Mourning
I started giving this book Simon gave to me without Try’s permission - Coming Out of Homosexuality. Its a really good book, lacking in some areas, but nontheless good.
One thing I learnt from the book is to allow myself to grieve. While in my previous blogs here, I noted how negative my casual sex encounters were, the truth while I feel not just guilty, but used everytime, there is a being rush, a high, an excitement each time. And lately, I’ve been reminded of those. More so, my deepest unfulfilled sexual and relational fanstasies now impossible with this lifestyle change. Let me excerpt that part of the book
Grief and Disorientation
Any time we lose something or someone important to us, the loss registers deep within our being. When this loss greatly impacts our life, we grieve. For people coming out of homosexuality the loss can be multifaceted: a network for friends, an identity, possibly a lover, a secure living situation, hopesa of having a romantic of sexual relationship (at least, the kind we prefer). The change is often dramatic and total, and the grief that follows can be devastating.
If you are at the point of making this step or if you have recently left the gay or lesbian lifestyle, you need to give yourself permission to grieve. This can be a critical step in your healing. As Christians, we make a serious mistake when we glibly convey the message “If you have faith in God, he will get you through anything. Just praise the Lord through your trials.”
When others view the lifestyle or relationship you are leaving behind as sinful or negative, they may find it hard to acknowledge your need to mourn. Straight Christians often cannot imaginewhy you enjoyed the homosexual lifestyle in the first place, they assume you are glad to be rid of it. They may not understand at all why an evening at Bible study does not excite you as much as an evening with your lesbian or gay friends.
Please do not let guilt and outside pressure deprive you of your need to mourn those things that you miss. God wants to minister to the hurts and needs you [to] bring [it] before him.
The Christian life and your growing relationship with God will provide times of excitement, joy, comfort and peace. But there will still be tears and loneliness, hours or even days of anxiety or depression. These times need to be accepted and experienced as a normal part of making any major life change.
“After I left the lifestyle,” Bill Hernandez recalls, “I dealt with depression and denail for about two years. On one hand, God was blessing me, teaching me about himself and his Word in amazing ways. Basically, I had peace. But about every six weeks I would get antsy - anxiety and loneliness would build up inside of me and I would get headaches. I missed my love and deep down inside, I would call his name. I would think, Only Grant can help me get over this feeling.”
For the first few months after leaving the lifestyle, Bill made occasional trips across the [San Francisco] bay to visit his ex-lover. “Usually, we’d become sexually involved again. Everytime this happened, I felt devastated and worthless. But I would turn to the Lord with my feelings. He didn’t condemned me. He would forgive me and fill me with new hope.”
Bill recalls, “The more of God’s love I experienced, the more confident I became. Eventually, the trips to my ex-lover stopped altogether. The security and peace I had in Jesus were more real to me than anything homosexual involvement could offer.