If you ever need to talk just pm me and I'll give you my screan name.

We all screw up in life. Don't think you have been singled out and that you are the only one that has done something they will remember and regret. We all have done stuff that if we could go back we would have changed it. But the thing is you cant go back. Whats done is done. You need to focus on the future. Make a fresh start, a clean slate. Acknowledge your mistakes but put them behind you as much as you can. Trust in God. We sin because we don't trust in God. Say this prayer "Jesus, I trust in you!" Its very powerful. This would be my advice to you. Learn to love the Sacrament of Confession and use it often. Receive Communion often. Get a counsoler/ therapist to help you. Be patient. A girlfreind wont solve all your problems in a snap of the fingers. Be patient. Understand that at least for the moment you need to be celebate and find God and develope a deep and loving relationship with God first. Then you can start decerning for marriage and seeking God's will. But first get yourself stable- mentally, spiritually, and physically. Don't give up. Unite your suffering with Christ. Like Jesus said in the Gospel today

""Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest."

Pray pray and pray some more. Prayer is insainly powerful. But dont pray for a wife- rather pray that God will help you get your life on track- pray to come to know God better and pray for him to help you make progress and to do his will. I know you will succeed- but you need to know that too. Pray to Mary and I would consider maybe getting a sort of patron saint that you can pray to who can be like your prayer buddy. I'll pray for you too and God bless

[infinitelord1]

i definetly dont love myself........therapy will not help me as i have allready discovered. Therapy is taught from a subjective point of view......this will not help me because homosexuality only matters to god. If there is no god then there is nothing wrong or right therefore homosexuality is not wrong. Christian counseling would be the next option and i have sought out non-denom groups who help people seeking freedom from homosexuality........this helps but it certainly does not heal u completely. Not to mention the fact i am not a firm believer in god. My stance is that it is more probabable that a god exists, but we will never know and on top of that we will never know which god is the right god to worship. Knowing this morality becomes subjective and it really boils down to beliefs. Actually morallity becomes subjective when the question is asked "Is there a God". Unfortunately nobody knows.

[Crispy]

infinitelord,

ur ignoring what these ppl are saying. u see ur life slipping away in a direction u dont like, have faith in God and take the advice presented to you. dont pray for what you think is best for you, cause u might be wrong (an it looks like things arent seeming to get better). instead pray for God's will to be done, pray that what ever God wants to happen that you would like it done, because God knows what he's doing, and trusting in him cannot do you any wrong. go see a priest that is good, if ur reg priest is too liberal or whatever, find a parish that is good. you cannot find happiness on ur own, and i think thats what God wants you to realize in all this; the reason u havent been healed yet. trust in god and get spiritual help. listen to what hot stuff and phat catholic are saying and just do it. what have u got to lose?

Edited July 4, 2005 by Crispy

[rckllnknny]

FIRST..wow...i comend you on your honesty..if i wore your shoes..i dont know if i would of been so out-spoken myself...thats awesome you did that..it makes y;ou that much closer to understand all those things in your head bouncin around all day..effecting your attitude emotions and peace of mind. first of all..ask yourself the question you asked us..what answer are you looking and hoping for??
the only other advice i can give you if that question just confused you..is...from a 100% heterosexual male..i am accepting of other peoples choices for themselves..but myself..is the thought of me being with another man DISGUSTS me (note..ME being with man) i dont even want to think about it. i couldnt experiment..i couldnt even go out on a date with a man to see if perhaps i would like it. (maybe someone else could-but i couldnt) the fact that you could make the effort to have a girlfriend (already have sex on the second date?? LOL)...might be the answer you was lookin for.
and between us...even hot sexy females in whom i may even love...can be pretty boring or even just gross at times to have sex with. and thats from a stragiht guys point of view.
and your childhood. i dont know if you ever heard it from anyone (yet?).................but IM SORRY it happened to you.
i dont know i fi just confused you with anything i just said. (sometimes i dont make any sense)-but i hope it helped you in some way...

Edited July 4, 2005 by rckllnknny

[ironmonk]

[quote name='infinitelord1' date='Jul 2 2005, 02:44 AM']I was 5 years old. ....
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Bro,

Thank you for sharing this with us. It took a lot of courage.

Please read this, it's long, but it's very good....

[url="http://www.cathmed.org/publications/homosexuality.html"]http://www.cathmed.org/publications/homosexuality.html[/url]


Please listen to these:
[url="http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/08_arguments-for-god.htm"]http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/08_arguments-for-god.htm[/url]

and here is his entire online audio library...
[url="http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio.htm"]http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio.htm[/url]



We all have temptations. I believe that we can become whatever we want, but it takes time. We have the power to change ourselves. I believe that some things you wrote about in regards to your early physical and experiances and drug experimenting are the reasons for the current temptations/hardships... Sex is something that satan will use against us because it is an easy one to attack us with. There have been times that I have thought about suicide, what kept me from not doing that was remembering that life is short and I am not my own but I belong to God. This time is less than a drop of water in the ocean compared to what eternity is. Since you are brave enough to write your story here, I believe that you are strong enough with Christ's help to overcome the temptations. Something that helps me is that I keep tellng myself "I must do the right thing". Sometimes, I don't know what that is, so I just go with the flow, knowing that my time here is short... it could be another 70 years or 7 minutes. Life is a test, and I just keep walking forward through it.

Please check out the above links. You are in my prayers.

Love in Christ,
ironmonk

[ironmonk]

[quote name='infinitelord1' date='Jul 4 2005, 02:37 AM']i definetly dont love myself........therapy will not help me as i have allready discovered. Therapy is taught from a subjective point of view......this will not help me because homosexuality only matters to god. If there is no god then there is nothing wrong or right  therefore homosexuality is not wrong. Christian counseling would be the next option and i have sought out non-denom groups who help people seeking freedom from homosexuality........this helps but it certainly does not heal u completely. Not to mention the fact i am not a firm believer in god. My stance is that it is more probabable that a god exists, but we will never know and on top of that we will never know which god is the right god to worship. Knowing this morality becomes subjective and it really boils down to beliefs. Actually morallity becomes subjective when the question is asked "Is there a God". Unfortunately nobody knows.
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Bro,

We can and do know... Research Fatima and St. Pio (aka Padre Pio)...

(and check out the links I posted above)

70,000 plus witnesses. Also, there is so much evidence that proves the Catholic Church to be true.

What happened at Fatima in 1917:
[url="http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/"]http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/[/url]



Please listen to the Peter Kreeft audio asap... he explains things very nicely.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[robbie]

infinitelord1-

Please don't feel that I'm trying to dampen your hope to hurt you, but I don't think it is wise to expect that your homosexual feelings will go away. I too have a homosexual orientation and whilst I would like to have a heterosexual orientation I don't think it will happen and all I really want is to be healthy and able to deal with this.

Many Christians will tell you that you must supress your sexuality and try to egt rid of it. That only makes you psychologically unstable. Your sexuality is part of who you are, as mine is part of who I am. Pray not that God will get rid of your homosexuality, but rather that He can bring something good out of it.

Homosexuality should not be thought of as a disease to be cured. It should be thought of as a burden that is relieved by Christ. Not because He makes you heterosexual. But because He carries it for you. Because He loves you, you can have high self-esteem. You can know that nothing in all the world is more precious to Almighty God than YOU. Not you as you could be if you were x, y and z. YOU as you are RIGHT NOW. God loves you. Jesus died for YOU. As you are right now.

He urges on to change and to grow and to become better in Him. But He urges us to be whole, that His Grace may work in us to bring good out of all that we are, all that we have, all that we do.

God loves you. Learn to love yourself. You and I can do nothing to help ourselves or to help each other. God alone, by His Grace, can transform us. This transformation is not one that says-"right...you must do this, this and this for Me to love you". It is one that says [i]"I love you now. AS YOU ARE. I have created you in My Image. As you are now. I will continue to redeem you and transform you into the Image of Christ My Son, that you may be united more wholly to Me. This is not because I want to love you. It is because I love you already."[/i]

God bless you! He loves you more than words can say!

Rob

[infinitelord1]

robbie,

u stated that ur feelings of being homosexual are part of who u are.......i also noticed that u are from the united kingdom (no offense). Europeans tend to be very liberal in their thinking.........honestly, liberalism is a sin. You are wrong my friend that u cannot change the way you feel.........I have attended a group that helps people seek freedom from homosexuality. Granted it is non-denominational they claim that hundreds are there to testify that they have been freed through christ from homosexuality and that a heterosexual union is achieveable granted of course that the relationship is within the context of what god intended.

[traichuoi]

Infinitelord,

Thank you for your honesty.

First, I wanted to give you the website to a Catholic ministry for men struggling with the same issues you are: [url="http://www.couragerc.net/"]http://www.couragerc.net/[/url] This is a great ministry and has helped sooooooo many.

Secondly, I will be praying for you! Courage!

[rckllnknny]

ooooh...i hate to do this..hot stuff..since you had every right intention in what you were trying to say.
I bleieve..in my OWN opinion..and not to disregard anyone elses..is that therapy is an OPTION..but not a neccesity.
Jesus was never quoted anywhere that therapy came from the Father. and only through that may we find everlasting blah blah..
i think that therapy is an option that may help you.
But do not ever feel obligated to go or guilty for not going.
ive also came to believe theres only one thing that is the best we could ever do. and when i get confused and i ask Jesus what to do...this what he alway says..PRAY!
anyways i wasnt trying to sound harsh to anyone or take anything out of context.
..i hope i said all of that right.

[Fidei Defensor]

Remeber - you cant "turn your back" on God just because he doesnt do what you want. You said you have been praying. Like others have said, maybe he has already answered and is working in your life, but you dont recognize it. We are not God. He knows what is best for us. He gave us free will so that we could choose to follow him. If you choose to keep saying "no God, thats not what I want" then you will never get relief.

If God wants you to be single, then thats what he wants. You can choose to follow what he has planned, or you can choose not to. You seem to be choosing not to.