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You may wonder if the change I am experiencing is just a change in behavior and not in orientation. I think it's both. In my early years, I concluded I was gay because of my thoughts and desires. I no longer believe that I am gay. I am a new person in Christ. I am a heterosexual man who struggles at times with homosexual thoughts.

I can't speak for everyone. There is no single journey of healing for the person who struggles with homosexuality. At one point in my life, the temptation to lust was an hourly harassment. Today, it is more like a pesky bird that occasionally flies overhead and wants to build a nest in my hair. I even find myself struggling with heterosexual lust at times. While that may seem like progress, God has convicted me that exchanging one form of lust for another is still sin.

I continue on the road to healing and healthy masculinity. My masculine identity is becoming more solid. I am deeply in love with my wife. I am feeling better about myself as a male and as a person. I am thankful to God for how far he has brought me.

In my battle, these words of C. S. Lewis have been encouraging:

But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrapheap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.)

I am experiencing a change far beyond what I dreamed was possible. With God's help and encouragement from his people, I refuse to settle for a spot with the majority.

The author lives in the Midwest.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Christianity Today's special section on sexuality and gender includes:

Re-engineering Temptation | Fuzzy science sparks debate over treatments to reverse homosexuality. (April 9, 2007)

The Rebirth of Venus | Charlene Cothran, editor of a magazine for African-American gays and lesbians, on how she renounced homosexuality and came to Christ. (March 23, 2007)

My Dirty Little Former Secret | God used a movie about gay cowboys to release me from the burden of my past. (April 1, 2006)

Therapeutically Incorrect | Atheist psychiatrist argues that gays can change. (April 2005)

My Path to Lesbianism | It was hatred of women that drove me there, and Christ in community that led me out. February 2005)

Cheated by the Affirming Church | Contrary to what some churches teach, it is homosexuality—and not its suppression—that enslaves people like me. (December 1, 2004)

No Easy Victory | A plea from a Christian husband and father who, day by day, resists his homosexual desires. (March 11, 2002)

Ex-Gay Leader Disciplined for Gay Bar Visit | Exodus removes John Paulk as board chairman, places him on probationary status as member. (October 1, 2000)

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April 2007, Vol. 51, No. 4