No Man is an Island

Our group meets tonight. It' a good mix, mostly parents of gays, a couple ex-gays, and one or two plain old super generous Christian souls that come just to show their support and to pray with us.
You know it's said when someone comes out of the closet their loved ones go in. So true - the pain, the shame, the shock and the knowledge that generally church-going type people won't understand. All of it forces people living with SSA into isolation. In a group (and online) you get to hear every side of living with SSA. It is equally heartbreaking to hear a mother or father's pain for their SSA child as as it is to hear the struggler's testimony. Both journeys are filled with shame, guilt, confusion, loneliness and regrets.
But there is something absolutely therapeutic in sharing and listening to each other's pain and learning from one another's experience. Something so powerfully strengthening in knowing you are not alone , in praying for other's instead of wallowing in self-pity. God had to be the designer here. The sharing forces us into a community, where we see a bigger picture that helps us to survive our personal pain. To our surprise, we find that by carrying each other's crosses our own cross has mysteriously been lightened.

Find a group, in a church, on-line, anywhere you can. If you can't find a group, create one of friends. Confide in someone of the highest caliber, someone of great personal charity. Just take that first step, and I bet you'll feel a difference.
I am enormously renewed after every group session, after every opening up of my heart to my fellow man. Can they solve all the problems of living with SSA? Can they heal me, heal my family? Maybe not, but I know they are a part of the answer.

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. AMEN to that brother.
Peace all,
Chris