Destiny Bridge
by Frank Worthen
A JOURNEY OUT OF HOMOSEXUALITY
PROLOGUE
The sun was beating through the window and had raised the temperature of my office to an uncomfortable degree, defeating the best efforts of the air conditioner. I was fighting off an overwhelming feeling of drowsiness, trying my best to focus all my attention on “Brad,” the young man who sat across the desk from me. He was pouring out his frustrations and I knew he was counting on me to listen. I fixed my eyes on his sad face, thinking how similar his story was to that of literally hundreds of other troubled men I’d talked to over the years-men who had struggled with homosexuality and gender confusion.
“Tell me about your parents?” I said, paying close attention now not only to his words by also to his facial expressions and body language.
Over several decades, innumerable young men had sat where Brad was sitting. The faces, had changed, the circumstances of their lives had varied, but the basic story remained all-too familiar. I studied Brad’s boyish face and saw how nervously he was gesturing with his hands. Tears welled up in his eyes as he answered my question, but his voice remained as clear as it was dramatic. “My father never understood me. Never! We always have had a terrible relationship. To be honest…” He paused.
“Yes?”
“To be honest, I have always hated my father! I wish he was dead!” Now his voice broke. I waited for a moment or two and then quietly urged him to continue, “And your mother…?”
Brad told me that he loved his mother. She had always come to his defense. She was the one who knew and understood him when his father didn’t even try. Even when he had told his mother about his homosexual orientation, she had comforted him and vowed, “I promise not to tell Dad!”
Then the young man said something that seemed shocking to him, but didn’t surprise me at all. “Even though I love my mother,” he hesitated briefly before continuing, “I know this is weird, but I also hate her!” He went on to explain that what he really hated was the control she exerted over his life. Would she ever allow him to grow up and make his own decisions? But that wasn’t the only reason he “hated” his mother.
Ever since early childhood, like so many other young men who struggle with same-sex attraction, Brad had taken upon himself the responsibility for his mother’s happiness and security. “Somehow, someway, she always drove me to take care of her. She leaned on me, and we are tied together in a kind of mutual bondage. I feel like I’ve somehow stepped into my father’s shoes. He was never there for her, but I am!” The he added, “…whether I want to be or not!” He talked more about protecting his mother from neglect and abuse. He wished he could be free, but deep inside he knew that only her death would free him from the chains of this responsibility.
“That’s not the only thing,” Brad went on, “I have always had trouble with other guys—guys my own age in school and in the neighborhood where I grew up. They called me a fag, a queer, a sissy. They hated me for no reason!”
Brad choked back tears again as he told me that he had loved a boy in one of his classes, but this boy had never once acknowledged that Brad even existed. Lonely and depressed, desperate for male affection and attention, Brad had begun to search for love and attention elsewhere. Before long, he found older men in parks who wanted him. Brad had given himself away, freely and without restraint. Eventually he had become so obsessed with anonymous sex that he had taken deadly risks, and had finally been arrested on lewd-conduct charges.
Suddenly he stopped talking, looked over at me and said, “But you don’t understand either.”
In fact, Brad could have not been more wrong. I wasn’t like the other counselors and pastors he had talked to—nothing like them at all. Why? Because I had walked in his shoes. Oh, had I ever! I understood all too well what Brad was saying. It may have been the story of countless other young men, but it was my story, too. Looking into his disbelieving face, I adamantly assured him that, yes, I did understand.
After offering him what help I could at the time, the session was soon over. I walked Brad to the door just as the staff was leaving. It was five o’clock. I gave him a hug and bade him farewell. There might have been a time when I would have hugged him for the wrong reasons but, by God’s grace, that was all behind me. Now I hugged him because I knew very well what he was facing. As he walked away, I was left to my own reflections. Like Brad, I had known rejection, humiliation, insecurity, lack of male affirmation, loneliness, and self-hatred. These all had played a major role in my past life.
Now writing these words, I am 80 years old. There have been many young men like Brad who imagined I could never understand. And so, for the benefit of these countless strugglers, I’ve met and worked with, and because of the wonderful way the Lord has used my past weaknesses to give others strength for the present and the future, I have recorded my long and difficult spiritual journey in the pages that follow. I hope it will be of help to others who struggle with homosexual issues. And also, I hope that it will bring to those who love them, some understanding of the causes of homosexuality and of the difficult journey “gay” people face. Homosexuality is often called “Father Replacement Search;” and, sadly, most of the time the facts bear out the validity of this theory.
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