In telling my story, I want to highlight some of the sins within my deep heart. Sins that I enjoyed for a season, embracing them, as it were, taking ownership of them and allowing them to become integrated within my character, my personality, my temperament. I came to accept that they were just a part of me. I believed the lie that they were part of my D.N.A. And I was just to yield to them, surrender to them, these urges within me. Allowing them to remain within my deep heart until I was convinced there was nothing I could do about them other than make the best of them.
One of these sins slowly manifested itself over time as a sin of “Sexual Addiction.” This sexual addiction was only active within my soul, my imagination. For me, it was a giant within my life, and I allowed it to exist. Again, it lived far down within me, my deepest heart. This imaginary giant that no one could see, I willingly embraced and eventually became a slave to. Again, this giant lived within my inner world, for I was a Christian, and Christians are to die to their sins, to “die” to them, to completely conquer them, just like King David dealt with the Giant Goliath.
Yet, our God, who is Good, gave me my sex drive, which He created to be used for only good in my life journey. In my walk with our God, I found myself dealing with a sex drive that I was responsible for, responsible before him. A sex drive that never totally dies, I had to learn to control it, which starts within. Yes, I was to take control over all my outward behaviors, but just as importantly, my heart, mind, and soul.
I realized, on the one hand, I had a good sex drive given to me by my God, but I had taken this amazingly powerful and pleasurable gift from Him and created an out-of-control sexual addiction within my life, using my body, my heart, and my mind all interwoven into this addiction.
It slowly dawned on me, as someone who was a believer in Jesus, that I had to die to one part of this sex drive of mine, and with the other part of it, I was to be at peace with it and control it. In doing this, I would be walking into purity and holiness. Hence the title of this book: “The Choice and the Challenge.”
The fact is, I would open up to very few concerning this issue within my deep heart, truly opening up to what was going on inside of me. For there were two other giants also within me; one of them was “Rejection,” and the second was “Shame.” Actually, both rejection and shame were in place before the issue of Sexual Addiction showed itself in my life. All three of them within me were also very powerful.
This sexual addiction became the source of my imaginary acceptance, approval, affirmation, recognition, and validation. But it only existed within my inner world, my imagination, and not in my real-life relationships. It expressed itself through “heart lust” and outwardly the viewing of pornography; by the way, my viewing of porn was always done in secrecy; I was always hiding my true heart condition as a Christian.
I write my story, in hopes to help my Christian brothers who may also be dealing with these issues especially within their hearts and minds.
It is important to note that I had a number of other dangerous mindsets, I call them the “silent killers” of my soul (aka-sins) in my life that no one but me and my God could see. Silent Killers like: bitterness, resentment, jealousy and envy to name a few. Yet, it was apparent that my countenance radiated a heaviness, a lack of peace and joy because of these sins in my life. These secret activities within me also greatly contributed to the enflaming of my sexual addiction. Some of these sins were unforgiveness, unbelief, pride, and a heart rage, which was, as you will see, an animosity towards my father, which spilled over into all my relationships with leaders within the body of Christ. These sin patterns became a root deep within my heart, causing me to become addicted to drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes – two packs a day. Plus, I became addicted to sugar, which for me caused diabetes.
Yet, I was blind to the influence they had on my sexual addiction. So, like in the Book of Joshua, you’ll see I had to face and destroy both the “Giants” and “Kings” within me.
So, it says in Revelations 12:11;
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
Yes, I had a revelation in my heart that Jesus shed his blood and died for me personally on the cross at Calvary. And this would be my path for peace, healing, victory, freedom over all the brokenness within my life.
Now, here is my back story (my testimony), what Jesus was totally aware of when he adopted me; he was not surprised by any of this. He established a beachhead, just like the Allies established on June 6, 1944, in Normandy, France, as it were. And He never retreated but continuously moved forward within my heart, my mind, and in my life. And slowly, with this awareness of Jesus restoring me, I became aware of my adoption, my sonship, my being the brother of the Living God, Jesus!
I was born the fourth of five children to my Catholic parents. I was born in 1948. I was conceived in Boston Massachusetts. When I was conceived in Boston something happened where my family suddenly packed up and moved to California. My mother was pregnant with me at the time and she traveled cross country on a train with my three older siblings (all under 5 years of age) and me in her tummy.
Six weeks after arriving in California, I was born. A year and a half later, my little sister was born. During that time, my father committed armed robbery and went to prison for a couple of years; this was directly tied to his alcoholism. (I do not remember him in my life before I was about five years old) He was a very violent man filled with rage and anger. Fact, It was his pornography that I grew up on. Yet, in viewing his pornography, I was not interested in the woman in the pictures; what caught my attention were the men.
When my father got out of prison, he and my mother had an intense relationship where they raged at each other all the time; rarely a day went by where they were not verbally fighting with each other. But because they were Irish Catholic back in those days, divorce was out of the question. Yet they were always arguing. The smallest incident would trigger them into a verbal fight with each other. This hostility they showed towards one another was always unpredictable, and at any moment, one of them would easily blow up in rage and anger towards the other/or one of us five kids. Screaming and hollering, cursing each other all the time. Both of my parents could not put a sentence together without having several curse words in them. And with their raging and cursing, they would always be directing it at us five children. Also, I was my father’s primary target.
Yet in the midst of all this, we five kids attended Catholic school, and we faithfully attended Mass every Sunday with our parents.
From a very early age, both my parents suspected I had a homosexual orientation. But with my father, in hopes of crushing that orientation within me, it was his way of dealing with this suspicion, and that was to try to beat it out of me and, with that, always curse me and rage at me. When my siblings were in their 20s, the four of them confronted my father and asked him why he treated me so differently than the rest of us, and he would not answer.
My father used words to describe me, words like; “totally useless” and “stupid,” this went on all the time. I remember when I was in sixth grade, being 12 or 13 years old, he told me he believed I was mentally retarded. I was exposed to this kind of verbal abuse throughout my childhood, which severely crushed my soul and spirit, driving me to escape reality and live in my daydream world of make-believe.
Also, he often beat me with his belt.
A couple of examples: Every quarter, I would receive my report card from the nuns at school, and I would take it home, for my parents had to sign it. I was a D and F student, and almost every quarter, I would receive a beating for my bad grades. This went on continuously, especially during the first nine years of my schooling. I would receive a beating for speaking back to them. I would receive a beating for not obeying down to the smallest detail of what they would tell me to do. I lived in constant fear of this, never knowing their unpredictability, especially my father, turning on me and for any reason to strike me with his belt. Once, I went and got a haircut I liked and came home, and he did not like it; he raged at me, threw me on the ground, and attacked me, I was maybe 14 or 15. I lived in great fear of him; I lived a life where I was always on guard concerning my father, never knowing when he would attack me next. The best word that would describe my home life was the life of “dread.”
My father had joined Alcoholics Anonymous. (AA), so he stopped his drinking, but nevertheless, his anger and rage were always very intense, to the point when he would rage, his face would turn blood red, (it was amazing that the intensity that he expressed did not actually kill him) because the veins on his neck could be seen very profoundly. He would rage at me for any reason.
If he decided to beat me, which happened often, this is what he would say. “Go and make me a cup of coffee, that will help me calm down”. The caffeine did not help him calm down; it intensified him even more. Once I made the coffee, the next thing I did was go to my room and strip down to my underpants, sometimes waiting up to an hour for him to come and beat me; in that waiting, I went through great torment and mental anxiety in anticipating as to what was about to happen to me.
When he had finished the coffee, he would come back to my room, sometimes have me take my underpants off, making me totally naked, putting me into total humiliation as I stood before him. (I am certain that because of this, I wet my bed on into my teens). Then he would pull off his belt, grab me extremely tightly by my hand, and start beating me. Because I was standing, I would try to pull away from him, causing us to move in a circle around the room. I would try to get away from him by running from him, yet I couldn’t get free from his tight grip. He would beat me for three or four minutes on my butt in the back of my legs with his belt, to the point that, more often than not, my butt and my legs were bruised with welts on me for weeks on end. My father would be verbally abusing me endlessly during these beatings and physical attacks upon me. He would rage as he beat and cursed me.
His intensity was because of his hatred of me and his suspicions (which were accurate). I believe my last beating was when I was 17 or 18, and then my father totally disconnected from me and I from him. Again, I lived in great fear of him, causing me to hide my homosexual orientation deep-deep within me. Even to the point of having girlfriends, yet the truth was I was never interested in them sexually.
I was extremely frozen in my temperament and personality and extremely fearful of everything because of my relationship with my parents. This all happened when my father came back into my life at around age five. Meaning that I had no sense of identity starting from before I was five; I was void of a healthy male identity.
There are two schools of thought concerning how an individual finds themselves with this orientation or similar orientations. The first is that it is within their D.N.A. (or possibly some event that happen in the womb,) and we are born with it. If this were true, I would totally reject Christianity and live as a pagan. I would not believe in a God who blessed heterosexual unions at the very beginning of scripture and did not include all other orientations.
Second, “Generational sins” (family sins passed down from one generation to the next), and/or very early in life, deficiencies took place within the soul and psyche that contributed to the development of the individual’s life. This second understanding and Christianity can coexist. For God (Jesus) never condemns these orientations. Yet, he clearly condemns any behaviors associated with these orientations.
How do I craft the language of my convictions without coming across as harsh, rigid, and/or legalistic? To those who wrestled with transgenderism, I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that you cannot resolve issues that are in residence within your deep heart by cosmetically changing your physical body. The issues that you are dealing with are deep within your soul, and it is only Jesus who can penetrate that place and bring you peace.
Concerning those who embrace the “Gay Christian Identity,” it is only the Shepherd of our souls who calls us into His identity. We are called to be “Christ Like,” to put on the “Mind of Christ,” and to embrace and take ownership of His Identity. Those who disagree with me would argue I am being narrow. And yet, they would agree there is no such thing as a “Drug Addict Christian Identity” nor an “Alcoholic Christian Identity”. They would argue that what they are dealing with is different, deeper within the soul and within the psyche. Yet, the truth is, it is only in the allowing of our precious Holy Spirit to have access to those deep places, and when that is done, our transformation, our healing, and our Identity in Christ are established in the spiritual realm completely. This is embraced by way of “faith” and not “emotions and/or feelings.”
It was my mother’s brother who first raped me and then mentored me into the life of homosexuality starting at around eight or nine years of age. But I was already primed, with deep deficiencies within my soul and psyche and what compounded my homosexual orientation was also the viewing of my father’s porn and with that my interest was playing the part of the woman in the scenes. To make it clear, I was gay, I did not want to be a woman, I wanted to do what I saw the woman doing. (I honestly believe my father wanted me to find his porn to encourage me to become more of a heterosexual man).
It was like my soul was thrown into a blender with the deficiencies of my soul thrown in, the great influence of pornography and also my uncle grooming me, then the blenders “high”, speed button was pushed. This is what established my sexual addiction and also greatly contributed towards my sexual orientation within my life. But the fact was, my uncle using me sexually was the first (as perverted as it was) acceptance I had ever experienced in my life by a man. And so yes, he groomed me to be his boy in secrecy, (always in secrecy), and yes, it was the first acceptance from a man in my life. So, on the one hand, I kept my orientation deeply secret, and on the other, it was the only thing I wanted.
Again, I need to stop here and clearly say that those who believe in “The Gay Christian Identity” are deceived. Concerning my old nature, yes, I have a homosexual orientation. This is true. Meaning that if I were to backslide, this is the direction I would go in. Yet it says in Luke 9:23;
If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
As a son of the living God, I want to grow in maturity in Him and receive all He has for me, my inheritance, while here on earth. My only identity is my sonship in Him. I will never let my past be my identity; my identity is who God says I am.
Also, in the mix of all this, I escaped more and more into my sexual fantasy. And with that, I found myself growing more into sexual addiction simultaneously in my heart, for it was not uncommon for me to escape into masturbation several times daily.
When I saw my first-ever counselor, he listened to my story and said, “Mike, if I were counseling someone who had been a prisoner of war for 18 years, I would counsel him exactly the same way that you need to be counseled now.” For I was living in a state of massive denial, frozen in fear and trauma (PTSD), I survived by way of just living in my fantasies, living in denial and sexual fantasies. That was my connection to love and acceptance. Again, I lived being frozen in my personhood and in great fear of everything and everyone.
Because of these abuses, my mental and emotional pain was great, and it drove me deeper and deeper into my unseen world of unreality. It was in this place that I found my “make-believe” love and acceptance, approval. In this world of mine, I was the star, the hero, and there, I enjoyed life without rejection, without physical pain.
Yet, it was always only temporary. And in fact, in my life of reality, I found that, for the most part, I hated myself. So, the best words to describe my life were the words “Denial,” “Fear,” and “Dread.” This is one of the reasons I was drawn into alcohol and drugs.
Concerning school, I was A.D.D., which my teachers didn’t understand, and I didn’t know anything about. I had no athletic interest or any artistic talents, and I was an extremely poor student. I had to repeat first grade twice, and because this happened, I was placed in my little sister’s class. It was my little sister, who was a very good student, who got me through school year after year. Nevertheless, year after year, I almost always had to do summer school because my grades were so poor.
When I graduated from high school, I was called into the principal’s office, and he said to me, Mike, you are such a poor student; we have a choice of keeping you another year for your grades are so bad or for “our” benefit just let you graduate. That was my graduation experience.
Shortly after I graduated, my brother-in-law, who was a Navy Recruiter, got me into the Navy, which, by the way, caused me to hide my homosexual orientation even deeper within me, which caused me to start living a double life. Shortly after I left the Navy, I moved to Hawaii with the intent of immersing myself in the LGBQT+ lifestyle.
Again, I was very frozen, always living in great fear. I was drinking and taking drugs all the time during this period of my life. I was on my way to becoming an alcoholic and drug addict simultaneously.
Yet this is when God revealed himself to me. I was very aware of who he was and the truth of scripture. I had no profound revelation; I had no “aha”, moment. I just knew who he was and that the Bible was true. It was these two revelations that Jesus used to lock hold of my heart, and he has never let go.
Let me stop here and highlight this point of becoming a Christian. Now, remember, I believed that my biological father hated me because of my homosexual orientation. He always cursed me and would often beat me in hopes of tearing this orientation out of me. Now that I had become a Christian, my God – Jesus, established the truth of His Word within me.
In the 70s, when I became a Christian, there were Christian activists ongoingly campaigning against abortion and the issue of homosexuality within our society and our culture. This was present in the media all the time. I was made aware that the issue of homosexuality, especially, was a sin, and that the God of Christianity viewed this sin as an abomination. Christian activists always gave the example of Romans 1 and/or Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18 and 19), which are chapters in the Bible, as proof. So, yes, I believed in Jesus; yes, I was a Christian. Yet, I was a Christian hiding in shame and fear from the Christian activists who were always highlighting this particular sin along with the sin of abortion all the time. Again, I found myself hiding my sin deeply within me. Even as a Christian, I felt great shame concerning this orientation.
Concerning the environment overall within many Christian communities of that day, there were only two ways to accept someone who was vulnerable to this orientation. One was you needed to be delivered from it and converted to heterosexuality. The other was that you needed to be healed, set free, and walk in total absolute victory all the time. Yet this orientation has proven to be far more complicated than this. Hence, the focus of this work is on walking in Purity and Holiness. This is clear for all Christians within scripture.
Within a very short period of time, I found myself in a small Christian community on the outer islands of Hawaii. The congregation was predominantly hippies who loved Jesus. Maybe 120 of us, just about all of whom were very broken in one way or another. Our God placed me there to immerse me in His love and acceptance of me. My outward sexual behavior radically slowed down, yet it remained very much alive in my inner world; I was keeping my sexual fantasy alive in my heart while simultaneously learning about my God and beginning to appreciate the values of my newfound faith in Christianity.
After two years there, God redirected me to relocate to Colorado, where instantly I connected with a small church with a number of young families in it. This became my church home for the next four years.
On occasion, I would act out behaviorally but kept it deeply secret. I loved the relationships I had within this church the best I knew how. I did not want to jeopardize those relationships in any way. This was before the internet. Therefore, I would, at times, visit adult bookstores to satisfy my porn addiction. Doing this all while very involved in a wonderful Christian community.
I went to work for my brother, who had a plumbing business, and he knew I was a slow learner but also knew that I would eventually learn the trade. He had arranged for me to be enrolled in a plumber’s apprenticeship program, which took four years to complete. So, during those four years that I was working as an apprentice plumber, I was very involved in a small God-fearing, God-loving church. For the first two years of that time, on occasion, I was acting out sexually and very secretly, connecting up with guys or visiting adult bookstores. Again, doing all this in great secrecy. With the guys, it was never about a relationship with them. It was just about the sexual addiction component of my brokenness. Yet, because of the relationships of the wonderful people at the small church, I was finally able to totally abstain from any outward behavior; nevertheless, I still had my heart and mind to contend with.
When it came time to take the state test to become a journeyman plumber, something very interesting happened. The best I knew how I prayed a prayer; I made a promise to God that if he would help me pass this plumbing test, I would attend a six-month Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (D.T.S.). As broken as I was on so many different levels, God kept this promise. Everyone who knew me was surprised that I passed that very difficult test the first time.
I was 32 years old, owned my own condominium, and had a new car. I was making very good money and was pretty much set in my life course. With our Holy Spirit’s help, I was able to stop all sexual behavior for over two years at this point.
(One important thing concerning my totally stopping all sexual behavior at that time was that it was right around 1980 that full-blown AIDS hit the gay community head-on, taking out many who were being promiscuous during that time).
What was interesting was that I saw that God had kept his promise, and now it was on me. Was I going to fulfill my end of the deal? I talked with a man in his 60s. He was a strong, committed Christian, and I explained to him the quandary I was in. He simply said, “Mike, God is a God of adventure. Pray and ask for His guidance”, which I did and received nothing from God. I went back to my friend and told him just that, and he said, “OK, Mike, what would you like to do? Where would you like to go? Start going in that way, and if God does not want you to go in that direction, he will make it clear and stop you.” This was the guidance I experienced that radically changed my life.
I sold everything and made arrangements to head to England to do a six-month D.T.S. I headed east and spent two weeks in Virginia at a Christian ministry. I became friends with a young lady who was an adolescent psychiatric nurse and also in Bible school. In those two weeks, we enjoyed each other’s company very, very much, and through the course of talking, we found out we both had the same background concerning our testimonies. She had told me she left her first husband, who was a doctor, divorcing him and embracing the lesbian lifestyle. She had absolutely no interest in remarriage, nor was I in any way, shape, or form interested in marriage. We became pen-pals for over a year, writing to each other regularly while I was in Europe. Her name was Pat.
I left Virginia and headed to England to do my D.T.S. Six weeks after arriving, one of the main people in YWAM spoke at a conference I attended. They spoke of how they had just acquired a 100-year-old building in the center of Amsterdam, Holland, next to the Red Light District. This was 1980, and they had more than enough staff; actually, they were overcrowded with staff, except they were in desperate need of a plumber to be a part of the construction crew to renovate this old building.
What is very important about this piece of my story is that I never started out to be a missionary; I had no intention of entering into full-time ministry. As I look back, I am totally convinced it was ordained by our God.
I made a one-year commitment to this assignment and traveled to Amsterdam immediately after my D.T.S. in England was completed. I lived in the building that we were remodeling. We had praise and worship and bible study every morning. You could hear the drug addicts and street people during praise and worship immediately outside, coming and going into the Red-Light District. The Red-Light District was my old nature’s utopia! Any kind of drugs you wanted, any kind of sex you wanted. It was immediately out the door of this ministry; it was that close. My worlds were colliding. On the one hand, my belief in my God; on the other, simply stepping out a door into the Red Light District was everything my flesh desired.
The director of this YWAM base knew my story and told me, “Mike, if you ever fall while here, I will stand with you and help you get back up in your walk with our Lord.” In that year, while there, I was never involved in any spiritual ministry; I was just a plumber working there. I never fell physically; again, my biggest vulnerabilities were my mind and my heart. This was all before the internet, so yes, on occasion, I would go into the adult bookstores.
As I said during my 14 months in Amsterdam I was corresponding with Pat, sometimes as much as a letter every week. We felt safe with each other, we both had core issues of great self-hatred. Both of our stories were stories of severe brokenness. We “clicked,” and we where over 3,500 miles apart.
In August 1981, I traveled from Amsterdam to New York to spend time with her. When we met at the airport, God spoke to Pat and told her that I was going to be her husband. She did a very wise thing by not telling me; she just kept it as a matter of prayer. But one year after that meeting, we were married. We were married for 41 years when she suddenly passed away. Our marriage had several challenges, but because Pat had lost her first marriage to divorce, she was deeply committed not to lose another marriage in that way.
The Holy Spirit and Pat fought for our marriage more than I did. Our God raised her up to be an amazing woman in His Kingdom; she was my precious wife and a wonderful mother to our son. A gifted counselor and teacher, she traveled to over 45 countries all over the world, teaching Purity and Holiness. The focus of her teachings was The Holy Spirit, the Cross of Jesus, and our identity as a child of the living God. It was those teachings that brought her into her own healing, which she desired to share with others.
The foundation that she would always first lay out in her teachings was very simple and direct and it was this;
It is our God who knows you the most!
And it is our God who loves you the most!
Therefore, love him back by your obedience to Him,
and with that, always walking in purity and holiness!
I realize that all the consequences of my sins, my mental and emotional brokenness, greatly impacted our marriage, and yet our God and my Pat remained committed to making it work. She stayed with me through the worst of times. I would say that in the second half of our marriage, for 20+ years, we were at peace with each other, growing more into a deep, pure love with each other and with our God.
I could write chapters concerning our marriage, with regard to the issues; it was definitely a two-way street. Yet the brokenness within my heart, from my earliest years, made the journey with her difficult.
This is why I have written this book; it is material that I have applied to my life and I still do to this day. I know I am a Son of God, and what I offer in this book is knowledge and understanding concerning the male sex drive, the male sex drive being out of control, and the journey into Purity and Holiness.
There is a second book titled; “He Restores My Soul”. Which is all about the journey of Restoration in our life.
This first book is all about “Knowledge and Understanding”, and the second work will be all about “Restoration”, within our life.
I wish you success!
Sincerely, your brother in Jesus
Mike
