Yearning To Be Loved Yearning To Be Loved
By Carrie Wingfield
Hostility and anger grew in me toward all men. They just wanttheir own gratification, regardless of how I feel. , I thought. Noone could satisfy my insatiable need for love.
My inclination toward homosexuality began in the early years of mylife. As a toddler, I remember sleeping in the attic on the thirdfloor, alone and separated from the rest of the family. I feltterrified as I lay there screaming in the dark. I felt rejected,unloved and unwanted.
Most of the time my parents were out with their friends ortraveling out of town. I was cared for by loving maids, but they didnot gratify my insatiable need for the love and affection of myfather and mother.
Starting about age nine, I experienced sexual harassment and abusefrom several neighborhood boys. Hostility and anger grew in metowards all men. Sex is all men want from me, I thought. They justwant their own gratification, regardless of how I feel.
When I was 18, my father committed suicide. His death dashed myhopes for closeness with him. I felt responsible for his death, butdid not know why. My obsessive eating habits expanded to includesmoking, alcohol abuse, sexual affairs with men, and continualpartying.
At home I was forbidden to share my feelings or talk about painfulmatters. I could never tell my mother about my emotional needs: theturmoil I felt over my father’s suicide, my fear when I was almostraped at age 19, my repulsion while witnessing a homosexual act thatsame year.
When I was 26, someone told me, “We try to do good things in orderto please God, when all He wants to do is love us.” I was overwhelmedwith the realization of God’s unconditional love. I turned thecontrol of my life over to Jesus, and fell deeply in love with Him.
Two years later, I entered a convent to begin life as a nun. Butas the superiors attempted to purge me of pride, vanity and worldlyways, I was stripped of my self-worth. I felt only conditional lovefrom them, just as I’d felt when growing up. I retreated deeply intomyself and began to hate those women intensely. Bitterness grewdeeply inside me, and my distrust of other people grew.
During my year at the convent, I became good friends with one ofthe lay women who lived there. We kept in contact after I left and Iquickly responded to her when she reached out to me emotionally andsexually, expressing concern for the confusion I was feeling. I hadbeen shocked by the nuns’ lack of love; I was confused about God andHis ways. I teetered on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In additionto all this, I felt like I was going insane because I had respondedto this woman’s attention and entered into my first homosexualrelationship.
I knew this kind of sexual involvement was not pleasing to God.With the help of a psychologist, I broke off the relationship. Buthis human insights could not effect the inward healing I needed.
Fourteen years later, I was in a church where the strong,controlling male leaders considered women to be inferior. Some of themarried women were so passive that their own individuality wastotally lost in their husband’s identity. I was terrified to thinkthis might be God’s plan for marriage. I eventually left the church,enraged and seething with hatred for all men. My root of bitternesscontinued to grow. Soon I was again homosexually involved withanother woman.
When that relationship eventually ended in turmoil, I feltravaged, hopeless and alone. I tried to commit suicide but Godmiraculously intervened to save my life. He changed my heart in theweeks that followed. I received counseling from a husband and wifeand repented of my homosexual behavior. I gradually understood that Istruggled with wrong sexual desires because of the bitterness, rageand anger I carried towards my parents, significant peers and thosein church leadership.
In order to break the control of these negative attitudes, Ineeded to forgive the people who had offended me. With my counselors,I gradually identified the foundational events in my life thataffected my personality. These events I took to Jesus in prayer.
In prayer, I pictured the person who had offended me, the scene ofthe offense, and asked Jesus to come into the scene with us. Idescribed what I saw and heard to my counselors. I allowed myself tofeel what I would have felt at the age of the offense, and thenpoured out all my feelings and pain to Jesus.
Sometimes I had to acknowledge my own sinful responses to therejections and hurts I had received, and ask Jesus to forgive me.
Even though I had forgiven my father at the time of my conversion21 years before, during counseling I recognized there remained in mea deep, hidden hatred towards him. In prayer, I forgave him for beingabsent from my life and for deserting me through death. This act offorgiveness effected such a dramatic change that today, I can acceptwithout fear men who are in authority over me.
It was not until I went through prayer counseling, where Jesuscame and healed my attitudes towards early painful experiences, thatI was set free from homosexual desires and fantasies. I had struggledon my own during the 14-year interval between my two homosexualrelationships, between secular psychotherapy and prayer counseling. Ialso cried out to God in desperation many times to set me free fromthe homosexual desires.
I did not meet anyone during those years who knew how to pray forsomeone harboring bitterness. I did not know there was a connectionbetween my bitterness and homosexual desires. My prayer counselorstold me that Jesus could change my attitudes and set me free from thenegative effects of my bitterness. They prayed continually, and Jesushas healed me, by removing all of the bitterness from my heart andreplacing it with His peace and love and joy.
Studying the Bible has helped me discover who I am in Christ. Irealize my identity comes from Him, not from another person. I wasstripped of my identity by brokenness in my family and friendships asI grew up. I tried desperately to recover it from other women, totake on their feminine qualities, their identities. I tried to losemyself totally in the other women so I would feel a sense ofcompletion.
As I have allowed myself to take on the character of Jesus Christ,I am discovering a beautiful, unique person emerging from deep withinme. I can love myself as I accept God’s unconditional love for me. Mypersonality and attitudes are continually changing. I realize andaccept more each day that other people love me too, that I ambeautiful, and that I am fully a woman.
As my heart softens, I am better able to trust men and accept themas they are. I’ve started “connecting” with men again, opening up myinner person and feelings to them, allowing myself to be vulnerable.I’ve discovered that men can support me when I need them emotionallyand they really can care about me personally. As I trust men, I amrealizing they can and will interact with me as a person, rather thanview me only as an object for their sexual gratification.
I’m discovering other aspects of my feminine identity through myrelationships with men as they accept me the way I am, imperfect. Iam comfortable with both men and women and I’m learning how to have”intimacy” without sexuality. I relate to women as friends and nolonger need to cling to them for my emotional needs to be satisfied.And, most of all, I am comfortable with my womanhood.
When I let go of the bitterness, rage and anger in my life, myattractions began to change. I look forward to what lies ahead for meand I believe God has indicated that I will be married. I look to Himand trust Him to bring me and my future husband together, to meeteach other at the appropriate time for each of us. My story does nothave a final ending, because it is still in process.
“I rejoice that, at long last, I am fulfilling the charactermeaning of my name: Carrie-woman of God, strong and womanly.”
Copyright c 1987 by Carrie Wingfield. Excerpted by permission from Yearning to be Loved, a new booklet subtitled, One Woman’sStory of Healing from Homosexuality. For a copy of the booklet, send$4.25 to Carrie Wingfield, Transformation Ministries, PO Box 55805,Seattle, WA 98155; 206/364-2306. Reprinted by Love In Action, PO Box753307, Memphis, TN 38175-3307; 901/542-0250.