Why I Chose. Why I Stay.

I have thought long and hard about sharing this. This is personal, but alternative messages are having such sway that I want the Truth to triumph. Only sharing will accomplish this.

In 2011 I hit a low point. You see, I am gay. I am homosexual. I am a Latter-day Saint. I love The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I could no longer expend the colossal force needed to deny my own feelings, to suppress my very nature, to continue starving my own needs. This was a dark time. I had made mistakes. I was suffering the consequences. The people who were charged with assisting me were in actual fact botching my case up. My shepherds, with one beautiful exception, were driving me away. I was now not only gay, but gay and having to bear the added burdens of others' disapproval, disdain, distaste. And in the midst of these afflictions, my passions burned for release.

It was a rainy early fall night. I was driving home. It had taken all of my energy not to pursue same sex liaison, and as I drove I pondered how my resolve to remain in The Church, in the Covenant, had dropped from a solid 100% to 51% stay vs. 49% leave. As I pondered, my resolve balanced precariously at 50/50. I had to confess to myself that by the morning my resolve to depart would exceed the 50% mark. I considered the physical ecstasy that would be mine within hours, except for one thing. I thought to myself with a mix of concern and consternation:

"What about all the people, in particular the young people, I had always told to be faithful, to rely on The Lord, that He would help them no matter what? What would I say when they saw my example? Would I want them to follow my example? But how could I justify caving in to homosexual temptation and yet insist that they resist heterosexual temptation? Also, what would I say to the one shepherd who had been putting such trust in me, who was responding to that invisible Hand of guidance, to help me, unbeknownst to anyone else?"

In this moment, as I drove along the wet streets, lights glistening on the pavement, I heard a voice. I heard this voice not with my ears, but with my mind. Yet, this was the clearest sound I had ever heard. In fact, I felt my eardrums relax even as this voice came over my mind with incredible clarity. I could still hear the peeling sound of rubber tires over wet pavement, my turn signal, other cars passing by, but this voice came across with amazing clarity, and tenderness, such sweet tenderness.

Immediately I recognized Who it was that was speaking to me: It was Heavenly Father. Later, as I pondered how it was that I recognized a voice I had never heard, I realized how--from reading the Scriptures. Somehow by reading them with earnest I had come to know the voice of God. He spoke tenderly, with great concern:

"James, what's the matter?"

I responded with words weighed down by grief:

"Father, I'm not doing too well."

Heavenly Father responded with enormous tenderness, His syllables lengthening somewhat in His concern:

"Tell me why?" 

But here I soured. I realized that all my life I had been running scared. All my life I had been terrified to admit that everything that I had been taught about God and gays was that He hated fags, that He gloried only in destroying them, and that I was one of them. I had tried so hard for decades to suppress myself, to change myself, to transform into someone else, a heterosexual me. But all of this had failed. I had failed. I was less than a good member of my Church, and I was teetering in my resolve. So I spoke:

"You wanna know why? I'll tell you why!"

And I told. I do not ever remember making a list of every sexual sin I wanted to enjoy, but apparently I had, because I started rattling the list off. I caught myself out even as I continued speaking: "Dude, what are you doing? You're telling God the most un-Godly things." But as I thought I considered how it was that I was going to get rejected on Judgment Day anyway because I could not do the one thing God expected of me: To stop being gay. So, I reasoned, every box on the list of requirements for my departure has been checked except for the last one, "Rejected of God". I will force His hand now. I will shock God with the revelation of what is in my heart, and when He booms His rejection at me, I will depart, slipping away onto the plane of the night, joining the darkness, becoming the being I was born to be: Wanton, lascivious and free.

When I finished the very explicit list of gay sexual acts I was burning to experience, I gripped my steering wheel, confident of the crack of thunder or explosive outrage of an offended God. I was certain I knew what He would say, for I had run it through my mind on many occasions: "I am God. Man of Holiness is my name. And you come to me with these filthy, disgusting, repugnant acts. You're a returned missionary, Temple married no less. I have told you such things about the Scriptures, and you come to me with this!"

The only thing I could never fathom was what the actual words of severance would be. As I braced myself for His peal of wrath, I told myself not to cry as He cut me off, but I knew I would cry. 

Here Heavenly Father spoke. He said two words, two softly spoken words. I was struck by the words, by their simplicity, but also by the tone in which He spoke them. At the same time an image was coming to my mind, mind you, I did not see anything except what was before me: Wet pavement, roadside lamps, the customary lights of night traffic. Yet somehow His words evoked an image in my mind. The image was of His face. He had a tender expression: His eyes were half closed, moist, and He had a thin smile, curling slightly to the side. There was kindness in His expression, and a patient tone, though with a soft sense of melancholy:

"I know."

I was taken aback. I could hardly string two words together: 

"Wait, you? 

Wait, God knows. 

Wait, what does? 

Wait, I mean." 

What I was trying to say, but could not put out coherently was more like this: 

"You know? 

And you're not angry? 

What does this mean? 

I thought you hated these acts, 

hated those who performed them, 

and yet you're not angry?

What does this mean?" 

I had said many times, "God knows everything, even the thoughts of our heart," but I had only paid lip service to that idea. In reality I had thought that my inner temptations and thoughts, and even many of my acts, had been secret, so it astonished me to hear from The Father that He actually knew what I had been going through, what I had been thinking. 

When He resumed speaking His voice took on a twinge of an emotion that surprised me as I had never imagined that I would hear it in Deity: Vulnerability. I do not know how else to describe the sound other than to say that it reminded me of the situation where, for example, a young schoolboy--nerdy, shy--is in love with a beautiful girl. He has to declare his love to her; he cannot not tell her, and yet he knows she'll reject him. And still he is hopeful against all odds that she might reciprocate. Still, facing reality his voice begins to crack, and his face takes on a silly sort of smile, the look and texture of which immediately precede heartbreak, or rather, accompany the first splitting tensions of heartbreak. It was in this manner that The Father spoke two words to me, it was this expression His image had as it came to my mind. He said two words, and these two words so stunned me that my mind went immediately blank from astonishment. He said:

"Choose Me." 

I was silent. No thoughts. No response. I was absolutely astonished and left speechless. Then He spoke again, and the twinge of vulnerability swelled to tearfulness:

"I will be your Man."

In reality the word He used that I recorded here and have reported as "Man" was some other word, some word I immediately understood, did not actually know, but seemed to recall upon hearing it. The word was not from English, it seemed. The word raced across my mind leaving a trace of understanding but an inability to utter, repeat or convey. Maybe He said "Adam" from Hebrew, or some other word, but I understood the word more or less to be "Man", though it would have been hard even in the moment to explain in English. My impression was that I did not have power to utter it. 

Word aside, the statement was so astonishing that I was shocked back into speech, and I gasped: 

"What?!"

Before I could continue, He spoke again, and this time He was so choking back tears that His voice was audibly breaking up. The Father, God Almighty, El Shaddai, Elohim, His voice was hoarsely faltering as He choked through tears to plead with me, saying:

"I will fill you."

I realized immediately that His heart was breaking, and the rupture was caused by the actions I was about to undertake. More to the point, I was shocked. For decades, literally for decades, I had feared being rejected by God. Now God had turned the tables on me: It was I who was rejecting Him, casting Him away by actions I was contemplating, was on the verge of committing. His plea seemed at once laughable, as how could choosing God compete with let alone resolve the physical ecstasy I was about to enjoy? But the tears He was choking back touched my heart, and I did not have the heart to break His heart. With that lightning-fast rapidity with which the mind is capable of processing, as I began to speak, I knew I was giving it all up: I would never know gay sex, gay love, gay relationships, my gay promised land. I was giving all of that up for Him because He asked it of me. I shuffled these words out:

"Okay. Okay. Okay."

Silence ensued. Suddenly horrifying clarity came over me. My situation, my life, my actions, every detail that had not seemed so bad as I raced out of the Gospel, now that I had executed an unanticipated 180 degree about-face immediately took on a different appearance. Things were worse than ever before, and I was scared. In fear I spoke up again:

"Father, I'm in trouble, and I don't know what to do."

The Father spoke to me again, and this time His voice was strong, magisterial, the voice of a Man who would command and would be neither disobeyed nor delayed. He said:

"Thou hast chosen Me, 
so rely on Me. 
I will resolve this. 
I will resolve this, 
and it will be between Me and you. 
Thou hast chosen Me,
so rely on Me.
I will resolve this."

I was somewhat relieved, but fear still coursed though me. I shuffled out my speech again:

"Okay. Okay. Okay."

As I recall, this was on a Thursday night. By Saturday I was battling gay passion and fearful I could fall. I knelt and asked The Father for a sign, not a sign for consuming my lusts on, but a confirmation, something to relieve my battle, something to give me hope. The next day, Sunday, I met with the Bishop, and He told me that this situation I was in had gone on long enough. He was going to move for its speedy end. He spoke with determination. For months I had been trying everything possible to make my predicament budge, and yet my obstacles stood like the monoliths arranged in Stonehenge. I had bloodied my limbs trying to budge them, and had made no progress. This failure had led to my despair, and despair had played a huge part in my looming departure from the Church. Now, before my eyes, I saw a monolith start lurching forward, and in a slow and heavy crest it fell into another monolith, and like a domino effect, one obstacle after another fell until I was renewed, restored, reborn. 

I have had my ups and downs. Seldom is a life struggle all victories from one point on. But I had begun winning key battles, still losing others, almost losing some, but through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I have come back each time. And I can look the mortal shepherd whom my Eternal Shepherd sent me in the eye and say, "I have tried, in Jesus I have tried, and through and with Jesus, I have overcome." I imagine that is what Judgement Day will be like too.

So when people ask me, why,  "Why do you remain Mormon if you are gay? Why do you stay in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Why do you believe?", I tell them the truth:

Because God lives. 

The Father really honestly and truly lives.

He hears prayers.

He answers prayers.

He loves me.

He loves us.
He loves everybody.

He is real.

He is not a figment of imagination.

He is not a myth retold and resold.

He is real.

God actually really exists,

and He is so loving, so tender, so sweet.

He really actually knows the thoughts of our hearts.

He really actually sees each and every one of us.

We can confide anything in Him, and He does not get angry.

And He really does care.

And Jesus really is His Son.

And all my shortcomings notwithstanding--all of them before this encounter, during the encounter, and since the encounter notwithstanding--He loves me, blesses me, and gives me the chance to wash, and wash, and wash again in the blood of His Son through the miracle of repentance, and the miracle of His encouragement to try again to do better. And now that I have put this experience down in writing, I can actually say that my experience is actually textual.

May God bless you for reading this. 

May you bless yourselves by turning to Him.