Amy E Hamilton—What We Need Now: My Father Give Me Bread: What the LGBTQ+ Community Needs from the Church

As compelling and real a testimony as I have ever read. Here is Truth spoken in love with all of its power, complexities, and struggles. And it is applicable to so many other areas than sexuality—whatever the sin or sins that have enslaved us. This woman gets it—in spades. God bless her and God bless her testimony.

For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

For the first time in many months, I had a conversation with God that went something like this: “God, I don’t know how I got here. But I can’t live without You. And if there’s any way You can bring me home, bring me home.” I had to return to the Father’s house. And just as in the parable, my Father was running to meet me.

My feelings, however, remained unchanged. I did not want to leave my lesbian life, yet I knew Jesus was calling me to lay that down. I was deeply conflicted and felt at an impasse. “I am a lesbian. If I am gay, how does one repent from who they are?” As I wrestled with this question, I providentially happened upon a television program on gay rights. Among the mainly gay-affirming messages, there was a brief portrayal of Christians who were leaving homosexuality behind to follow Christ. I was shocked. I had never heard of anyone like this. Unsurprisingly, they were being portrayed as fools. The interviewer grew impatient with one woman as she admitted her continued struggle: “Come on, all this God stuff, tell us the truth. Right now, if you could choose, who would you choose? Would you choose to be with a man or a woman?” Her reply? “I choose Jesus.”

And with those words, light streamed into my soul. I thought, “I can do that. That’swhat I can do. I choose Jesus. Because I cannot say that I would choose a man. One hundred percent of me would choose a woman. But I can choose to follow Christ in obedience. My sexual feelings do not have to define me. I choose Jesus.”

Thus I surrendered my sexuality to God and focused on following Him. In doing so, I never thought my attractions would even lessen in degree, and I fully expected to be single, celibate, and perhaps struggling with longings, for the rest of my mortal life. But I was willing to do it, because I knew Who was asking: “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of life.”

In those early days, my battle with temptation truly was fierce and felt constant. I had never really struggled with lust before, but now I did. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it, and my determination to walk a different path was a white-knuckled one. In desperation, I began meditating on Jesus and the temptations in the desert. I contemplated how, after forty days, Jesus had legitimate hunger; however, He did not wrongly use His power to meet His needs. He refused to turn stones into bread. And it was after He resisted Satan’s offers that the ministry of the angels came. I called this to mind often as I struggled to wait on God.

My repentance was still fresh when the biggest temptation yet arrived in the mail—a card from my ex-girlfriend. Of course she would come back into my life now. “I’m being kicked while I’m down,” I told a friend, “here I am trying to follow Christ, and this is the one woman I can’t resist.” I finished my rant by declaring, “But I’m not going to do it. I will not turn these stones into bread.”

Read it all.

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