Same Sex Attraction and Marriage Under Grace - A Guest Post By Danielle Powers

Today it's my privilege to welcome Danielle Powers as a guest blogger. Danielle has a compelling story that's timely and inspiring to anyone struggling with same-sex attraction or  knows someone who is. 

Broader than freedom from sexual sin, however, is Danielle's message that God loves us too much to leave us the way we are. Wonder of wonder, he provides a way out. Then he redeems our past and reshapes our future. I know you'll be encouraged by what God has done in Danielle's life.   ~Lori

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17).

As I lay beside my amazing husband, I marveled at the incredible grace of Our God. “The Lord enables me to love her,” he jokes in a loving way. But there’s truth behind his statement. I’ve put him through a lot in the 15 years of marriage so far. I arrived with a lot of painful baggage from a hidden past. For over a decade this secret chewed at the edges of our marriage. My old-self seemed to overshadow me, and the weight of it crushed my spirit.

Exposure to porn as a young child produced a fascination for the subject. Boys terrified me for the assumption they could get me pregnant, so I focused on inappropriate roll play with friends who were girls. My thoughts became tainted from the natural order of God’s design for sexual intimacy. Inexplicable feelings seduced me, delivering me into same-gender attraction.

At the darkest point of my exploration, the Lord miraculously placed me into a Christian school. As the Living Word took root in my heart, the Holy Spirit convicted me of sin (John 16:8). Realizing my desperate need for a Savior, I surrendered to Christ.

Straight away, a pivotal passage of God’s word struck my core. It was the story in John 8, the woman caught in adultery. Specifically Jesus’ phrase, “Go and sin no more” pierced me with power. I turned away from acting on any homosexual temptation ever again. That’s when the confusing battle with temptation began.

Tumultuous urges conflicted with God’s clear design for sex in creation. Getting to know the Lord, as I silently relied on him as my only solace. I dispelled the lies, filtering them one by one through earnest prayer. I didn’t know much specific Scripture, but I knew God’s character. I didn’t read the Word on my own. Sermons were crucial, spoon-feeding me the word three times a week at school. Truly Jesus carried me. Through it all, God drew me closer, helping me yield to him.

The struggle was real. I didn’t understand the power of Christ within me, feeling I had to ‘fix’ myself. My knee-jerk reaction was to dive into promiscuity with boys. Trying to retrain my desires, I plastered my bedroom walls with male celebrities. I felt I had to prove to the devil I wasn’t gay.

I leaned into the Lord as I pleaded with him to heal me of those temptations. I stuffed those urges down deep. My new heart wanted to please the Lord. Despite the temptations that remained, the Lord freely gave me dynamite self-control. It sounds too simple, but this gift of the Spirit kept me from stumbling.

Self-effort birthed the idea to hide in a monogamous marriage, but my desperate attempts to find the perfect husband failed. Brought to breaking point at the end of high school, I heeded control again to Jesus.

Within a year the Lord brought me a best-friends-first soulmate. We married three years later. But all wasn't perfect. Walls of painful shame barricaded me in secrecy for 13 years of our marriage. I was held captive by the lie that my husband wouldn’t love me if he knew.

I was accustomed to hiding my problem since early childhood, I reasoned, so what did it matter if I concealed something that happened before we met? Yet my past condemned me. I was chained to an image of my “old self,” yet my husband knew the new me.

Over the years the Lord equipped my husband with extreme patience and benevolent love. He fought his own battles, struggling with the subtlety of my emotional disconnect.

In October 2014 the Lord led me from shame toward recovery. He told me to write a book ministering to others about this sensitive issue. This calling forced me to empty out the dregs of my past to my husband.

This is when real healing began. 

While journaling my heart and life story onto paper, the Lord revealed the genesis of my fall. He uncovered everything I’d refused to deal with. I hadn’t fully grasped being “a new creation’ in Christ,” because of the cover of shame. Then he taught me a most encouraging lesson – he would not let my dreadful past go unfruitful.

Praise Jesus, my husband was able to overlook my filthy past. He knew the real me – the new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

I finally started to find freedom from the shame of my past, and live under grace. Head knowledge morphed into heart knowledge through much prayer and confession to my husband.

Now mercy is new every day. I get to enjoy this wonderful godly man and our four beautiful children. Only by having Jesus in the center of our marriage were we able to overcome this giant hurdle. The enemy had tried to steal my childhood, kill any hope of a storybook marriage with kids, and destroy any realization of an identity based on Christ. Yet God is greater.

God’s grace is all over our marriage, and Jesus has called me out of the darkness into his glorious light. 

What’s tangible here? 

You Are NOT Your Sin 

Jesus teaches us to love the sinner and hate the sin. Our Lord was not shy to “recline at table” with the lowest of society. He loved them entirely too much to leave them in their broken state (Mark 2:17).

Trust Jesus 

Luke 6:46 says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” In the middle of temptation-filled days, I felt I couldn’t tell a soul of my problems. Self-preservation was one reason. Deeper than that, I didn’t trust that anyone would point me the way of Life. My Lord Jesus alone was my counsellor. If you struggle with this sin, seek Jesus first, then seek people who are guided by the truth of God’s Word.

Test Everything by the Word of God 

John 6:36 describes Jesus’ words as Spirit and Life. Our flesh or world-guided ideas count for nothing. Because Jesus is Lord, we trust his definition of sin and allow his word to renew our mind (Rom. 12:2). It’s a lifestyle of taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

Temptation is not a sin. 

Acting on it is. Jesus faced temptation, yet did not sin (Heb. 4:15).

Don’t Trust in Your Own Strength 

Paul expresses in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 how God’s power is perfected in our weakness. Where our efforts end, the Lord’s power begins. God is Our Deliverer. “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

Our Affections Are Found in Christ 

Our value is not held in a marital status. Earthly marriage only points toward our Lord who pledged himself to the church, his bride. He sits, alive, waiting for us, his bride, until eternity. I pray encouragement to anyone who suffers with a similar internal battle. Continually hold strong to Jesus for your comfort and hope. He will never let us slip from his loving embrace.

God Bless You,
~Danielle


Danielle Powers is a blogger, blessed wife, and mother of four following God’s call to encourage and help others to see God’s hands in their lives. When not attending to the needs of a busy family, Danielle is the drummer in her church’s Praise and Worship team. She also ministers through a Christian outreach for teen girls aimed at leading hearts toward Christ and transferring life skills. Check out her blog at HolyEverAfter.org, where her love of Christ and thankful heart clearly shines. 

Are you hungry for God, but starving for time? 
I’d love to send you a 5-minute e-mail devotion twice a week to start your day off with the Lord. 

Sign up for a free subscription to Hungry for God by CLICKING HERE.
Then, be sure to VALIDATE the confirmation email you receive. 

Note: I promise never to spam you or share your email address.

Because busy women need to connect with God in the craziness of everyday life.