Be Still My Soul

Its almost 1:00am and I cant sleep. I just had a very long and emotional time on my knees in prayer. I really was feeling incredibly lonely and like there was just no hope for me. Its alot of things coming together at once and its overwhelming sometimes. Through my tears mixed with prayers I begged God to speak to my heart to let me know He was still there. During my prayer the hymn "Be Still my Soul" suddenly came into my mind. I think its something God wanted me to hear. I really needed it.

Be Still My Soul

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to your God to order and provide;
in every change God faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: your best, your heavenly friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: your God will undertake
to guide the future, as in ages past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
the Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
when we shall be forever with the Lord,
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
sorrow for forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Kinda makes for a good lullaby and it really gave me some peace. I think I am gonna load it onto my ipod and try to go to sleep with it playing in the background.

I was a brute beast before you

I am reading through Psalms right now and the other day I came upon this passage Psalm 73:21-26:

21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,

22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

This is exactly how I sometimes feel when I give into lusts like a brute beast senseless and out of control. I hate that feeling when my body seems to control me.

Sadly I have a confession about a recent incident where I was like an out of control beast that started out innocent enough. As you may know I am new at this blog thing and the other night I learned the hard way I have to be careful what links I click on. I clicked a link that was in a comment on a fellow christian who has same sex attractions blog and ended up on some blog I had not been to before. Well I should have left right away. On this blog there was this long, very graphic and detailed description about him and his boyfriends sex from the night before and well I confess I read the whole blog post and became aroused and then masturbated. I could have closed the blog immediately and should have. That was my first impulse after I read the first couple of sentences and yet I kept on reading.

I am so weak and out of control sometimes. Truly like a mindless beast.

This passage gives me some hope though because even as the writer of this Psalm was saying he was like a beast before God he goes on to say that God was there the whole time so close that God was holding his hand. God gave me the way out of that temptation and I did not take it. Looking back I could almost sense Him nudging me; all I had to do was close out the page after reading the first few words and I would have been fine. The question is why didn't I?

My prayer for tonight is this passage especially the last two verses:

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Lord please help me to desire you above all things. Please hold me by the hand and don't give up on me. Forgive me for my weakness and failures and help me to put my hope and trust in you. Jesus be the strength of my heart and help me not give in to temptation. You are all I have and all I want. I don't want to be like a beast who just does what is pleasurable but want to be your child. I love you Lord.

I Can't believe I am writing this

Its kind of a miracle I am even writing this. You see I have never told anyone of this struggle I have so this is a huge step for me. I am a 30 year old Christian male and I have struggled with same sex attractions since probably around age 11 or 12. I grew up in a great Christian home with loving parents and became a Christian when I was young. I have always been very secretive about these feelings and have battled them on my own afraid of how people would react to me if they knew the truth. I finished college five or six years ago and somehow even managed to keep my feelings a secret from everyone there as well. I am pretty lonely sometimes as I sadly tend to keep people at a distance so they wont get to close. Its kind of ironic I am sharing this here for the whole world to see and yet not with anyone I know. Oh well I guess I am a coward.

I am so thankful to God that somehow despite my very strong temptations I am still a virgin physically since I have never acted out these feelings with anyone. However mentally I am definitely not and have given into my lusts to many times to count through porn and fantasies. I had been doing really good in that area though up to a few days ago when I gave into my lusts and fantasies and was looking at porn for the first time in probably 3 or 4 months. After I was done I felt so depressed, alone, and sick of myself and like God must be so sick of me too. I once again felt I was a hypocrite by praying to God afterwards and asking for forgiveness when I knew I would probably fail again. I went to bed and cried and prayed, and prayed and cried to Jesus for forgiveness until I fell asleep.

The next day as I sat depressed and alone about failing again I decided to search google for “Christians who have same sex attractions” or some search term like that and I somehow stumbled onto a few blogs of fellow Christians who struggle with SSA. I cant tell you how much it meant to me to find these blogs and see that other Christians were also struggling with this and sharing their thoughts, pain, hopes and dreams as they tried to live for God. I spent probably the next 4 or 5 hours reading blogs from fellow SSA Christians and for the first time in a long time felt I was not alone with these feelings. I think the bottling up of this struggle inside me has really been slowly destroying me and sending me deeper and deeper into depression, loneliness, and fear. I really believe God led me to these blogs of other Christians with SSA because he wanted me to see I was not alone but also I felt maybe He wanted me to open up about my struggles by starting a blog of my own and not try to keep it all inside. Granted this blog is pretty anonymous but having this outlet to share my struggles and thoughts I am hoping will really be a help to me in my walk.

For the longest time I was desperate for God to heal me of these thoughts and feelings and prayed for that constantly. I don't even know how many times over the years I have prayed and cried out to the Lord to take these feelings from me and make me "normal". Probably to many times to count. Growing up as a teenager there was no worse feeling then praying for healing while in church with my eyes closed and then after praying opening my eyes, and instantly like a magnet having them fall on a guy I was attracted to and then the thoughts would begin. It would make me feel like the biggest hypocrite and sinner to have these thoughts in church of all places and I wanted to run away and hide. I still do pray for a miracle but I guess I am finally starting to figure out that these thoughts and attractions may be with me for life.

Why am I like this? Am I some kind of a mistake? I will probably never know until I get to heaven and can ask God myself. However, between now and then I am hoping I will start to understand myself more and learn to accept myself for who I am, a person who sins and struggles but that God created for a reason and loves. It’s a long journey ahead and I am sure I will fail many times but I hope I can be honest and share my experiences with you. I will write more posts later telling more about myself. If you feel like sending up a prayer for me its always appreciated.

I gotta say its a huge weight off my shoulders just writing this down and letting someone, anyone, know I have these struggles even if no one ever reads this. Thanks for listening.