Sidebar: Gay and Mad

Anger and homosexuality are no strangers to each other.. I cannot speak for other homosexuals, but personally, anger has been a huge part of my homosexual life. I cannot say if I would have been this young angry boy for much of my childhood had I been straight, but certainly I do think that my frustration with being a reluctant homosexual bubbled over again and again to the point where suicide thoughts and (more rarely) actual attempts resulted a lot of the time.

I don't know why homosexuality and anger seem to feed off each other so much other than to say that both are conditions that can often lead to frustration—frustration at being a reluctant homosexual, and even more frustration at being angry about it.

Much of my childhood anger and being just plain mad about being homosexual against my will was directed not at humans, who had little to do with who I was on the inside, but with God, who I felt had a LOT to do with who I was on the inside. For whatever reason, I could not reconcile my being a homosexual against my will with a loving God. For whatever reason, none of what I was or what I thought I would be made any sense to a young guy who on the inside often thought that he should love and worship God, only to find that deep-seated anger with that same God was keeping that worship from being anything but hypocritical. Please read that sentence again. Does that describe you? How could I shake my fist at God with one hand, which I often did, and also at the same time raise my other hand to God in an act of unselfish worship and adoration? The answer was, and is, such a thing is realistically impossible. They are really mutually exclusive acts. That was a source of even more frustration with me it turns out.

I think that for many young homosexuals, anger at God actually keeps them from exploring the possible causes and complexities of their own homosexuality vis-a-vis their relationship with God when their homosexuality is factored into the equation.

I look at the whole vicious cycle much like one might the scenario of a child who has accidentally torn some of his skin such as on an arm, to the point of bleeding. He scrapes his arm, and his mom cleans the wound, and covers it to lessen the chance of infection. The boy's body goes to work to generate a scab over the wound so that the skin beneath it might be recovered to the point where the boy is healed. However, that process of getting the scab can cause itching because it is essentially unfamiliar and foreign matter on the boy's body and it itches. So the boy does what he should not, he picks at the scab to relieve the itching. In doing so, he removes the scab before the skin beneath it has had a chance to complete its growth, and so he bleeds again from that area.

Once again, his mom must cover and cleanse the wound lest the boy get a serious infection with major complications, and the cycle starts all over again. Eventually the boy must know that picking at the itching scab is very self-defeating, for it will only prolong the healing process and possibly lead to serious infection and maybe much worse consequences of that infection. So the mom begs the boy to leave the itching scab alone, as it will fall off by itself after it has done its work, and not before. Eventually the boy “gets it” and does so, and receives the healing that he should have gotten days or weeks before had he left well enough alone.

If homosexuality is like getting that scrape, then the reconciliation of a guy's homosexuality to his ability to worship God is like the process of getting that scab over the wound. It is slow, difficult, and very prone to being damaged before it has had an opportunity to complete its work of reconciliation. The young homosexual picks at that scab to the point that any growth and healing is set back, and the process must begin again. Eventually, as happened in my case, the process is allowed to proceed according to schedule, in spite of the itching and pain, with the result of reconciliation of one's own homosexuality (complete with anger and frustration) with the act of loving and worshiping God being possible. Eventually that anger and frustration moves to a level that is compatible with loving God, and true worship and adoration of Him is possible at that point.

Where I am today is a point where sometimes I feel frustration at having to deal with my own homosexuality, but because my relationship with Jesus Christ that was allowed to happen without me “removing the scab prematurely” I am able to deal with that frustration without it blowing up into anger. Only a personal relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit can really work to “ground” that “lightning bolt” of anger that Satan often falsely suggests I am justified in exercising.

When Satan says, “go ahead, shake your fist at God, yell at Him, He deserves it!” I can now ignore him only because I was able to allow myself to build a relationship with Jesus Christ in spite of Satan's constant taunting of me with those barbs that on the surface seem so natural, so real, so commonsense. That relationship took years to perfect, and was actually Jesus reaching down to me rather than me reaching up to Him. That's very important to note. For I could never reach up enough to grab hold of His hand on my own. So He reaches down to just above my head, whereby I just need to reach up and grab hold of His hand and establish the eternal link with Him that can overcome all earthly trials and tribulations I may face. Oh, I will still have daily trials, but now I no longer have to face those alone. I have the Son of the King to help me in that, and that makes a world of difference.

If you feel anger toward God about your homosexuality as I did for much of my life, then you too need to stop peeling at that scab that forms as you may attempt to heal your relationship with your maker; that is so that healing may continue to the point that you may experience true love and forgiveness that can only come from the God who made you. It is not an easy path, nor a fun one necessarily, and often involves self-denial. But like anything worthwhile, it is something that must be done in order to receive the benefit that an eternal relationship with Jesus can provide. If you can just keep your big fat hands off of the scab long enough for the healing to continue, then you too can experience a relationship with Jesus you never before thought possible.