My name is Jeff, I was one of 4 adopted children and in my early adolescent years, my older adopted brother molested me.

I had no memory of the molestation before joining the support/recovery program at WCCI in 1999, but I do know that my mother knew what was happening to me and chose to ignore it.    Later she would blame me for what my brother did to me by saying that I enticed him.

As a child I remember being a very serious minded young boy who was so angry that I often had uncontrollable fits of rage at times.   I had blocked out any memory of the molestation, so I had no understanding as to why I was so angry.

While growing up within this adoptive family, I do not ever remember being held, hugged or told that I was wanted or loved by either my mother or my father.    I hated my family, and I hated myself!

By second grade I was masturbating twice a day and fantasizing about other boys.   I was raised as a Catholic and I was taught 3 very distinct lessons:

1. Homosexuality was wrong and you would go to hell for it
2.  No one is born a homosexual
3. Committing suicide would automatically send you to hell.

 That’s what the church taught, and there I was, a 7 or 8-year-old boy masturbating and having thoughts about boys.   What was wrong with me?

I could not tell you at that time “who” had caused me to be this way so I believed that GOD had cursed me with this homosexual problem; therefore

I added Him to my hate list as well.

I went through school and entered college where I pursued and received a degree in physics just to prove to others, especially my mother, that I was not stupid.   She always thought the sun rose and set on my brother – so I just wanted to prove to her that I could out do him.

After college I came up with a plan to get myself out of this cursed life.

I decided to join the Army as a commissioned officer and sign up for an elite fighting force, which I thought was a sure way of dying by my 25^th birthday in some foreign land. 

All I wanted to do at that time was kill others and die for my country without anyone knowing that I had this terrible curse of homosexuality on me.

God had other plans.  During the entire time I was in the Army as an Airborne Ranger – no conflicts occurred!   So after 3 years, I got out.

All the rage I held inside of me had burned me out.  I had become just a shell of a man, but anger and alcohol were only 2 of my constant companions.

While in the military I became a closet homosexual, and I worked hard to hide my feelings and sexual activities from my friends, my military associates, and my family.

For the next 15 years of my life I lived in a revolving hell of drinking and sleeping around with men.   I never deceived myself into believing that I was born this way or that it was an “okay” alternative lifestyle.   Something deep inside of me would never allow me to go there.

The only problem I had was that I did not know how to change or how to get out of homosexuality.   I did not know if was even possible to do so.

By the time a friend introduced me to WCCI I had hit bottom.  I was doing occasional drugs, drinking and having as much sex as I could.

I entered their support/recovery ministry with uncontrollable rage.  My day to day living consisted of:   anger, bondage to homosexuality, alcoholism, tobacco, and fear - which I denied having by the way.   I was always trying to please people so they would not see my homosexual issues; I still struggled with daily masturbation, and a heap of other problems.

I spent 3 & 1/2 years in that program and they were some of the worst days of my life, but it was also the best thing that could have happened to me!!

That ministry helped me to face the fact that I had wounds, they taught me how to face them, that I was not alone, and how to deal with the pain.   

Those teachers taught me that I had no control over my life unless I gave my life over to Jesus and allowed Him to be not only my Saviour, but also my Master.   For someone who thought that he always had to be in charge, that was a major task for me, but eventually, I submitted.

Slowly things began to change in my life.   First my rage disappeared, and then my anger began to subside.

I was able to quit chewing tobacco, and with the help of AA, I am now walking free from my addiction to alcohol.   Without the alcohol, I could not, and have not, gone back to having sex with men.   (I discovered, during my time in that support/recovery program, that drinking was the way I numbed myself so that I could sleep around.  Whenever I wanted to have sex with men, I always fortified myself with alcohol first.   Or if it was my body craving the booze, then the next stop after drinking a bottle of something was getting to the gay bar for another shot and a pickup.  It was a vicious cycle for me.)     

That program made me face the molestation, which helped me to understand the reoccurring dreams I had since childhood, and with counseling and the help of the Holy Spirit, I was able to forgive my brother and my mother. 

I have even learned to love Jeff, and to forgive myself for the things I did to me.  

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to quit that program because I was angry with them for confronting me about my issues and my fears.   It was not an easy program to go through, and it was certainly hard on my flesh!!

I am a blessed and grateful man who can tell you from my heart, that although I am a free man, I am a man who is still working on his issues.  But now I am a man who is not afraid to say that I am broken and not perfect.   

I do not have to seek another man’s approval, especially through sex, and I do not plan to ever run away again from the things that life throws at me with alcohol.

I know who my God is, His name is JEHOVAH ROPHE =          Jehovah  =   I AM,        Rophe  =    THE HEALER

HE kept me alive through the Rangers, did not allow me to die from alcohol poisoning, because GOD knows that I drank enough to do so; and through all my sleeping around, he never allowed any harm to come to me.   

·        HE kept me alive so that I would become the man that HE birthed me into this world to be,

·        He kept me alive to serve Him by telling others that there really is a way out of your pain –         AND . . . .

·        JEHOVAH,  the “I AM WHAT YOU NEED GOD” – is your ticket to healing and freedom also.