Andrew Comiskey
Sep 14, 2015
‘We remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise.’ C.S. Lewis
‘And he will turn the hearts of their fathers to their children’ (LK 1:17).
A man sexually violated John at 9-years-old. From then on, he hated ‘gay’ men (the unhealed do not distinguish between pedophiles and persons with SSA).
John’s disdain grew as ‘gays’ waged and seemed to win the war on normalizing homosexuality in the culture. Until his church’s men’s retreat last summer. A friend of John invited two broken guys in a ‘gay’ union to the retreat. It seems their relationship was in ruins and they were calling out for God’s mercy. Over the course of the retreat, the Father made His love known to both men through the love of the guys there.
John loved Jesus more than he hated ‘gays.’ When he heard the witness of these two men who had suffered much in their lives but were now experiencing the saving mercy of God, John began to soften: mercy primed him to give mercy to these men. As he did so, he could see the underlying stronghold of hatred in his heart from the abuse. God began a work of restoring John from the deep wound of sexual abuse, a healing that continues to this day.
John’s repentance and healing was timely. His only son Tim suffered from a distant relationship with his Dad. A focused and successful businessman, John had little time for his only son who at 15-years-old was showing signs of gender brokenness. The older Tim got, the more he needed his Dad and the less he liked him. Tim sought solace in his mother who could see her son’s need for masculine empowerment but could not give it to him.
The same summer of the men’s retreat, Tim attended an academic camp at a west coast university. There Tim ‘came out’ with the help of a guy further along in his ‘gay’ identification. Tim’s sexual bond with him also sealed what he believed to be his ‘true self’ as a ‘gay’ person. He arrived home days after his father’s retreat; a few days later, his parents found evidence of Tim’s ‘gay’ life on his cell phone. Primed with mercy, John began to fight for the dignity of his son. More next week.
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