I was the second child of four born into a very loving family and was brought up in a solid church that preached the gospel. When I was nine years old I publicly dedicated my life to Christ and was baptized. I read the entire Bible during the first ten months following my baptism, and this intense devotion continued for several years. God clenched my heart at a young age with a grip that was strong and would not give way even when I tried to wrestle free of his grasp in the years to come.

Despite my picturesque upbringing, my young life was characterized by insecurity and fear. As I grew up and developed interests, I realized that I could not relate to the male peers and role models in my life because my interests seemed so different from theirs. I grew up on a dairy farm with a father and a brother who loved to farm. I loved animals, but I did not care for the long hours spent doing chores. I would have rather spent my time doing creative activities, such as drawing and reading, which I did not think other men respected or appreciated.

As time progressed, I felt further and further removed from the world of masculinity. But this did not stop the longing that I had to be loved and accepted by other men. I wanted to feel loved by my dad even though I was different from him, and I wanted to feel accepted by the boys at school even though I was different from them. Looking back, I now realize that my Dad did love me immensely, but because of our differences, I did not perceive his actions toward me as love.

As I continued to mature, this need to be loved as a man by a man was not met. My confusion increased during middle school when my desire for masculinity led to a physical attraction towards other men. One night in sixth grade I made the connection that these unmet eroticized desires for men meant that I was what the other kids termed “gay.” I wept that night as I laid in my bed alone, full of fear and shame. I swore to myself that nobody would ever find out about my confusion and my attractions. I believed that if anyone found out, they would confirm my fear that I was unlovable and inadequate. I gave up the hope of ever being able to connect with people at the intimate level that I longed for. I was faced with the bleak prospect of living my life alone.

For the longest time I refused to think about this turmoil. However, in eleventh grade I became depressed and bitter. I would fall into utter despair for weeks at a time, seeing little or no hope. During this time, God began to convict me that I needed to share my inner struggles with someone. One Thursday evening in January of my senior year of high school, I poured out my life story to my pastor. I had finally exposed the real me, naked and terrified without my masks. As I watched and listened to him respond, I saw tears in his eyes as he listened to my pain, and I felt, for the first time, that I was loved and accepted even without my facádes. I experienced a God whom I wanted to know through him.

My pastor also helped me to get in contact with Day Seven Ministries, my local Exodus affiliate, and I began meeting with a counselor there as well. God used Day Seven to confirm that it was not His will for people to act out on these feelings. It is not in His will because by acting out on homosexuality, I would be trying to meet a legitimate need (the need for love by a man) in an unhealthy and sinful way. Through Day Seven, God gave me a hope that healing was possible.

In college, I was ready to continue my healing and growing process. My first year in college I struggled spiritually and mentally, and I finished the year feeling very discouraged about the lack of progress that I had made in dealing with my issues. Instead of pursuing Christ, I became “comfortable” with a group of non-Christian friends whom I felt loved and accepted me.

As the year progressed, God revealed to me the shallowness of these relationships and gave me a hunger for deeper connection with him and with people. I dedicated the summer to preparing myself to go back for my sophomore year and to have my circumstances be different.

When I got back to school, I felt very alone. I poured out my pain and confusion to God once again. I said that I wanted to understand his love for me to the degree that it would make a difference in my life. I wanted to trust God but I did not know how. And I was tired, tired of trying and failing. “What now God?” Then God opened my eyes. He said, “Look at your life. See how these people love you? That’s me, that’s my goodness. I know you are hurting and you are scared of being rejected, but I will never reject you. Now let go of your self-pity and the lies that you are using to guard your heart because I have revealed something so much sweeter, my love, which I will use to impact and transform your heart and life into my likeness. Believe that I am who I say I am.”

I was able to begin to trust God because of this new hope that I had in Him. God laid on my heart different areas of my life where He wanted to work and different lies He wanted to expose. I opened myself up to God’s hands as He called me to repent of my doubt that God is who He says He is and to repent of the sins that flowed from this unbelief. He would then ask me to take steps of faith, to do something that I felt inadequate to do so that He could affirm His character in my life. I grew as God used me through my weaknesses and my fears.

Initiating and being proactive in pursuing male friends was one area that terrified me because of the potential for rejection. I began to initiate contact with Christian guys in Campus Crusade for Christ who I thought would make good friends. God blessed these steps of faith by surrounding me with Christian guys my own age who knew my struggles and who loved me the same as any other man. As I experienced this, God began to heal my heart of much of the damage that had been inflicted upon it from feeling like I was not as good as other guys for so many years. As I grew, God confirmed in my heart that I am not a man because of the sports I play, the interests I hold, or the guns I shoot, but that I am a man because I am a son of the living and almighty God who lives and breathes within my very person.

During the latter part of my college experience, God began to ask me to face the reality that I had bitterness in my heart. I had bitterness toward my dad, which was ultimately keeping me from deepening my relationship with him and with God. God gave me the courage to speak openly and honestly with my dad, to seek his forgiveness for my bitter heart. Since then there has been a great restoration in our relationship. As I matured, my concentration shifted from focusing solely on myself to focusing on Christ and His plan for the world.

As I followed God’s lead, He led me back to Day Seven. God had used Day Seven as a source of wisdom and support for me whenever I was home during breaks, and He laid it on my heart that this is where He wanted me. Not only so that He could use my experiences and my story to bring healing and hope to others, but also because He desired to continue to challenge me, to continue to reveal Himself to me, and to continue to transform my heart. During my two years at Day Seven, God used my clients, coworkers, various conferences, and my relationship with Him to redefine my approach to life, which can be summed up with the following statement: “Love God, love people, now.”

In every moment of every day I have the opportunity and am commanded to love, from the simplest smiles to the major sacrifices. As God has blessed me with the ability to love people with the love He has shown me, I have realized that all people need both to experience unconditional love and to hear truth. During my interactions with people, I need to be constantly seeking God to know when I should show them love as Christ loved the cripples, through a healing embrace, or love them as Christ loved the pharisees, through speaking truth.