The question whether homosexuality is a legitimate life style has raised intense debate. Some homosexuals feel their alternate approach to this area of human relationships is inherently natural to them. But others are seeking, with deep sincerity, a full healing of homosexual tendencies. The following is an account of someone who sought healing and received it. The glimpse of moral and spiritual precepts that freed her will be encouraging to others.
An understanding of the spiritual nature of God and man's reflection of that nature healed me of homosexuality.
Several years ago I became good friends with another woman who lived in my college dormitory. We grew closer, and soon I found myself engaged in sexual activities with her. As time went on, this aspect of our relationship intensified. Something kept telling me that what I was doing was taking me down a dead-end street, but I rationalized my actions.
Meanwhile, I had been attending Christian Science college organization meetings on campus and studying the Bible, together with Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, quite regularly. My study helped me understand the completely spiritual nature of God and of His expression, man. I began to see that the best human experience had to be one in which an individual conforms to spiritually derived moral law.
But still I remained deeply involved with my friend and continued to justify my behavior. After a sexual encounter, I would always feel empty, dissatisfied, and extremely guilty. I would make a halfhearted attempt to pray to God about the situation and then forget the whole thing until the next time I was faced with these feelings.
After two years of fluctuating between enjoying the relationship and feeling guilty about what I was doing, I came across this statement from Science and Health, which made a deep impression: "Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the hope of forgiveness,—selfishness and sensuality causing constant retrogression,—our moral progress will be slow." Science and Health, p. 22; I came to see that morality is the application of divine law to the human situation and that obedience to moral law is the first step toward experiencing the perfection and harmony that go hand in hand with spirituality.
The moral law is clearly stated in the Ten Commandments and in Christ Jesus' Sermon on the Mount: "Thou shalt not commit adultery" Ex. 20:14; and "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Matt. 5:8;
If something is pure, I thought, it is free of adulterants. I began to see homosexuality as an infringement on moral law. Answers to my questions began to fall into place. I reasoned that committing adultery, in a broad sense, meant committing any act that would tend to pull me away from upholding the moral precepts that lead to the understanding of man as a pure, spotless idea of God. I remembered the Bible passage that says: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 6:24;
For the first time I could clearly see that a lesbian relationship served to undermine the moral law Moses revealed. I stopped seeing myself as a pendulum swinging between sin and goodness and started seeing myself as expressing all the strength and purity and uprightness natural to a child of God. I declared that the purity of womanhood could not be debased or perverted because it originates in God and is therefore always intact. I realized that I expressed those very qualities as God's image and that because I was inseparable from God, I could only be attracted Spiritward. The relationship had not been based upon goals, commitments, spiritual aspirations. It was based on momentary physical gratification, and of course this could not fill the spiritual needs I felt deep inside me. These needs had to be filled by an understanding of my relationship to God.
As I discerned more of my spiritual nature, the desire for homosexual activity left me. I was completely healed. My friend and I parted ways naturally. Later I became good friends with the man who is now my husband. I told him of my healing before we were married, and he rejoiced with me. I had come to see that when two people marry, they make a commitment to love and support each other and to grow spiritually. This included for me a setting of goals and working toward them, establishing a sense of home and family.
Mrs. Eddy says, "But remember God in all thy ways, and thou shalt find the truth that breaks the dream of sense, letting the harmony of Science that declares Him, come in with healing, and peace, and perfect love." Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 175-176. I had found the truth of God's nature and my relationship to Him, and this in turn brought healing and harmony into my life.
