Then I saw any time I was hurt by my partner, the pain was so deep it was as if my sense of womanhood was being threatened. I was controlling, possessive and expressed a strong need for agreement and affirmation because I had somewhere in the process looped this person into my identity as an inseparable part of me.
Any action they took that indicated a distinction between us as people resulted in a fight. I felt either legitimized as a valuable person or completely worthless based on their everyday responses to me. When I first began to see and understand this is what was at work in me, I started to rise up a little bit against it. The foundations of my faith gave me the understanding I could and should call out to God for completion and identity in these areas instead of trying to draw it out of a relationship with a woman, or any human for that matter.
The revelation came that I was engaging in idolatry, expecting wholeness and fulfillment from something and someone that wasn’t designed to give it to me, and I was valuing that as primary to God. It was angering and humiliating when I saw that I was underestimating my own womanhood and allowing some other woman to define what was rightfully and uniquely mine to express.
This marked my freedom from the bondage of looking to women for affirmation in my womanhood,
and I started looking for that affirmation in the mirror—the one I dressed in front of each day and the one in the Word of God. I wasn’t immediately changed entirely. The habits of my emotions and sexuality were forces to be reckoned with for sure (that’s where the “fight” came in), but I was free from the trappings that would draw me back in with any real level of expectation.
Freedom introduced a new level of logic I had not experienced in my struggle before, and as a result I never engaged the idea of a same-sex relationship again with any sense of merit or as a legitimate option for my life.
With serious gaps in my identity closing quickly, I began to see the appeal of having a man in my life.
As time went on and my expression of womanhood became more clear and defined in me, I grew in confidence and began to look at men with new eyes. Over time I began to evaluate what I would want in a man, and it became very clear to me that I was certain my attraction to women had ended and I was in fact sexually and emotionally attracted to men.
Today I am married to the man God chose to give me, and as you read this we’re on the road for a little anniversary getaway.
In addition to a beautiful marriage, God has added to my life the joy of godly, healthy friendships with other women. I couldn’t imagine my life another way. Here are the concerns that bring questions to my heart as I continue to live this story:
How can we be about the business of building bridges between those who experience same-sex attraction and those who don’t?
How can we begin to have this conversation in healthy and productive ways in our culture?
Are we digging deep, as Christians, finding honor for all people?
