Pure Intimacy: God's Design for Sex

My mom was born in China and did not know the Lord. She came to America for graduate school but instead married my father against her parents' wishes. Her hope was to have a family where she could belong and be loved. But this dream was dwarfed by society’s influence to attain the "American Dream." With hard work and persistence, my mother helped my father receive two doctorates and establish a successful dental practice. On the outside, my parents had it all: a new dream home in the suburbs of Chicago, two luxury cars and both sons in dental school. According to the world, my mother should have been happy. But she was completely miserable. When I was a child, my parents often argued and I became the shoulder on which my mother would cry. My parents were on the brink of a divorce when I decided to make a public declaration.

On May 17, 1993, I came home after my first year at University of Louisville Dental School and announced to my parents that I was "gay." This devastated my mom and news of my death would have been easier for her to take than this. She thought an ultimatum would bring me to my senses and demanded that I choose either the family or the gay lifestyle. In my mind, there was no choice…I could not change. To me, I had just been disowned; to my mother, I had just betrayed her. Without a church family, she had no one to turn to and started looking through the phone book and listening to the radio in the hopes of finding help. She was at the end of her rope and on the next day she resolved to do the unthinkable...she was going to end her life.

After seeing a minister who gave her a pamphlet on homosexuality, my mom bought a one-way Amtrak ticket to Louisville and planned to say goodbye to me before ending her life. With only her purse and that pamphlet, she embarked on a journey which changed her life forever. Never being much of a reader, she began to study the pamphlet and was immediately captivated by it. The pamphlet explained the story of salvation, that all of us are sinners, yet God loves us despite our sin. The eyes of her heart were opened as she realized that just as God loves her, she could love me in spite of the homosexual lifestyle. As she gazed out the window reflecting on God’s love, my mother heard a still, small voice. "You belong to me." Those four words from God were a healing balm to her shattered heart. In Louisville, God did not allow her to take her life but gave her a new life. A Christian lady in Louisville discipled her for six weeks, at which point my mom realized that it was time to restore her marriage and returned home. My father was so impressed with the changes in my mom that within a few months, he decided to join her on the journey with Jesus. As God began miraculously to heal their relationship, I headed deeper and deeper into the world of indulgence.

I went through relationship after relationship searching for happiness but found myself lonelier than I had started. So I began experimenting with drugs and dealt drugs to pay for my habit. I tried to live this double life of school and parties, but it did not work. Four months before I would have received my doctorate, I was expelled. I pursued the euphoria of decadence as I moved to Atlanta and became a major drug supplier in the southeast.

My mom tried to reach out to me with love and compassion but I wanted no part of it. At least once a week, she sent me a card signed, "Love you forever, Mom." But I threw them in the trash without even reading them. When she tried to call, I would ignore it or provoke an argument and then hang up the phone on her. Once I told my mom, "If you ever tell me about Jesus or bring up the Bible, you will never see me again." My parents bought plane tickets for me to come home on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, my mother stood at the gate peering down the jet bridge in anticipation for her son. But I was not on that flight. So she drove home and came back several hours later for the next flight. As the last passenger and the crew got off the plane, she knew that I was not returning. It was more than obvious that I was unreachable and totally hopeless. But she did not give up.

My mother committed herself to focus upon the promises of God and prayed for a miracle. For seven years, she fasted every Monday and once fasted thirty-nine days for me. But more importantly, she became a woman who loved God’s Word. At the top of each day, she would literally spend hours soaking in God’s Truth. In addition, she stepped out of her comfort zone and began to minister to others by leading Bible studies. Her obedience by serving others with transparency was essential for her healing.

Like the persistent widow, my mother kept bombarding heaven with her desperate pleas. She began praying a bold prayer that God would do whatever it takes to bring me into a relationship with Jesus. The answer came one day with a knock on my door. It was twelve DEA agents, Atlanta police and two German Shepherd dogs. They confiscated a shipment equivalent to the street value of 9.1 tons of marijuana. Sitting in jail, I quickly realized who were my true friends when no one accepted my collect calls. As a last resort, I dialed home dreading the response on the other side. But God had already prepared my mom for that phone call as she had just returned from Bible Study Fellowship. Although I expected words of bewilderment and anger, her first words were, "Christopher, are you OK?"

As difficult as it was, she knew without a doubt that this was God’s answer. She took a piece of paper and wrote down this first blessing. She wrote, "Christopher is in a safe place compared to before and he called home for the first time." The next day my mother flew to Atlanta to visit me in jail and before she left, we pressed our hands up against the glass separating us and she prayed over me. As the days and weeks and months passed, other difficult news came such as my six year sentence and that I was HIV positive. But my mother stood firm and continued to count the blessings in the midst of difficulties. Her list of blessings which she started that first day of my incarceration is now longer and taller than she is.

The Lord continued to work in my life while I was in prison. I was released in July 2001, started at Moody Bible Institute in August 2001 and graduated in May 2005. I am now in my second year of the M.A. in Biblical Exegesis program at Wheaton Graduate School.

Though my story is dramatic, a powerful message of encouragement lies in my mother’s testimony of persistence. She did not focus upon my circumstances but clung to God’s Word when things seemed hopeless. Oswald Chambers said, "We are not here to prove that God answers prayer; we are here to be monuments of His grace."

More powerful than the miracle of my transformation is my mother: a faithful woman of the Word, a mighty prayer warrior and a beautiful monument of His grace.

Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. Distributed by Exodus International. Used with permission.