Considering the question

I think that on this topic Christians can tend to reflect our secular cultures' obsession with all matters sexual. This is combined with an underlying suspicion of those who have feelings different from the majority and the belief, often unspoken, that a satisfactory sex life, in a married heterosexual context, is important for everyone. As a result the possibility of change of orientation is sometimes suggested to believers struggling with same-sex attraction. But this is not everyone's journey and why should it be? God uses our life experiences in a broken world to increase our dependency on Him and to give us a clearer sense of who we really are in Christ. His ambition for us is in stark contrast to the identities the world seeks to fix upon us such as "gay" or "homosexual" or "lesbian". These labels have a ring of permanence about them. Your life journey and mine are, in contrast, about on-going transformation, growing freedom in Christ until heaven when we will experience full liberation from all the stresses and strains of this life.

Having said that, the question "do you want to change your orientation?" remains, and it's clearly an intensely personal one. But then God has a habit of asking each one of us personal questions about aspects of our lives that we prefer not to have to answer. My own response is a definite YES. I want to focus on changing my orientation towards God, towards myself and towards others.

Will my attraction towards women grow and the emotional need for affirmation from men diminish? It may or may not, but my contention is that it's not the big issue. The debate about change in sexual orientation is a red herring. We have got caught in a mindset that concentrates on symptoms, of which same- sex attraction is one, rather than the deeper underlying emotional and psychological wounds and mindsets. As a result those of us who grapple with the daily difficulty of having feelings that we believe are very different from the majority can find ourselves with a sense of persistent shame about who we are. We can feel that we neither belong nor think that we can ever be fully accepted by our fellow believers. This may also be the experience of those who struggle with many types of seemingly persistent emotional pain resulting from abuse, loss, abandonment and childhood experiences etc.

In the midst of pain and a sense of being on the outside God welcomes us with open arms. He encourages us to experience more of his grace as we re-orient ourselves towards Him and His truth about who we really are.