Looking back over the years, I can only marvel at how patient and faithful God has been to me. His love drew and guided me many times, often when I was totally unaware of it.
Conversion came when I was 13 as a blinding revelation. What started out as a midnight feast at a guide camp led to a deep conviction of the need for salvation. Five years of solid Bible teaching in a sound evangelical church followed. I now realise that this stable and positive time gave me a much needed foundation. There were plenty of boyfriends throughout my teenage years - I found them pleasant company. The fact that they came and went didn't matter - my heart always belonged to female friends. It was they I missed and dreamt about - they who made me cry. Men did not move me. I froze towards them. A violent stepfather, sexual abuse by an uncle and harmful actions by people towards my mother and myself, had seen to that.
The 60's was a great time of change, but gays had yet to 'come out' and gay people had yet to be discovered. I certainly knew nothing of this lifestyle. Life was full of The Beatles, Cliff Richard, Bible studies and church meetings.
At 18, I started nursing and left the stabilising influence of the church. A girl in the hospital befriended me. Perhaps because she was soon to leave the area, we found ourselves in one another's arms. We were two young women with intense needs trying to find fulfilment in one another. I experienced an explosion of emotions and feelings I had no idea existed in me. It honestly never occurred to me to wonder if this was alright with God. The sexuality so repressed by my childhood came tumbling out in a waterfall of emotion that was totally overwhelming.
My friend soon left the area for a new job that had been arranged before we met. We started a long distance love affair. At first we continued to go to church, encouraged by friends who told us it was acceptable to be a Christian and an active lesbian (it had dawned on me by now!). But as time went on, we gradually drifted away from God. I was amazed at how many gay Christians I heard about - I certainly was not alone.
The Gay Scene
I had an intense desire to belong and identify - this was probably a search for the family I never had as a child. I wrote to a lesbian magazine and made contact. I vividly remember my first meeting which was very nearly my last! I was met at the bus stop by an extremely butch woman dressed completely in mens' clothing. I gulped hard, wondering what I had done and trotted nervously beside her to her home. She and her friend introduced me to the gay club scene over the next few weeks. I soon discovered that she was a transsexual (wished to be a man) and was quite untypical of most lesbians.
My friend eventually came back to live with me, but my involvement with the gay scene caused a rift between us. I eventually became involved with another woman and we broke up. This led to me launching myself completely into the gay world, coming up for air only at work. I had a succession of girlfriends only lasting for a year or so. A group of us helped to start a gay womens group in the city. We became a very close group who spent a lot of time together. Here I felt needed and found the unusual twilight world I lived in sometimes exciting, sometimes frightening. Strangely, my Christianity followed me round in spite of trying to shed it. I remember a girlfriend throwing my Bible down the stairs in a rage. I found that Bible years later, in two pieces with no back. I re-backed it and have it still!
Later the group started to expand and lost the closeness it once had. At that time I met another woman and instantly fell in love. She was a married woman encouraged by her husband to work her gayness out of her system. A decision that was to backfire badly on him. It was the middle of the liberated 70's. So started a love affair that was to lead me back to the Lord.
The Prodigal's Return
My new girlfriend left her husband and I moved in with her and her children. This was the first real family I had ever had. We were also very isolated and after a few years I became very unhappy. A friend from work made a pass at me and I responded.
Unbeknown to me, God was at work. One day whilst with her, I saw myself in a mirror. The horror of what I was doing burst over me and I knew something had to change. Memories of my previous Christian life came back to me and I started to search for God after having broken off with that woman. I read books from the religious section of the library and quickly realised that I only needed to call out to Him. As I did this, weeping, I felt the presence of God come to the front of me and I knew that I was totally accepted. I had come home!
The next stage
Repentance, so much repentance! I wrote letters to people I had wronged, returned a beer glass to a pub which had 'changed hands' and didn't want it. They got it anyway - I was so determined. And the big one - I had taken small quantities of sleeping tablets for my own use from the ward. Surely the Lord didn't want me to confess this...? I couldn't lose my nursing qualification? Somehow I received the grace to do so and after three weeks alternating between faith and sheer terror I finally received a letter from the matron stating that they had decided not to take it any further. How faithful our God is when we obey.
Shortly after, the Lord had another surprise in store. Unbeknown to me He was also speaking to my friend through a teaching course. I had the privilege of leading her to Christ shortly after. We stopped our physical relationship and started a new phase in both our lives. Finding help in the church was not so easy. We were honest about our past which led to some very strange reactions! People just did not know what to do with us. God must have decided that we needed more help, so He sent a wonderful woman who lived on a small holding a few miles away. It was the centre of a Christian fellowship who took us to their hearts.
My friend and I continued to live together for a further two years. The grace of God was helping us to keep from sinning. During this time, we were introduced to a large church in a nearby town. Further involvement led to the suggestion that we should actually move there and travel to work. After some discussion and prayer, our house was put up for sale and sold. The elders suggested that we live separately and accommodation was found for us. My friend found this very hard and did not cope well. There was little understanding or support from the church who did not appreciate what an enormous step this was.
During this time I learnt the basics of calling out to God with my whole heart. God started to give me passages and words which were to set the tone of my future Christian walk. One of these was Jeremiah 29:11-14: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call on me and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart."
Many, many times this has been proved to me over the years. Verses in Job 22 led me to pray over and over that He would teach me how to lay down that which was treasure to me in order to seek God as first priority. This was hard as I did not have the trust in God to believe that He would look after me as He clearly promises He will. Sometimes I found God wonderfully, sometimes I despaired because of the many problems I suffered from - depression, fear, loneliness and anxiety amongst others. One thing I learnt is that even though I did not have the faith or insight to really believe God, He still followed through His promises to me. He did not abandon me even though frequently I abandoned Him in my ability to trust. All He required of me was a willing heart. He has always kept His word to me.
Time moved on, my friend quickly found friends in the church and related easily. But I ran into difficulties. My childhood years had been traumatic with violent male figures and no male/female happy family life. All of my 20's were spent in the gay scene. My ability to relate to family life, men, how to dress appropriately, was poor. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. I was like a fish out of water and desperately lonely. Again God took care of me - "He puts the solitary in families" (Psalm 68:6) - by providing a lovely family who took me in as almost an 'auntie'. They also provided the experience I needed for my new job as a health visitor. I learnt so much watching their children grow. They frequently were used as guinea pigs to see if my new found skills worked. As the children grew, so did I as a Christian, but I found that my attachment to women was as strong as ever. I asked God to keep me from sinning, which He did until the day came when in my foolishness I asked God to take the 'bridle and bit' off me to see if I could walk straight before Him. The following incident taught me how much we need to depend on God. Having said that, I do believe that God would not have allowed it if I was not ready.
A woman I worked with who had been very distant suddenly took an interest in me. I soon realised she had previously been involved in a lesbian affair, but was not worried because she was not 'my type'. Difficulties in relating to my work colleagues because of an unfortunate work placing, had left me very unhappy and lonely. Whilst trying to encourage this woman to accept Jesus I revealed my past which led to her approaching me. In my need, I fell like a pack of cards! After a short while I panicked and ran to the church for help. Insensitive handling made a bad situation much worse. How much our leaders need teaching and help in dealing with people with a gay background! On top of this our affair became known at work and I had to move as I was blamed. I was at my wits end. Desperation caused me to call out to God with all my heart, both in repentance and for help. God's grace came into the situation and the relationship was stopped.
I feel sure that my sin has caused a great stumbling block in that woman's life. I pray that she does find her way to God one day. Though God does intervene, sometimes the consequences of our actions can have far reaching effects. He does not tell us to obey Him for nothing. These moral guidelines are for our and others' protection - not to spoil our fun. I cannot describe the hurt and pain of that time.
There were however, two positive results. One was discovering that calling out to God really does have results. The other was that the deep stronghold of homosexuality was broken over my life. I was later to learn that the demonic powers over it were very powerful and the emotional wounds very deep. God's promise that all things work together for our good, was kept in this very difficult time. "He brought them out of the deepest darkness and gloom, and broke away their chains" (Psalm 107:4).
By this time I had realised that my own abilities were fairly minimal. I needed help. I had spent many hours calling out to God to help me as His word had said. In God's timing I moved to another church where I met a couple who were going to pray with me about my constant overeating. This was quickly forgotten about as my many other problems were seen. I started many years of counselling and inner healing. Many times the Spirit took me back to times of abuse and hurt I had long buried. I discovered that I had frozen down towards men and people in general as a defence. About two years previously, God had prepared me through a series of dreams which I faithfully wrote down but did not understand. As I learnt to understand dreams, I realised they pointed to the abuse I had long buried along with the identity of the abuser. God was allowing the subconscious memories to surface, but He did not give understanding until it was safe to do so. Truly God cares for us! - "plans to prosper you and not to harm you" (Jer.29). If only I could have believed His word to me, I could have saved so much worry.
Prior to this period of counselling I spent about six months in a deep depression and darkness. I stopped going to church and praying, and reading my Bible. I knew I was not backsliding and was quite frightened. God quickly came to my aid by giving me two prophecies from respected church leaders, independently. Both said that God had started a deep work in my personality and I was not to be frightened. I also had a significant dream that pointed to the same end. Even as I have been writing all this down, I have been staggered at how often God has looked after me, confirmed His word and provided.
I eventually trained as a Christian counsellor (I was allowed time off work to do it!). The training I received, though quite secular at times, helped me both in my job and personally. As time went on, God introduced me to certain concepts which opened the doors to real understanding of my leaning towards women. The main one was co-dependency ... a deep inner emptiness which I had spent a lifetime trying to fill. I had turned to food and lesbianism, neither of which had really helped to fill the hole in me. Understanding helped a lot, and the inner healing helped to untangle the knots that bound me in ways of behaving. But real healing only came when I made the decision to really follow God with all my heart. Leanne Payne's books on healing opened up listening prayer to me. As I learn to lay down my life in order to find it, so God is able to heal because I have let go. The desire of my life is gradually becoming to obey God rather than fulfilling Sally. This sounded so hard at first, but I have realised that God is for me and His ways are ways of joy. Develop a relationship with Him, become like Him and you will never be disappointed.