Adam's Testimony

(By Adam Piatt)

I wish I had kept a diary. As time passes, the memories fade and I forget important things and lose details. But this much is clear: For a long time I knew I was different.

Because of my attraction to men, I acted on those feelings in my early twenties. I began to live as a gay man. I thought I had found freedom, but my lifestyle became a prison. I searched for love and companionship. I didn't find it. Instead my life spiraled out of control. I drank too much; I tried different drugs. Nothing satisfied me. I finally "came out" to family and friends and received mixed reactions. My family reacted with shock, anger, and disgust. Their attitude drove me further into the gay lifestyle. My parents asked me to speak to a minister they knew. With apprehension I agreed. I went to him and said, "I don't want to change. This is the path I feel I should be on."

He talked and quoted a few Bible verses. Finally he said, "There is no hope for you." He said I was to tell my parents that I was a lost cause.

In the parking lot I cried because I believed him. How could God love a lost cause like me?

Time passed and my wounds of rejection healed. I wanted a life-long partner and I settled for a string of relationships. As I learned, not many gay relationships last. They are riddled with deception, lies, and infidelity.

I finally met someone and we stayed together for six years. I had made a promise that I wouldn't leave him. "No matter what, this relationship will last. This is the one."

At my parents' request I started to attend a different church with them. I went a few times and listened to the conservative minister. To my amazement, I kept going back.

I assumed that because I was an ethical person, I would go to heaven. The pastor's sermons forced me to question whether that was true. His messages made me uncertain about myself and about heaven. I faced much inner fighting, many tears, and difficult questions. I wasn't happy and I didn't know what to do. "Why, God, why won't you let me be happy?"

My six-year relationship started to go wrong. My boyfriend and I argued—constantly it seemed. "And I'm going to hell," I told myself.

I kept returning to that church and I listened to the messages—even when I didn't want to hear.

Finally, unable to fight the inner turmoil, I knelt beside my bed and prayed. "God, I am sorry. I have sinned." The tears came. I didn't know I could cry so much and so long. That night I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. And I didn't know I could feel such wonderful, freeing relief.

I called my cousin, who had never stopped praying for me. She asked others to pray—people I didn't know. I told my parents next because they also had never given up on God changing me.

Finally, and with great hesitancy, I told my pastor. As I talked, I shed more tears—a lot of tears. I had hesitated because I was afraid he wouldn't want me to return to the church.

He listened and accepted me. He is still my pastor.

Since then, I have made many mistakes. I fall, but through the power of Jesus Christ I get back up.

"It Isn't Really True!"

(By Dann Youle)

When I first discovered (uncovered or whatever you want to call it) that I had been sexually abused as a boy, in my head I heard myself saying, "But it isn't really true!"

Denial was such a defense in those early days. I had been able to deny I'd been abused for 28 years, so because I thought I recalled something now, did that suddenly make it true?

This was the beginning of what I thought was my going crazy. I felt split off from myself: I didn't know who I was and the denial was the only way I could survive. I sometimes wondered if I would or could take my next breath. It was the wildest, weirdest feeling.

One day these thoughts raced through my head:

It really isn't true.

It really isn't true.

IT really isn't true.

It really isn't true.

It really isn't true.

It really isn't true!

"God, You can't expect me to believe this and you can't expect me to live if it is true!"

It was at that moment I felt God say to me, "You don't believe it can be true, I wish it weren't—but do you believe you can breathe? I give you breath, Dann; I will breathe for you."

In that moment, even though it was so hard, I realized I was more alive than ever. I felt such intense pain, but all the same it was glorious. Jesus was letting me know that I didn't have to be afraid. I might be scared to death in that moment that I was going to die, but I didn't have to fear anything, even if I did.

I have found that this phenomenon is generally true of men who have been abused. Until we can come out of that denial and get to the pain, the healing never begins.

When I was trying to convince myself that it wasn't true, there was something I needed to be in touch with even if it was painful. It is like a gentle but persistent wake-up call that God uses to point me to Him.

The it-really-isn't-true response is rare for me these days. If I have to feel the pain, there is a good reason for it. It's not that I enjoy the pain, but I find that I can find Jesus in the middle of it. He feels my pain and understands pain Himself. When I think of where my sin put Him I know that He has felt my pain in ways that I can't even begin to imagine. To know the depths of pain He has felt has allowed me to trust Him more and more in depths of my pain.

So, yes, it really is true! I was abused—horribly, terribly, but not unredemptively. The pain my past abuse causes at times seems unbearable, but the healing is sweet and real.

Cecil Murphey's Story (Part 2 of 2)

I want to point out why I think my healing began when it did. Shirley had been the first person in my life that I ever felt loved me without reservation. I didn't have to be good, act nice, or behave in a way to win acceptance. I had that simply because she loved me. Although it took me a number of years to trust that love, I know I couldn't have faced my childhood if she hadn't been there to encourage me and to hold my hand.

David was the second person. We had been friends for eight years before my memories began to return. When I tentatively opened up, he didn't push or try to fix me. Although I can't explain how, he enabled me to trust him and to open up.

From Shirley and then from David, I slowly began to trust others. I could never have done it without that supportive love behind me.

Over the next three years, I shared my abusive childhood with a few others. One of them, Steven, led the small, weekend group at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia. He lives in the northeast, but we regularly phoned, wrote, and later e-mailed. Five times, he and I met for a weekend just to talk about our childhoods and to open ourselves to further healing. During those early years, some events were so overpowering I cried more than I talked. More than once I wished I were dead.

At the time, I was so filled with my own pain I had no realization of what Shirley was going through. She was hurting and she had been hurting for years. Whenever one of my odd acts of behavior occurred, she blamed herself for doing something wrong, even if she couldn't figure out what it was. Yes, both of us had become victims of my childhood abuse.

Once I crept out of the morass, I realized three important facts. First, I was safe and no longer feared the terrors of childhood. Second, Shirley understood as much as anyone who hasn't had the same experience could understand. Third—and the most important—Shirley loved me without demands or conditions. Because of her, I had finally found a safe place grounded in reality. When I wanted to deny that the abuse had really happened, she infused me with courage. When I wanted to quit striving for wholeness, Shirley affirmed me by little things, such as holding my hand or letting me see the tears in her own eyes.

Shirley's unconditional love helped me go through the stages from anger to acceptance and eventually to forgiveness of my perpetrators (both now dead).

I'm thankful for David's loving friendship, but Shirley was the person I lived with, and the one individual with the most power to have hurt me. Not once did she reproach me or lash out, and I'm thankful to her for that. The quality of that love enabled me to accept God's unconditional love. Because of my wife's support, I slowly moved forward until I could say, "I know that God loves me, that I'm worthwhile, loved and accepted by my Heavenly Father."

Through the years, Shirley suffered because of the effects of my abuse. Even now I sometimes feel sad because of the pain she's had to go through, especially during those dark years when she had no idea what was happening. She silently accepted blame and wrestled with her own issues of self-esteem and failure. It was so unfair, and I owe her so much for being there, for being God's instrument, and most of all for being the human link that joined my hand with that of a loving Father.