ANDREW COMISKEY
“I learned how to be a good friend to guys (hard at first) and to love a woman whom I married. Best choice ever.”
My freedom from the domination of homosexuality began with a revelation of the Cross: God’s radical self-giving. God gave all and all He asked is that I give Him all. That took time. Young and sexually charged, I found giving up "gay stuff" hard. I knew deep down that my ways were destructive, but I had not enough traction with Christians to discover how divine Love could surpass my feelings. I volleyed between gay and Christian culture for a while before I "got" the Cross. Surrender to Jesus made the difference.
Second, God showed me I was created in His image—a man intended for a woman. That is an unquestionable truth but my Bible-toting world stressed what I should not do sexually rather than who I was as God’s gendered guy. That invited me to dig deeper into why I was at odds with my masculinity and to get on with the business of relating to women. Gender reconciliation became a priority in my thinking and in my daily decisions. I learned how to be a good friend to guys (hard at first) and to love a woman whom I married. Best choice ever.
I also learned that unless I was rooted in a dynamic community of faith, I would be sucked back into perverting my need for love. I grew to love the real presence of Jesus in His Word and saints, in music, and in our efforts to create a home for Him. As we gathered at the first Vineyard Church in Los Angeles, He deepened authentic worship. There, my fiancée and I began to gather with gay-identified persons whom we helped to know Jesus. Together we discovered His strength perfected in weakness. That became the basis for Living Waters, a group I still run as a Catholic in my parish; our groups now flow out to every continent (desertstream.org). My well-being is bound up in helping make the broken body of Christ beautiful for Jesus.