These words from an old hymn based on Psalm 23 express perfectly what happened to me 25 years ago when I encountered the Lord and He brought me out of homosexuality.

My journey into homosexuality followed a pattern that we see over and over again in ministry. I was an unplanned child, born to parents who would have preferred a girl. My older brother was more athletic and generally fit the "all boy" model far better than I, and somehow, he became Dad's and I became Mom's.

My parents were good kind conscientious people. They did all they could to raise their sons to become successful, well-adjusted men, but one circumstance tended to shape all of our destinies. My father was subject to depression so severe that that he was under psychiatric care for many years, and on a few occasions had to be hospitalized. He could barely cope with life, much less be the husband and father that we needed him to be. In his bad times he drank heavily, and he and my mother fought verbally quite often.

My mother's life was difficult, and to a limited degree I became her comfort and confidant. I certainly identified with her more than with my father. No parent makes a child homosexual. We have learned that a child's early home environment may provide "the set up," but other significant factors always come into play in steering someone toward homosexuality.

For me, a couple of those factors were decisions that I made quite early in life. I have a vivid memory of lying in bed one night as a young boy, listening to my parents fight, and saying to myself quite smugly, "They can never hurt me; no one will ever hurt me." I believe that I made a decision that night to never be emotionally vulnerable. As a consequence of that decision, until my conversion years later, I would never truly be free to love anyone.

I also retreated into a world of fantasy, sexual and other wise. It became my secure retreat from the pain of life. In a typical fantasy would be a boy hero leading men into battle, and then when the fighting was over, the men would use me sexually. I both longed for my own manhood and for the manhood of other men.

At first my longings weren't sexual, they were simply a craving for a man's attention. But, of course, eventually, they did turn sexual. A strong aggressive neighbor boy who was about a year older than I, when he found out I was more than willing to take care of him sexually, was delighted to let me do it. Although my fears of being found out limited my activity, I was homosexually active with other boys from about age 13 through high school.

My sexual activities stopped when I went to college. I believe that this was because I joined a fraternity and the male relationships established there largely satisfied my craving for male contact. Still, my sexual desires never changed and my fantasies abated very little. Although I dated some girls, there was never any doubt that my overwhelming desire was for a man.

I was blessed to grow up in a time and culture in which there was no gay alternative lifestyle. I knew there were a couple of homosexual bars in Baltimore, and I would visit pornographic book stores to glance at the magazines in the "male" section, but it never really occurred to me to bail out of the only world I knew and let homosexuality determine the course of my life. Like so many homosexually oriented men of that time, I would get a job, marry, have children and cope as best I could.

That's exactly what happened. Willa Benson had been my friend from elementary school days. We dated through high school, off and on during college, and two years after college we were married. I told Willa nothing of my homosexual desires.

The first years of marriage went well. W e had two daughters and I started to move up in the business world. We were active in our little neighborhood Episcopal Church, and we led a busy social life. But gradually, the pressures of career and family started to build and weigh upon me, and at the same time, a faulty thyroid gave Willa some emotional problems. My response was to retreat into my old means of finding comfort: homosexual fantasy and pornography, and, five years into the marriage, sex with other men.

At first I drove 45 miles to Washington, D.C. to go to a gay bar to find a contact, but as time passed I became more and more reckless until I was openly going to gay bars and gay cruising places in Baltimore. A major part of my homosexuality was masochistic, and I started answering ads for sadomasochistic sex.

For 10 years I led the classic double life. Successful in business, vice-president and treasurer of a prestigious Baltimore company, a pillar of my local church - church treasurer, board member and Sunday school teacher. The front was masterfully constructed and maintained. In reality, my life was out of control and my marriage had become a sham. I was drinking heavily, and turned much of my guilt on Willa. We fought frequently. For the last two years of my homosexual activity, I was unable to function sexually in the marriage. I never justified what I was doing, but I felt powerless to stop it. I saw my life on a downward spiral, which eventually would cost me my family, my career, maybe even my life.

Then, two things happened. Willa, searching for help, got herself into a prayer group. Unbeknownst to her she had stumbled upon a group of older women who were mighty prayer warriors. The leader of the group was Helen Shoemaker, author of a half dozen books on prayer and co-founder of The Anglican Fellowship of Prayer. Willa did not tell them the exact nature of our problems, but they started praying for me and for our marriage.

Not long after this, a friend at work had a profound religious experience. One night, at his children's Catholic parish school, Jim came upon a large prayer meeting being run by the Lamb of God Community, an interdenominational, but mostly Catholic, charismatic group. Jim was captivated by what he saw and went in and joined them. He went back the following week, and at that meeting he surrendered his life to Christ.

As Jim tried to explain to me what had happened, I became certain that he had had a true encounter with the Lord. Somehow I knew that I could too, but this was the most frightening thing I could think of. I knew that such an encounter would involve my homosexuality. Perhaps I would have to confess who I really was: perhaps I would have to give it up. As much as I hated it, I didn't think I could live without it. It had been my way of coping with life for as long as I could remember.

But things were desperate enough that after six or seven weeks of agonizing, on Tuesday, November 26, 1974, I went to the meeting with Jim. He didn't know my problem, nor did anyone there. At some point during the evening, as the 200 or so people were praising God out loud, I said quietly, "God, I give up. My life is a total mess. I can't handle it any more. You take over." And He did. Within a few days, I knew that some profound changes had I taken place in me. First of all, I fell head over heels in love with Willa and I desired her physically. My homosexual fantasies that had almost never left me were gone. And most important of all, I knew that Jesus was real, that He loved me, and I was starting to love Him.

A few weeks later, I told Willa the whole truth about my life. Her years of denial came crashing down and in the months ahead she would encounter the wounds that my years of rejection, deception, anger and blame-casting had caused. Her healing was just beginning and would take a number of years. Being able to trust me and receive my love came very slowly. A part of the new start in life that we were both given was the birth of our son, Stephen, 18 months after my conversion.

It was about four years before I heard of anyone else who had been set free from homosexuality, and then I read of Love In Action, a ministry for healing homosexuality then in San Rafael, Calif. It would be another year before I actually met another "ex-gay" at my first Exodus Conference in Seattle. Exodus leaders were wary of my testimony at first. They had encountered others who claimed to have received sudden miraculous healings from homosexuality, only to find out in a year or two that these healings had been far from complete. Their caution was justifiable, but not because I had not been set free from compulsive behavior and sexual attractions to men. I had. Homosexuality is more than just sexual attractions and behavior, and I had barely begun to experience healing in other areas.

One area that had not been touched was my emotional neediness. Although it was no longer sexual, I still had a powerful longing for some big strong man to take care of me. That little-boy need did fade in the early years after my conversion, however, as I entered into a deep personal relationship with Jesus. He poured into me the man's love that 1 had never felt. Today, I believe that my need for male friendships are as normal and healthy as anyone's.

Homosexuality is also a matter of identity, and here again I had miles to go. I was 38 years old at the time of my conversion, but in the development of my masculinity and sense of manhood, I believe I was about 8 years old. I had to start growing up. This process took years, but again it was a mighty work of God. Today I am confident in and at total peace with my manhood.* Within the past couple of years I have gained another insight into how God changed me, one that goes back to the original sexual healing. I always saw that healing as a miracle. I don't anymore. I now see it as three miracles.

First, He broke down my wall of self-protection, and I was suddenly able to love. Second. God "desexualized" my unmet needs. For a time. I still longed for a man's love and attention, but that longing was no longer sexual. Third the sexual addiction was broken. Although not too many people experience change the way I did, everything that happened to me-being set free to love, desexualizing my unmet emotional needs, breaking the power of my addiction, having the deep needs of my heart met by Jesus, and growing into manhood (or womanhood) - can happen to any man or woman overcoming homosexuality. I have seen it happen hundreds of times.

In 1979, five years after the initial healing, I started Regeneration, a Christian ministry for men and women overcoming homosexuality. Willa progressed in her healing and ministers with me. Our daughters have grown up, married and given us six wonderful grandchildren. Steve, our little child of the promise, grew to be a strong Christian man, was recently married and is teaching school.

When I look back and consider what might have been, I can barely contain my gratitude. What a gracious God we serve. I am reaching the age where it will soon be time to let go of some of my ministry leadership responsibilities, but I cannot imagine ever wanting to stop helping people find the freedom and abundant life that our glorious God has given me.


*My story of Growth Into Manhood will be a part of a book of that title that I am writing. It will be published by Harold Shaw Publishers in the spring 2000.