Patterns

Everyone has seen beautiful tapestries with multi-colored patterns and designs woven together. They are usually the product of painstaking effort over an extended period of time. When begun, no design is visible. Only after the various shades and colors are brought together is a pattern discernible. Then the tapestry is a finished product, revealing a plan behind the arrangement of shapes.

In many ways, our lives are like that. Physical, social, emotional, and spiritual colors are brought together in our lives to form patterns. Throughout childhood and adolescence no design may be evident. Not until later adolescence and adulthood do patterns become visible. Then what appears to be a finished product reveals a plan behind the arrangement of feelings, thoughts and actions.

All people are shaped by early experiences. We become the people we are because of them. But just because certain patterns are evident in our lives does not mean that God is the source of those feelings and thoughts. Many homosexuals think God made them the way they are, with the feelings they have. In fact, just the opposite is true. Biblical teaching is clear that homosexuality is not the normal design of God for persons (Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:24-27).

In actuality, the feelings and thoughts of the person struggling with homosexual tendencies are the result of patterns established in a world tainted by sin. Rejection from parents, molestation or sexual abuse, physical or emotional abuse, derogatory attitudes and stereotypes of gender roles, faulty thought patterns about sex, low self-esteem, negative sexual experiences--these influences from our sin-saturated world have a critical impact on personal development. Such negative influences are not part of God's perfect plan for his people.

In a sense, each one of us has had a multitude of negative patterns woven into our lives. We have all suffered as a result of others' selfishness, man's inhumanity to man, and our own tendency to rebel against God. Consequently, all our relationships suffer, physical health suffers, psychological and emotional health suffers, and the joy and peace we were meant to have in our relationship with God and with each other is replaced by guilt, fear, and loneliness. No human is immune. These negative patterns become so ingrained in us that we think they are normal. Only when we see the example of Christ do we get a glimpse of what God intends for us. Through him we see how abnormal our patterns of life have become.

Growth and change may depend, therefore, on seeing and understanding the patterns that have been established and deliberately working to alter them. This approach may be necessary not only for homosexuals, but for heterosexuals who may also be crippled by destructive patterns of thought, feelings, or behavior, and who are interested in reweaving new patterns into life.

Several patterns may be evident for those struggling with homosexuality. One pattern involves the way emotional needs are met. Everyone has emotional needs for nurture and closeness. The child as well as the adult will search for ways to have these needs met. If there were indulgences or deficiencies in closeness or unhealthy ways of interacting in a person's family, the child may never have had emotional needs met in healthy ways. Consequently, it may be difficult for the adult to relate emotionally to other adults in healthy ways. For example, if a boy associates nurturing and intimacy with men rather than women, it may be difficult for the man to see a woman meeting those needs.

Another pattern involves the way sexual needs have been met. There is nothing wrong with sexual feelings or desires. However, they can be directed in one way or another. Early sexual encounters with the same sex may have been pleasurable, even in the case of molestation. A child may receive emotional gratification and even sensory pleasure from the experience. But the result may be a pattern of sexual gratification which becomes established. To consider the opposite sex in terms of sexual fulfillment may therefore be distasteful, or at least not preferred.

A third pattern involves a continued confusion over meeting esteem needs with sexual activity. Early attacks on her self-esteem may lead an individual to think she is worthless. Degrading remarks by parents or negative labeling by peers may prompt a young person to seek acceptance from those who seem to value him/her. In his search, he may begin to confuse sexual activity with acceptance and love. Sexual encounters only reinforce the pattern.

These, along with other patterns, may be woven into the life of the person struggling with homosexuality. While these patterns may be difficult to unravel, they can be rewoven gently and carefully into new patterns. This is the hope that is offered by those who have found in Christ the power of renewal, the power to begin again and to reshape life into what God intends it to be.

To those looking for a resource of help, Exodus International offers many resources.

Exodus International North America
http://www.exodus-international.org

This group is dedicated to equipping and uniting agencies and individuals and in ministering to those who are interested in liberation from homosexuality. They provide updated referral lists of qualified ministries to those seeking resources and practical help.