To Christians With Same Sex Attractions

One of my old crushes was doing a radio interview today. Melissa Etheridge has a new album out, all covers of 50's and early 60's tunes, and older blues tunes. I had forgotten entirely about that. Obviously, the radio interview didn't cause me to start going all crazy or anything, but it reminded me of another time... Then I remembered other crushes like that. I was almost afraid that remembering would bring it back, which it didn't, but that reminded me of the torment that so often goes with that kind of temptation. You're always afraid it will be triggered, and that you will feel terrible while you sit there with whatever positive chemicals God made for romance flooding your system at the same time. it is very confusing. And awful. I can understand why people would want to just give up.
I wanted to give up. But I didn't. And now I'm talking about the whole thing in the past tense, as I have been for a long time.

A post someone made in a facebook group I am in:
"The Book of Romans chapters 5 through 8 are very powerful. Ask the Holy Spirit to intercede and guide you through the scripture readings. For the scripture is Spiritual and communicates with our Spirit."
When I was walking through it I read those a lot. I didn't think it was helping that much,only a little. but i think it kept feeding me and i kept on growing.

Abraham waited decades for his answer to prayer, and I remember thinking I didn't want to have to do that, but I told myself it didn't matter, my life and my being was God's and if for some reason he would make me wait that long i would do so. I bet Abraham wanted to spend his youth running and playing and wrestling with his kid. He didn't get that, but he did still get the kid.
It was definitely not that longfor me.It was years but not decades. Also I have found since that more healing is needed of the wounds that made it possible for me to be tempted that way. I am still healing, but I have still been walking free, as in, without any same sex attractions and in my case also having opposite sex attractions, for along time despite those wounds. Don't get discouraged by seeing a new pile of wounds you never realized you had that need healing. It doesn't absolutely guarantee a delay in your answer. However, having the wounds exposed may still be part of God's work in freeing you...

Its like a metaphor Corrie ten Boom used to use: she showed a cross-stitch she was doing and showed the back side, which looked a mess. she said "Life is like a weaving between my god and me. He sees the upper,"  she showed the front of the cross stitch" "and I, the underside." then she showed the back/bottom again, which looked like a tangle mess of crazy threads going this way and that way.
Everybody has that problem, it just comes in many forms. Some people its crippling disease, for some people its a temptation for some kind of sin, some people it is poverty, or crazy relatives. For some people, its a war torn and starving country! Or combination of these things. Never let the enemy make you feel isolated, like this temptation makes you different from others who don't experience it. all of us are different, but all of is are the same. just keep walking, knowing who He said you are, and stick to that.

Don't give up. It is not who you are. We all do get to decide who we want to be and what direction we want our life and thinking to go. And God never makes carry anything alone, He's there and there are others even if you just don't see it right now.
Godspeed.
Btw, Just to make sure there is no confusion, I did not use any "reparative therapy" and I definitely do not endorse that.
~Mother Star

Keep on walking in the light that you have. As the sun rises, more will be seen. But stay on the road you must travel until you reach your destination, whether the journey be short, or lengthy.

On telling the truth that hurts/offends

Lots of people complain about ANY Christian who stands by the Bible on homosexual behavior.
I already told my tale of battling this temptation for years myself and how bad it hurt when people handled this truth-telling obligation the wrong way, but I want to illustrate the point with a different sin, since sin is the same thing no matter what form it takes.

When I think of people speaking truth that is not comfortable and someone being alienated as a result, I think of when I was admiring this particular group of people.
They do really interesting things like trapeze artists or sort of like dancing in the air and swinging around, but they are hanging by huge hooks shoved through the skin on their backs and shoulders. The swinging and such they are doing is pulling harder on those wounds. It would be pretty cool if they weren't hanging by really big piercings, but they are, so... it's not.

It was on Ripley's believe it or not, and they were explaining the deeper meaning s of "body altercation" it is a meditation/zen type thing but instead of relaxing into an altered state of consciousness, one shocks themselves into one through self-torture. Very demonic, and more clearly so than T.M. or some other unhealthy spiritual things people sometimes do. I was totally enthralled and in love with it.

My dad and sister got upset (probably the one thing they should not have done though, lose their cool and yell), and dad talked about how we treat our temple and quoted a verse, I don't remember which. He said, "drinking isn't as bad as that!" (which is wrong, getting drunk is a sin, just like this is). He said doing this to yourself is like doing this to Jesus (he was right, it hurts Jesus to see stuff like this as if we did it to Him).

I got offended and accused them of judging. I think I quoted or misquoted some lame verse all out of context. I went on like they were mistaken about what they were saying. My dad corrected my obvious error, which I then disagreed with and said he was judging and tried to act like I was being the nice, Christ-like one taking the high road and he wasn't, and like he didn't make logical sense. He also said having pleasure in someone else doing it is as bad or worse than actually doing it, and I think he also mentioned that Christians aren't supposed to revel in things that hurt God, and that you can't minister to people by doing that, but maybe my memory injected that because I know it now in hindsight. I'm not sure...
My sister said something like, "You know its wrong and you don't have anything to say to prove it isn't. You just won't admit it because you think it's cool." I was FURIOUS, and yes, I was further alienated from them in this argument. Would a different response have helped? I doubt it. If they had soft-pedaled it, like saying, "Maybe we see the Word differently and that's just fine. I don't agree with it but you should do whatever's in your heart. I'll try to keep an open mind..." Then it would have planted a seed of confusion more than I already had! I really believe that. Later, when I let God deal with me and renew my mind/spirit, I got over that unhealthy perception - with a vengeance.

Sometimes truth actually hurts. The truth that homosexuality was a sin hurt a lot when I was tempted for it, but I still accepted it as truth and persevered until I was free, until my thoughts lined up more with God's thoughts.. Even if folks get upset, when they are willfully doing what they should know is wrong and are choosing not to know better, they need to hear the truth even if they hate it, just like I did.

Since ALL sin looks like this (above) to God, telling someone its ok to continue in sin is like advocating for THIS in the name of Jesus and in the name of love - and actually very strong emotional bonds form between the practitioners of this "art." People are drawn to it, as I was, by a sense of connection, belonging, strength, "beauty", a lure of "freedom" (believe it or not), a "high" caused by an altered state of consciousness, plus maybe other stuff.

Now, if I were reaching out to the guys doing this, I would NOT handle it the same way; only a person who claims to know Christ who did that or was enjoying watching something like that (like I once did) requires such heavy handedness. If I was talking to the men themselves, I would have to be less "dogmatic", if you will, because they are on the outside. They need truth too, yes, but do not carry the responsibility of being salt and light that professing Christians do. These guys are not being hypocrites or misrepresenting Christ to the world; they are just the regular lost that all of us have been.

Today, I feel bad for those guys instead of admiring or envying them, and sickened by people who look on with relish. ALL sin looks like this to God, in the spirit realm - be it drinking, or porn, or homosexual actions, or B&D/S&M, or T.M. or Wicca or "the Left-hand Path," or lying, or stealing, or enjoying watching this kind of stuff, or anything else. Sin is sin, period. It is destructive to us on the inside and it hurts God to watch it, like this should probably hurt to watch especially if you were the mother/father of someone in this film, which I have cut screenshots out of to spare you having to watch it in case you feel you probably shouldn't or are not allowed to by parents (for good reasons).

 I think we all look like that (above) to God and angels when we sin and pursue sin, and like justify it or whatever. We sit there hurting ourselves like crazy and think that it's great. We might even want to let the world know or raise awareness of how great it is and how wrong anyone who insists that its wrong is. Other times, we might point our finger at someone else's sin who disagrees with us and say "Look how wrong they are...! That means I'm right!" or some other ridiculousness.
We just can't understand why a God who loves us would absolutely demand that we stop.
Truthfully though, how could He love us and not?

Godspeed

~Mother Star

Homosexuality - Living Out Christian Convictions In A Productive Way.

Have you guys hear about that doctor in MI who refused to treat a baby because she was being raised by "married" lesbians?

I assume she would accept the children of un-wed moms and cohabiting opposite sex couples (there are sooo many now, it would be hard to stay in business otherwise, I think), so why choose this sin on the part of the caregivers to refuse to take care of the baby over? If you think this is what standing up for your beliefs is, ask yourself if you refuse service to cohabiting couples or people who likely use drugs or drink heavily on a regular basis, or own a business that does things you don't believe in like sell porn or booze or whatever. If the answer is no, then you are not really standing for your beliefs but genuinely discriminating.
I recognize a need in the church for balanced teaching on how to respond to situations like this, and how to know if you really are compromising your faith or not when confronted with such people in a work or business environment, because so many Christians just don't know what to do and the enemy takes advantage by tempting them to do counter-productive stuff like this. Sometimes, people dothe wrong thing because they really do not know what to do.

Medical care for a child conceived in rape doesn't mean you condone rape. Medical care for a child raised by unmarried parents is not condoning cohabiting or fornication.
Medical care for a child raised by practicing homosexuals is not condoning homosexual behavior or giving your stamp of approval to same-sex marriage. Rather,  it just makes it harder for people who think they are homosexuals to find the truth, because those who carry the truth are not in any close personal contact with them.
Treat those who commit this sin different from how you treat other sexual sins, and your statement that you do not really discriminate or hate, and do not believe they are truly even different, starts to look silly. This behavior really does a lot to promote the gay agenda, and severely hurts the cause of Christ.
Now, refusing to participate in a same-sex wedding is refusing to actually participate in the sin, but refusing to work with the baby who is going to be raised in that environment? If it is not a refusal to participate in a sin, then refusing to serve someone in your business on grounds of the way they live outside of your business is indeed discrimination. Refusing to serve lunch in your restaurant to people caught in that particular stronghold? That is not helpful at all!

The point where it becomes necessary to refuse in order to live out your views is when you must participate. Involvement in a same-sex wedding is participating, obviously.
Serving lunch to a person in a same-sex relationship is not participating. Taking care of a baby is taking care of a baby, it is not participating. Helping

The gay-agenda has built its crocodile tears and emotional appeals on behavior like that, not on mere disagreement. This particularly true of appeals for laws that persecute and discriminate against Christians. More of the same will only make things worse. Balance. God created everything to function in balance. If we aren't in balance we are easy prey for the devil to tempt and to use.

Godspeed

~Mother Star.

On the Nature of Temptation

Not every thought or temptation we ever have necessarily gets encoded to long-term memory.
In order to report occasional same sex temptation or attraction, the mind/brain would have retain it. You have to give at least some amount of attention to something in order to remember it.

Depending on the wording of the question, anywhere from 10% to 45% of adult men report having fantasies involving same-sex activity. Those are just people have sat and entertained the thoughts for however long, possibly on more than one occasion. These things never originate with the person anyway, it all comes from satan, and not just same sex stuff but other things. We decide if we are going to hold the thought or not, and whatever else we might do with it.


Advertisers sometimes try to get people to associate products with unrelated things that they want or need. Sex being used to advertise credit cards, shoes, or etc is an example of that, as is Summer's Eve's unfortunate attempt to use women's career advancement goals to sell feminine deodorant. Likewise, the enemy tries to sell unnatural or even self-defeating things to people.

Like the advertisers attempts at sales, the enemy's ploys may or may not work, and may or may not even be remembered. He has probably tried stuff on me that I don't remember. I lived on the street a couple of times in my life, but do not recall ever being actually tempted by drugs. Ever. I'm sure he must tried it though. If you have any doubts about the rates of same-sex fantasizing, the links to sources are below. Keep in mind, even on anonymous studies, self report studies tend to be skewed by people giving answers closer to what their society would want to hear (See the section on "measurement bias" in section 2 of this UIC article).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12734/full
http://www.businessinsider.com/which-sexual-fantasies-are-normal-2014-10

There is a very strong taboo about same-sex activity and temptation among American males in particular. If there is self-report bias here, it is more likely to be making the rates look smaller, not larger. Not recalling ever being tempted by SSAs, or anything else on the list of perverse thoughts and actions in this study, does not mean it has never been tried on you, or that it never will be. It does however, mean you are probably less likely to commit that particular sin, even in your thoughts. Many, many people who do not identify as LGBT and never acted out, and may never act these things out, with others have committed this type of sexual sin in their thoughts through lust.
Sexual fantasy is, in fact, a lustful sort of meditation that many people who are physically very chaste may battle with on the inside, and which the Holy Spirit can and will deliver people from.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star

A Prayer for Widespread Redemption

Father,in Jesus' name, please give us strength. Your strength, not our strength. Not the "strength" of our anger or fear, not the strength of our reasoning or marketing-type strategies, not the strength of the world with its numbers and political agendas or machinations. But your strength God, to handle all of this. Lord,your wisdom is greater and stronger than anything we can find on earth or in ourselves.
Lord, I pray for the children being raised in same-sex romance households and I thank you for working in these situations to bring deliverance to parents and children alike. I thank you that at least in the midst of the darkness there, somebody is feeding and clothing these kids and taking them to school and hopefully at least caring about them. I thank you that the kids the Dean at my school and his "husband" are raising did not have to be separated after their parents' deaths.
No one can come to you unless they are drawn. We ask you to draw the people oh lord, that we cannot do anything for with our arguments or our best explanations. Lord, your ways are indeed higher than our ways and your thoughts than our thoughts. You do not forbid sin because you want to be mean and you have good reasons for everything. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts and convinces, not us. Forgive us when we have tried in our own strength to accomplish what only you can do.

In this time where so many in our culture insist on finding out the hard way the "why" behind your statutes, we thank you that even in the midst of this ignorance you will show yourself true and good. I pray lord that this avalanche of same-sex marriages will only serve to help social scientists and others gather the data they are missing that explains why you have set the rules that you have. I pray you will use even the things people think they want to show them that it is really what they don't want.
I pray God that what the enemy has used for harm, you will work for good. and turn his evil upon his own head, for the redemption of so many souls and lives. Ditto with the many other things he is doing on such large scales that are so wrong, here and abroad. Amen.
Lord, I pray for strength and wisdom for Pope Francis and other Church leaders to hold fast to what is right. I pray for repentance of those who have been deceived. I pray God for the light of truth.to enter in and heal.
I come against the distraction Lord, that turns so many good hearted people away from doing the things you have called them to do and they spend time and talents supporting a sinful lifestyle for a few people that should be spent making a real difference for many, or even for all people. I come against the spirit of pride, and the "I'm progressive, and ahead of all these other Christians. I have more revelation than the apostles, who wrote the sacred texts and said wrong, condemning things out of their ancient ignorance..." or "Humanity and time are all moving in one direction step by spend I am at the cutting edge. It is my job to straighten out the old misconception,s and the old-fashioned, narrow-minded people, and show the world the real Jesus who no one in the church has ever shown before...." and other such deceptions. I ask you Lord to use us who you have delivered from all these kinds of lies, and our little testimonies, to plant little seeds that will change the western world, not by our strength or wisdom or ability, but by your working what we never could do, for your own glory. I pray that you will help us to stay humble and keep a right spirit and attitude about how we go about doing things in this world for you. In Jesus'name, Amen.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star

If You Cant Do Something Helpful, Please Don't Do Anything At All

On my facebook page, I am in a lot of so-called "ex-gay" related groups. There are a lot of pharisee types on there and I often feel that they are there to use our testimonies to justify their unhelpful behavior.

Since there are indeed false accusations flying at our faith community for "discrimination" it is very important not to tolerate genuinely discriminatory behavior.
Some people are SOOOOO angry, and not at the devil.
It is hard not to get angry back.
I mentioned some cases of genuinely discriminatory behavior by Christians, and non-faith-related attacks on self-identified homosexuals for being "homosexuals" that are in fact even violent. They said in reply, "No one is trying to prove that adultery is inborn, or holding adultery pride parades. For every action, there is an equal reaction." And I lost it. I think I made some good points, but fury probably still showed up in there...*sigh* I need to work on that.

Some of the articles that get posted are run on conservative news sites and people share them. They have some truth in them but they put it in a way that does not make it clear that there is a person in there being assaulted by the enemy, and whom we are supposed to care about. It's embarrassing.
I said, "Your job is to share the love and redemptive power of Christ with people. How did you plan to do that for the people in that article?
How did you find the Lord? Was it because people showed you all the ways you were sinning, or was there something else? If you feel anger or resentment toward the people in that article, then this isn't the place for you. There are other major issues right now, and all of them are urgent. Homelessness is one, you might consider volunteering in a shelter or some other thing. You need to find what you are called to bring the light into. If you do not feel a burden and a sadness for people from whom the enemy has stolen such a major part of their identity, or if you feel any resentment or anger, I assure you that this is not it."
Or something like that.

On the up side, I criticized this one article about a boy named Josh Alcorn who suffered from Gender Identity Disorder (GID) who committed suicide, and they took the article down. I agree our community should address that situation, but there are so many people who have never dealt with it themselves, are there looking for ammunition, and have a really bad attitude. The article had some truth in it, but anger at the boy who died was still very strongly evident in it. they opened it talking about how selfish suicide is, which is true, and how the way he did it was so much more selfish than suicide usually is, which was true. However, if you are writing to argue that the Christian community is not without compassion for people with gender identity disorder, that is not the best way to start. There was a lot of blistering right-wing rhetoric in it, which is not useful for demonstrating that you have compassion for the person either. etc. When you are talking about a recent suicide, or someone who recently died period, ranting about the person's sinfulness and selfishness is neither helpful nor appropriate. When your movement is in the hot-seat for a lack of compassion and for crapping on the person for their sins, and is thus being blamed for the suicide, and the article is supposed to be a rebuttal, it is totally shooting yourself in the foot to do all that (that's on top of being inappropriate in the first place). I hope my remarks may have actually played a roll in its removal.

Most of the actual "ex-gay" (I HATE that term. It gives the devil too much credit) people post bible verses and encouraging things, or answer questions of those who ask for help, or just post pictures with words of praise to God. I seem to be the fire-starter who takes the pharisee types and the sexist people to task even multiple times in a day... It has to be done, and so far I'm the only one I see doing much of it. Not sure how I feel about this situation...

Regarding "Gay Christains" and "Gay Theology"

Forgive me, some of its gross, but needs to be said.
I want to make it very clear I do not ascribe to any of the ideas I am typing out here. I am just explaining a point. We are called to love sinners, but not sins,and there is a difference. I have things I've been delivered from that are disgusting, disturbing, and that freak people out, especially church people (not the things I am talking about here though). I have also previously self-identified as bi-sexual. I have no same sex desires now, at all. I do not hate anybody, but I really felt I had to make this point.
If the "gay Christian" theology is to be believed, then beastiality and rape and incest are all ok too. The O.T. Scriptures that say homosexuality is a sin are in the same section, Leviticus 18 (the laws concerning sexual conduct), that condemns all of those other things. None of those other things are mentioned in the NT at all.
Look at the other sexual laws that would have to be dismissed along the same grounds, otherwise it becomes "what is and isn't a sin is based on my and select others' feelings about it". Can you accept this new theological position and be consistent?

If animals of the same sex jumping on each other and humping means that it is in fact natural (I've at least seen that argument), then the dog jumping on your leg when you come in the house means that beastiality is natural too, and the fact that animals have no reservations about inbreeding means that incest also is. Furthermore, research shows that offspring of two first-cousins has about the same odds of genetic defects as a child born to a mother in her 30s.
You think people who do those things don't feel the need to hide for fear of being ostracized? You think the church wouldn't lose its mind over people like that going shamelessly public and insisting on being married and ordained and so on, and act very un-christlike and unproductive in its response (I'm not saying an un-christ-like response is justifiable. It's not)? Do you suppose that people, be they professing Christian or not, might be tempted to commit violence over it? Naturally, that un-christlike and unproductive behavior would result in severe emotional wounds for those doing those sins. Does that mean that the church should not call such behavior a sin? Anybody ready to sanction those sins, or make it just a matter of individual conviction?
My dad met someone at work who eventually told him he liked dogs in that way. The guy had been raised Baptist and believed that he was right with God. He had no desire to repent,and did not feel any conviction for his behavior. I met him several times when I was young (my dad did not know yet at that point), and he seemed like a really nice guy. Maybe those kinds of guys aren't out of the closet yet, but pornography of that sort does exist and does sell, so there's people buying it. When and if such people "come out" in droves, and make the same demands that LGBT people do, what are going to do? Get mad at the church for going off-normal and then fall off the horse on the other side, saying that its ok to do that?



Just something to think about.

Jesus' cross was enough to make all of us new, if we'll have it. It was enough to forgive us all, and it does not matter what we have done. If we sincerely repent and call what the wrong we have pursued or done "wrong" and receive his gift of salvation, then we shall have His Salvation. That makes us all equal, and in this we are all alike.