“Wives Need Healing, Too!” Wives Need Healing, Too!

By Willa Medinger

I grabbed ahold of Alan and beat him with both fists, screaming,”I hate you, I hate you!” God was finally allowing these ugly thingsto come out of me.

I first got to know Alan when we were in elementary school. Weboth lived in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Baltimore. Whenthere was a Jewish holiday, he was the only Gentile in one class andI in another, so we were thrown together.

I wore glasses and was overweight, but he really liked me. I couldnever understand that. He had a lot of good-looking girls who likedhim, but he liked me best of all. We began dating in ninth grade. Iremember thinking in my silly mind, “I really don’t like him!” Butthat was a defense. It seemed like anytime someone really liked me,I’d say that.

He was so level-headed, always saving for the future. I’d think,”What a bore!” But after college when I was working in a hospital, Ibegan to see some of the awful realities of life. I realized thesethings in Alan were wonderful characteristics to keep you goingthrough life. I began to love him more and more.

Alan asked me to marry him, and I accepted. Unknown to me, he hadalready been involved in homosexual activities for seven years. Butthe first two years of our marriage were ideal. We didn’t fight; wehad a wonderful time. We didn’t go through any of the crises we sawmany of our friends experiencing. But after our two girls were born,all kinds of things began to come out from my childhood, a variety ofinsecurities and anxieties. I had a thyroid problem which caused somepersonality problems. So Alan had two little girls and a wife wholooked like she was going to go off to an institution. It must havelooked overwhelming.

I think it was shortly after our second daughter was born (afterfive years of marriage) that things really began to go down the drainbetween him and I. It was just before this time that I came to knowJesus in a personal way.

I remember a vision I had one night. I was out in the middle ofthe ocean on a boat, and I saw the Lord out in the water. He kepttelling me to jump. I said, “You know I’m terrified of water. I can’tdo it. I cannot bring myself to jump off this boat.” And he said,”I’ll catch you.” Finally, I jumped and I remember sinking for a longtime. Then Jesus pulled me up and out of the water.

I really feel this was the beginning of my life with the Lord. Iguess He was preparing me for what He was going to take me throughduring the next ten years. I still had no idea of Alan’s involvementwith other men.

It was within a matter of six months of that vision that lifebecame hell for Alan and I. He was unable to give to me at any level,as he got further into homosexuality. I felt more and more destroyedas a person.

Several years after this, a friend of ours who was homosexual cameto live with our family. My response when I found out someone had aproblem was to go to the library and take out every book I could findon the subject, and set about “curing” the person. So I began to readthrough 10 books on homosexuality.

As I read, I began to realize that the preconditioning factorswere right there in Alan’s life. I started looking more closely atthe things that my husband gravitated to. It was very difficult forme to accept it, but it became very apparent to me that this reallywas the problem.

I never confronted Alan about it. Perhaps I was afraid of losinghim. And I never spoke to anyone else about what I suspected. So Ihad this knowledge in my heart for five years, but never expressed itto anyone. God was the only one I communicated with on any honestbasis for those years.

About four months before Alan’s healing, I began to attend aprayer group. Unknown to me at the time, most of the women involvedhad alcoholic husbands. As I became more in touch with the Lord,delving deeper into my Bible and prayer, I heard Him say to me, “Youhave to let Alan go.” I had to stop being his mother. I had to stopbuilding a perfect rosey-colored world to cover the mess our liveshad become.

God showed me He was unable to deal with Alan, because I insistedin shielding him from the pain. I realized I was saying, “I can takebetter care of him than God can.” It was only a month after I decidedto really give him to the Lord that his life was totally changed.

It happened on November 26th, 1974. Before Alan left for a prayermeeting where he accepted Jesus into his life, he said, “Say good-byeto me. You’ll never see this person again.” When he came home thatnight, I knew something had happened. When your husband hasn’ttouched you in two years, comes in after a prayer meeting and chasesafter you, you know there’s been a change! It took a few days forAlan to realize how great his healing had been. He knew he had becomeheterosexual.

He also found that he no longer wanted to smoke or drink. He waseven different with the children. But the greatest change was howmuch he fell in love with me.

About a month later, Alan came to me and said he wanted to talk. Icould see he was very distressed. I wanted to make it easier for him,so as he began trying to talk, I asked him, “You were gay, weren’tyou?” He was absolutely astonished. He had no idea that I knew.

After that talk, emotions began to surface that I had no ideaexisted inside of me. I felt like a raving lunatic. The primaryemotion was rage. I used to weep for God to take it away, but it greweven more intense.

After church one Sunday, I came home and the feelings wereuncontrollable. I grabbed ahold of Alan and beat him with both fists,screaming, “I hate you, I hate you!” He was able to just stand there,realizing that God was finally allowing these ugly things to come outof me. I dropped down on the couch in an exhausted stupor for about 3hours.

When I got up, I felt different than I’d felt in years. But ragecontinued to come out of me for another 2-3 years. I also experiencedgreat difficulty with the sexual aspect of our marriage.

But God began healing me. The beginning of the journey towholeness was to find out who I was. It was something I’d never donebefore. When I was a girl, I became what my mother wanted. Then Imarried Alan and became what he wanted. But I never found myself.

So I began listening to God, to find my identity in Him. When Hespoke to me about who I was, it would bring tears to my eyes. Thethings He would say were so very wonderful. He was so loving andencouraging. That’s how the person God created inside of me began tocome forth.

I believe a woman finds out who she is by listening to herCreator-not to the world around her, or even to her husband. Thensome of the tougher steps came in, such as telling Alan when I wasupset, when something he’d done angered me, when I felt lonely. I hadto honestly confront him, and stop

centering my life around him and his needs. I’d always been apeople-pleaser, doing things I didn’t want to, just so others wouldthink I was wonderful. I began to love Alan, as I began to lovemyself.

I could finally relate to my husband as a man. I no longer had tolook at him as my little boy. I didn’t have to control him, to keepfrom being vulnerable. I’d always been afraid of masculine men, butI’m not anymore. The things that have changed in Alan are the thingsthat I love most about him. I love being a woman now, having ahusband who challenges me to be the best person I can. I think manyof the underlying problems in our marriage have been healed.

I have to tell you about another beautiful thing the Lord gave us.In 1976, I became pregnant. The doctor gave some solemn warnings tous about me giving birth to a child at 40. I’d had two miscarriages,but it was an ideal pregnancy from beginning to end. Alan was themost wonderful husband during this time. He helped me through everystep, and I felt his love so intensely. I can’t remember a happier ormore healing time in my whole life.

When Steven was born, he was blue for two whole minutes . But theanesthetist got him breathing and his brain was not damaged in anyway. God wanted us to have this child. In my inner knowing, I heardGod say to me, “You never have to fear again.” Our son was to be asign to me that Alan would never go back to his previous lifestyle.And every time I look at Stevie, I know that I have nothing to fear.It’s really beautiful what God has done in our lives.

Willa is the wife of Alan Medinger, Director of Regenerationin Baltimore, Maryland. Her husband’s story of sudden deliverancefrom homosexuality in 1974 is available through our office.Distributed by Love in Action P.O. Box 753307, Memphis, TN38175-3307: 901/542-0250