By Daniel

January 2001

We were reading the first chapters of Luke and Matthew in my cell group Safehands about the story of Mary's pregnancy through the Holy Spirit. When Joseph learned of Mary's pregnancy, he had two options, either to abandon her quietly or punish her - and he chose the former. However, God had another plan for him - to marry her.

In a way, I can relate to the passage above in my struggles to be a Christian as a gay person. A literal reading of the bible when I was a new Christian imbued in me the notion that homosexuality and homosexual acts are sinful. The pre-conditions for entering the kingdom of God is to either stay celibate or get married and live a heterosexual life.

As I found out, neither of these choices turned out to be an easy one. First, I had no intention of remaining celibate. Neither did the idea of spending the rest of my life with someone whom I'm not capable of loving appealed to me. Adopting either one of these "solutions" questioned the very essence of our creation as I would answer a firm NO to anyone who even tried to suggest that I chose to be a homosexual.

Though I remained celibate a good part of my life, I was loaded with guilt over my sexuality. I feel guilty over things that are the very essence of me and how I am created. I abstained from sexual fantasies or any references to my sexual orientation. I felt like a criminal condemned to life imprisonment for a crime I have not committed. Gradually, I realised a deep depression since becoming a Christian. I thought that to maintain my sanity, it would be infinitely easier to renounce my faith.

No amount of praying could change me or remove the guilt within me. I still believed in God, except that the god I believed in was not the true God. I quit trying to live up to his standard and instantly found the peace I had missed for a long while.

God however, had a different plan for me - to come back into my life in a dramatic way. First, through the struggles in my professional life and then through the demise of two person who were very close to me. Every time I forsook Him, God through his mercy and grace would deliver me and my family from those trying times, leaving me no doubt that God had intended me to be part of his kingdom.

It did not appeal to me to deny my orientation as I tried before but failed and live the life of a freak. That was when I started studying the bible hard for clues to reconciliation between my faith and sexuality. However, my faith was changed in that no matter how much guilt exists, I'm assured by the fact that I'm not alone in the struggle and that I've not been excluded from God's salvation.

Through these struggles as a gay Christian, I have come to realise that had it not been the fact that I'm gay, I wouldn't have perhaps known Him in the way that I do now. Perhaps, like Joseph and Mary, God has a different plan for me than the plan I thought He had for me.