How I Found Help

For many years after graduating from college, I avoided friendships with women in an attempt to stifle my struggles. Loneliness finally drove me to become friend with a woman in my church. The struggle rose up with a vengeance and I realized I had never dealt with the causes of my temptations so they just lay dormant, waiting for a time to strike! 

When I asked the leaders of my church for help with these feelings, all they could say was, "Don't you know these feelings are wrong?" to which I replied, "Yes, I do. That’s why I am asking you to help me to stop having them." I had feeling I did not want and was asking for help but all my church leaders could tell me was that I was wrong to have them. 

Thank God that a Christian lady in my neighborhood who did not have this struggle introduced me to Homosexuals Anonymous. She had some of HA's literature, gave it to me, and I have been on HA's mailing list ever since. 

As I work the 14 steps in the HA workbook and meditate on the Scriptures cited, I have come to the conclusion that the Bible has had the answer all along. It’s just that Christians who do not have this struggle do not know how the Bible tells one to work through this struggle and cannot assist those who suffer with it. 

I have asked the leaders of a church I attended if they could start an HA group to help strugglers live free from homosexuality. They showed no interest at all. Sometimes it feels like the only ones who care about those who struggle are others who share this problem. I feel like we have to support each other. If we don't, nobody else will. 

I praise God for the ministry of HA. It really speaks to my need to live as I really want to live in my heart of hearts—the way Christ would have me live. Thank you for being there.

 -- M.W.,
Hartford, CT

Why is it So Difficult For Me to Make Friends?

"We determined to mature in our relationships with men and women, learning the meaning of a partnership of equals, seeking neither dominance over people nor servile dependency on them."

"All right," you may be saying, "I have grasped the importance of choosing friends who love Christ and are serious about following Him. I understand that, if you want to catch fish, you’re smart to go to a well-stocked pond, so I am attending a Bible-believing Church. I go to Sunday school as well as morning worship, I have been going to evening worship and prayer meeting, and I am a part of a small group. I’ve been observing the people and I think I have found someone who looks like they would make a good friend. What next?"

Thoughts on Friendship

Collected by Sandy S., Reading, PA

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you."

-- Winnie the Pooh

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend."

--Albert Camus

"Stranger are just friends waiting to happen."

--Unknown

"Friendship is one mind in two bodies."

--Menicus

"Friends are God's way of taking care of us."

--Unknown

"My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life."

-- Lee Iacocca

"If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them. I'd be at the bottom to catch them."

--Unknown

"True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost."

--Charles Caleb Colton

"Hold a friend with both your hands."

--Nigerian proverb

Points to Ponder

"This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished, but it is going on; this is not the end, but it is the road. All goes not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified." [Martin Luther, "Defense and Explanation of All the Articles: Second Article," in The Journal of Biblical Counseling, (Volume XI, Number 3, Spring 1993), back cover]

Dear Father,
help me to bridle my tongue,
so that on judgment day
I will not be found guilty
of assault with a deadly weapon.

[Unknown in The Best of Barbara Johnson, (New York: Inspirational Press, 1996), p. 377]