"It seemed to me that after the first couple of encounters it became very easy to give myself away to anyone who would show me attention."
As the youngest of 16 children, I spent most of my time alone feeling very disconnected from my siblings. My world was a place of make believe and pretense. Somehow I knew in my heart I was different from other children, especially boys. I always felt more comfortable around females and tended to think of myself in the female gender.
As a young adult, I had what I thought was a recurring nightmare of being taken from my bed by a family member in the middle of the night to a dirt floor of a garage so he could have sex with me. I then realized the "nightmares" were memories of incest that lasted against my will for several years. It started when I was around eight years. Although I tried to resist him he always overpowered me. When I was in seventh grade, he was sent by my mother to pick me up from a late evening event at my school. I can remember the sick feeling I had in my stomach when I saw him pull up outside of my school instead of my mother. At first I refused to get in, knowing in the pit of me what would happen. "I'm not getting in," I said, knowing very well I had no choice. "Come on," he replied, "I promise we'll go straight home." I knew inside he was lying. On the way home he took me to a secluded place on a dark road and forced me to have sex. The next morning I did not go to school, feeling very sore and confused I told my mother I was not feeling well. I can remember thinking that perhaps I was doing something to bring this on myself. Deep down inside maybe the reason I didn't do more to try to stop it was because, wrong or not, I began to believe that this was the way I really was meant to be.
It was around this time that I had my first consensual homosexual encounter with a counselor at a summer camp. It ended up being the beginning of many such encounters. By the time I was into my late teens I was well on my way to living the gay lifestyle. It seemed to me that after the first couple of encounters it became very easy to give myself away to anyone who would show me attention. I found out quickly that I could get just about anything I desired with sex. I got involved in a physically and mentally abusive relationship that lasted a couple years. At the same time I began to cruise the bars, fairs and malls for encounters. On the outside I looked like I had it all under control, but on the inside I had become very insecure and fearful. The more I gave myself over to the gay lifestyle the more I took on a feminine persona. I began to abuse myself with alcohol and recreational drugs--anything to add to what I thought was a good time. Although I dealt with great fear on the inside, I seemed to have no problem going home with total strangers--some gay, some straight--but all looking for the same thing, sex. As I look back now, there were many times I placed myself in very dangerous positions.
Although I did not consider myself to be a cross-dresser, I spent most of my time trying to pass myself off as a very feminine person. I dressed feminine, and wore makeup on a daily basis. I think I enjoyed the reaction I got from the people around me. I had surrounded myself with people who were either very acceptant of what I was like or who were into the same gay scene. Money was never a real problem, there was always someone willing to pay. However, I managed to land a job with a local hospital. Many other gay people worked there. Anyone who knew me knew I was gay and I decided there was no use in trying to hide my lifestyle; I had become the life of the party so to speak. Sometimes I would go out to the bars right after work, stay out all night, and go back to work the next day. I always felt very tired and worn, but never allowed myself ever to stop. If I had stopped to rest I would have been forced to see myself and deal with what was going on inside me--extreme loneliness and rejection, even though I was in a relationship.
While I was working at the hospital a young woman, Mary, who had been a friend of my family came to work there. Mary was a Christian and to her it made no difference what I was or where I had been. She would go out of her way to speak to me about the Lord.
The endless attempts to numb the pain and loneliness with partying, drugs, alcohol, and one-time encounters eventually took its toll on my health. Within a few months time I suffered a drug overdose, my companion left me for someone new, and I was fired from my job at the hospital. I was totally out of control. Feeling very old and very tired I knew I had to do something to end the hurt. I decided to go home to my parents to ask their forgiveness, then I planned to go to my old room and take my life. On my way home I stopped to buy cigarettes. While I was there I saw Mary and her husband, Ernie. As we talked, they seemed to be genuinely concerned about me. Out of nowhere they invited me to go home with them to their house in the country. Before I knew it I had agreed to go with them.
What was intended to be a couple of days turned into a few weeks. I had so many questions and they had so many answers. Mary and Ernie kept telling me how much God had in store for me. I actually began to think that maybe I could ask God for help. During this time I contacted my mother to let her know how I was doing. She told me a close gay friend, Doug, was trying to reach me about a party he was having. I wanted to go, but all the time knew it would be the entrance back into the same old grind. I felt the pull of my lifestyle, but at the same time I knew that something was happening to me on the inside. Each weekend that approached, Mary and Ernie would ask me to go to church with them. I was afraid to go and I didn't have the right clothes to wear. I decided not to go to the party and stayed where I felt safe and loved. The next morning I still wasn't sure I had the courage to go to church. I glanced at the front page of the newspaper to see a story of a fire that had consumed Doug's apartment the night before. The fire left one person dead and a number of other people injured. I knew then that God had spared my life. Tears filled my eyes as I made my way into the next room to let them know that I would to go to church with them.
I will never forget the feeling I had as I walked into that church. I was warmly welcomed by the pastor, Frank White. For the next few weeks I attended every service. It was on a Sunday in late November that things would change forever for me. As I sat listening to the Pastor White talk about how God loved us no matter what we had done or who we were, I began to weep uncontrollably. As he gave the altar call, an empty voice spoke to me and said, "If you go forward you will die, I'll see to it." I wrestled with everything in me. Stepping out of my seat I made what seemed to be the longest journey of my life, fell to my knees and I pleaded with God to forgive me. As I was praying, Pastor White helped me to my feet and asked me what he could pray with me about. I told him I did not know if God could help me because I was a homosexual, and I believed I had gone too far. He said that God was in the business of saving people who thought they had gone too far. Then he led me in a prayer of repentance, anointed me, and prayed over me. I felt a weight of darkness leave me. After that he did a remarkable thing, he put his arms around me and held me very close to him and began to weep. I held onto him as if I was never going to let go. This was the first time a man had ever held me without sex being the motive. Pastor White and many of the men of that church took me under their wing and for the next two years fed me nothing but Jesus, and his Word. God began to restructure me and make me a walking example of transformation. At times it was difficult and painful but for every trial there would be victory.
One day I said, "Lord, I don't care if it's just you and me for the rest of my life, I will never let you go." But the Lord was about to bring into my life a person who would play the biggest part in my healing and deliverance. One day as I was sitting in a restaurant with a friend, a young girl walked up to me and ask if I remembered her. I did indeed remember her. She had dated a friend of mine from many years before. As she asked me what I had been doing, I began to tell her how the Lord had come into my life. She responded with how she was looking for a church to attend and I quickly invited her to attend with me. Into my life walked my wife, Rebecca. The Lord told me from the first time I saw her that I would marry her. I remember laughing and saying "Yeah, right." Needless to say, God was right. Two years later we were married at the same altar where I had given my heart to the Lord, by the same pastor who had prayed and held me. The first few years we dealt with a lot of my excess baggage and insecurities, but God always gave us grace. After nineteen years of marriage and two children, a daughter 15 and a son 10, God has been faithful to his Word.
Today we reach out to those who seek deliverance from homosexuality through Straight to the Cross. I am often asked what was the one factor that led to such a transformation and healing in my life. I know now that it requires obedience to God's Word. If we do what His Word says, it compels Him to do what He's promised.
Rev. Dandridge Green is the director of Straight to the Cross, an Exodus International referral applicant. Straight to the Cross, P.O. Box 883, Mt. Airy, Maryland 21771-0883, sttcmail@aol.com, (301) 829-9421.
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