God's Amazing Grace
In
the fall of 1981, as an 18 year old aspiring artist with a dream, and
a freshman at one of New York’s top art schools, I reached one of the
darkest periods in my life. On a cold rainy night, far away from home
I acted out on feelings I had throughout my entire childhood and teen
years - I had my first homosexual encounter with another student.
After drinking alcohol at a school party and getting drunk for the
first time ever, something I swore I never would do because of my
family’s past, my life literally changed in one night. I was
plummeted into the deep dark world of homosexuality. After only a few
short months in art school, I suffered from a very severe depression,
and dropped out of school and returned home to my family in
Connecticut.
I found
many of my old high schools friends had also “come out” as
homosexuals, and became very active in the homosexual bar scene. I
lived for the night - my drinking became worse, I started using
cocaine to help alleviate my mental turmoil, and found much love and
acceptance by other men. I had many numerous one night stands. I
felt I was finally “me”. However, my drug addiction got worse to the
point where I became a cocaine dealer just to support my habit - I
lost my art business to drugs, as well as my dignity to a life based
upon a perverse, sensual and decrepit lifestyle I couldn’t break free
from. It was at this point many of my friends and one night encounters
were getting “sick” and dying, and no one knew why. This sickness was
the beginning of the Aids epidemic.
Things
only grew worse and for a period of 6 years I declined morally,
mentally and physically. It was in the winter of 1987 after a 3 day
cocaine and alcohol binge I cried out for help. After being up all
night and running out of cocaine, I looked in the mirror and was
shocked at the reflection. Due to my cocaine abuse, as well as years
of bulimia, at almost 6 feet tall, I saw a 135 lb. living skeleton,
and I began to cry (see picture, left). I ran down to a
payphone on the corner and called for help. I admitted myself into a
drug rehabilitation program, and began my recovery as an impatient for
3 months at a nearby facility. It was at this point I began to see
God working in my life.
Within a
few short months I was alcohol and drug free, as well as freed from my
bulimia. I had gained about 25 lbs and was feeling great. However, I
still had a deep dark secret past hidden inside of me. What was I to
do with my homosexuality? Deep down inside I knew it was wrong, yet I
was just suppressing it. After dating a few girls, I found myself one
night back again at a local gay bar. I didn’t drink or do drugs - but
that night I met a man that I fell in love with, and began a 3 year
live in relationship with him. I seemed I had it all - my homosexual
lifestyle and love, without the drugs, alcohol and bulimia, a great
job, beautiful home, and great homosexual friends. I attended church
faithfully every week - and felt I had it all. But God wasn’t done
with me yet - in fact, He had just started.
My
doorbell rang, and it was my friend Kathy, a friend for years who had
seen me through the good and bad times of my life - and she had a
Bible in her hand, and asked if she could come in. She had told me
she left her religious background and became a Christian. She told me
how Jesus changed her life, and how according to the Bible
homosexuality was wrong - it was a sin and an abomination in God’s
eyes - how according to the Bible I was not “born that way”, yet in
fact it was a choice of lifestyle, and that Jesus could set me free
from it - today. I listened intently, and something inside of me told
me she was right. I told her I would take the Bible and she left.
That day, the Word of God cut right through me - I saw my
homosexuality for the first time as God saw it - as sin. Anytime
something would happen between my partner and I
sexually, I found myself praying for forgiveness to God on my bathroom
floor. God was tugging at my heart strings, and I knew it.
The tugging was so hard and clear, I
left my partner, my job, my family - everything and headed off to
Provincetown, MA - a homosexual subculture - to live for a summer, to
see if I could reconcile this pull between being a homosexual and a
Christian. Did I have to choose one or the other, or could I be both
at the same time in God’s eyes?
Well, in
that summer of 1991 God opened my eyes to the truth and perverseness
of the homosexual lifestyle - I saw it all in full swing, in all its
glory - transsexuals, transvestites, sado
masochists, men and women doing things one would never even imagine.
After 5 months in Provincetown, I returned home to my partner asking
for forgiveness for leaving him - I was sorry and I was going to put
this “Christian” business aside. After only 4 short months at home in
his house, by myself while wrapping Christmas presents, I happened to
flip through radio stations and came across a Christian one. A man
was singing a song and I heard the lyrics about “men marching for
their right to sin”. I knew exactly what the song was talking about -
it was talking about me. I may have put God on the back burner - but
He was still chasing after me.
And on
New Year’s eve of 1991 I attended a
homosexual party with my partner, and for the first time ever in my
life - I felt “dirty”. I hated myself. I hated my lifestyle. But I
just couldn’t break free...
I called my
friend Kathy on the telephone, and told her I was going to move back
to Provincetown, MA for good and completely give myself over to the
homosexual lifestyle. I felt as if I lost my soul - I was crying out
for help - and that’s when Jesus Christ stepped in.
She read
to me from the Bible, from the book of Romans, how God will “call” you
- and if He keeps calling you, and you hear, yet harden your heart, it
may come to a point where He will make you a “reprobate” in His sight
and give you completely over to your sin, and allow you to believe
“the lie”. At that point, according to the Bible, you have basically
sealed your destiny away from Him forever.
It scared
me so much, I asked her what I needed to do, and she told me right now
to pray to Jesus - ask Him to deliver me from the homosexuality - and
Him to forgive me for my sins, and to come into my heart and life, be
my Lord and Saviour, and to take control. At
that moment, I did and physically felt the peace of God upon
me. That day in January of 1992, on the telephone, I asked Jesus to
come into my heart - and He set me free from homosexuality - forever.
That day God changed my life, and I will be eternally grateful to Him
for what He did. Within two days I was out of my partner’s bed, and
within two weeks I moved out of my partner’s home and was on my way
and walk with Jesus Christ.
And it is
unbelievable how the journey has been. Within eight months, I was
engaged to a beautiful Christian woman, Irene, who knew me as a
homosexual, and was praying for me for years. We were married on June
13, 1993. Today, over nine years later, and very happily married, God
has blessed us with two other miracles - my beautiful daughter Chloe
Catherine who is four years old, and my son Blake Stephen, two years
old, born on Chloe’s birthday. Chloe’s middle name is in dedication
to my friend Kathy who never gave up on me - a vessel of God, who He
used to change my destiny forever.
Today
life is wonderful - I am truly free, and it is all because of Jesus
Christ and His love for me. Jesus is the answer for all of our needs,
no matter what they are. You may be, know or live with a homosexual,
a drug addict, or an alcoholic. Let me make something very clear - God
loves the sinner – yet He hates the sin. Remember, with God, nothing
is impossible - believe me, I know. I do believe in miracles - I
believe in miracles, for I’ve seen a soul set free... for that lost
soul was me.
Copyright 2000 - 2002 Stephen Bennett
Ministries
Reproduced with
permission by Stephen Bennett
to BlessedCause
All information contained herein is the
sole property of Stephen Bennett Ministries, and may not be duplicated
or reproduced in any shape, form or fashion, without the expressed
written permission of Stephen Bennett Ministries. Forward any and all
requests to: Stephen Bennett Ministries - P.O. Box 2095, Huntington,
CT 06484
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