Deeper Still...Joy in the Journey

"Never be ashamed of the scars that life has left you with....A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed, you endured the pain and God has healed you." A friend of mine posted this on Facebook. I can see some deep meaning here but when I consider this next to the death of Christ, I am face to face with the deeper reality...an agony, a disgrace, and shame. The Word says he was marked, wounded, rejected for our transgression...pierced for our iniquity...that God placed on him the sin of the world...and through his suffering we received our healing.

I am overwhelmed, awestruck...quieted by this amazing love.

Can the man who was so wounded, who bore all the sins of the world, really really carry it all? All the shame, blame, heartache, rejection? For all my life, I thought I knew. He could carry the sins of a broken generation, who did not understand or even want him. But what I wanted to experience was the love and forgiveness of a god, who would rush to the back of a room, to the one sitting in the corner. I wanted to see the grace of a savior who would hunt down the maligned and marginalized. I wanted to experience the gentle touch of a shepherd who would seek out the lost and lonely one....the one that was picked last during kickball, the one laughed at and called sissy, the one who never seemed to quite get it.

Why did I want to experience this so badly? You see, I was the lost one, the geeky and awkward one who never quite fit in. Between tripping over my own feet or getting my shoelaces caught up in the pedals of my bike and falling over or being the last one picked for games, I never saw myself as something of worth. I was sensitive and out of place. And it only scarred me more deeply to hear the painful taunts of my peers..."queer", "momma's boy", "gay".

When I was about 5 I experienced a wounding that left a deep scar. I have no memory of his name or even how we met, but is actions left in indelible mark on my soul. He was about 16 or 17 and walking his own broken walk. I remember vividly loving the attention that he showed me. There was a lot going on during those 2-3 years that I didn't really understand until I was much older. It was this experience that set the stage for my understanding of sex and image. When I was about 15 I began to relive memories of that sexual abuse. And it was about this time that I began to explore some of the sensationalized feelings with my peers.

It was a dark time! I was suicidal and full of self-hate during my high school years. I still felt the same outsider emotions of my childhood, but now the emotions were intensified. Those early experiences confused me. Christian? Maybe. gay? I prayed not. The swirling emotions choking me. Desire and rejection are formidable! Their union produces shame, isolation and self-hatred.

Beyond my teenage years, through college, marriage, career choices and on...I replicated the same destructive patterns. I sought counseling, prayer and all kinds of help.

I cannot begin to share all the experiences in my life; some good, some bad, that have led me to this point. I can testify that there were times that when I look back, that I can honestly say, "I'm amazed that I am alive." and there are other times that I could say, "Wow, I'm glad that I'm alive." My life has been dotted with expressions of living as an object of wrath, as I would explore sexual situations that I would never be glad about sharing.

And I would have to share at this moment, that my wonderful and amazing wife Colleen has walked most of this difficult journey with me. I would also like to add, that I have diligently sought accountability all my life. A few years ago, I came very close to cutting off everyone in my life after we (Colleen and I) decided to seek transparency and open ourselves to the counsel of a church leader. What he spoke into my life, was nothing more than a message of defeat and hopelessness. His advice to me was that I needed to deal with my own demons, and that I was as an object of wrath...there was really no hope for me. "I was an abomination!"

I have to say, that if you would graph my life, this moment would be one of the two lowest moments that I have experienced. It was like being winded in a sports game. I couldn't feel anything other than numbness and panic. It was during this point in the journey that I basically gave up. I determined that if I was without hope and an abomination, that what was the point of trying. I became the dark that I felt I was expected to be. Afterall...if I was doomed from the beginning then, "what the hell."

For the next, almost three years, I ran away...deeper and deeper into debauchery and idolatry, forsaking all I knew and running full away from God, my wife, my children and all I had known. If I was going to bear the scourge of being a gay man without hope, then I was going to go down in a tragic spectacle. I lived as one isolated, cutting off everyone. I recklessly sought out all kinds of loose living. I was going as far as I could, and if I died in the meantime, then "good".

I found myself in the farthest corner of the darkest room (so to speak), desperate and alone. And the ones whom I had given myself to...they were nothing more than hollow, self-pleasers too. I was maligned and marginalized by everyone I met. But this confused me greatly, because these were the ones who I could supposedly relate to. I found myself running out of steam quickly. Wounded, bruised, afraid, alone; as far away as I could go...I stopped!!!

It was then that I began to learn a deeper meaning of love. At her invitation, I reluctantly began to pray simple, frustrating, and sometimes angry prayers with my wife. And you know what? Things began to change.

The One perfect man, found me in the dark isolated place, rejected and wounded and drew me unto himself, washed me and cleaned me up (and that is another story). And He did an amazing thing...something I could never do. He called me by name...and I discovered that I am HIS! I have always been one who hates stereotypes, name-calling and the sort. I am neither one who is gay or even curious. BUT I am one who is seeking to live in the shadow of His wing, and to find my identity in Him alone. God has so much more to do in my life, my marriage, my family...and I am pleased that He is my JOY IN THE JOURNEY!


"Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. "
Isaiah 53:1-5