Growing up, boys started to bully me badly. It was totally not my fault that my face was full of gross acne and my body barely triggering the indicator of the weighing scale. My body had become my greatest enemy. Unfortunately, it felt like a curse I couldn't escape. Worse was that I was seeing it everyday. "If I was a female", I'd say," life would be much easier. Make-up can easily cover this messed-up face and many females like their bodies very slim!"

I couldn't understand why everyone was saying that being a teenager was the coolest part of life. My best friends were Depression, Fear, Self-Rejection and Loneliness. They were very faithful to me, but my life was still not cool.

Suddenly I had met this guy, kind, gentle, funny. He was saying that actually my body looked nice. I could really trust him, it seemed; he was older, was encouraging me and was saying he loves me, everyday. I would've done everything not to lose him, so it didn't take long until I'd become the stimulus of his sexual pleasure.

It felt so wrong deep down, I was shaking and really scared. But he loved me, I didn't want to disappoint. Now I had one more friend: Shame.

I started a new life when I moved to Bucharest for university. It was relieving to leave behind all the bullying and the old faces that had never believed in me.

Being involved in entertainment and receiving the applause of the crowds were what kept me above waters. Especially when I discovered I could play a female character and be liked for that. It wasn't enough, but I was getting at least some of what I'd always craved for: being a woman.

The conviction I felt when I got involved with the only friend of my teenage years had never left. Later I had learnt it was the conscience God gave me that was always bearing witness to the truth of God's Word. When I had an encounter with Jesus at 20, I decided to give Him my life forever.

He was lovely, I loved His Word, praying and worshipping with other believers. But I was still the same depressed, scared and addicted to porn person that I had always been. I remember I was on the floor of my bathroom praying that I would be able to say 'Lord, I love You', because those words could never come out of my mouth.

It had been a long time of struggles and pain. Lockdown was a curse for many, but a breaking point for me. Right after the first lockdown I moved flats. It was the first time I would live completely alone. "I am terrified, I don't know how this will be, but I trust You", I told God while my co-dependency and the other old friends were screa¬ming at me.

One day I just found myself lying on the floor. There were tears and saliva everywhere. I don't know how long I'd been there for. But I knew that something beyond my human understanding had happened. I went into the bathroom to bring myself into order and it was for the first time in my life I could see myself in the mirror and not hate what I was seeing. In fact, I was loving it. What started with a prayer out of the desperation of my heart, ended up as a mighty deliverance.

From that day I never wanted to be a woman.

And from that day I have never struggled again with depression or loneliness.

As time passed, God started to speak into the deep issues of my heart and to release healing. He helped me realise that I'm not in any way less masculine than other men around me, and that I had to do nothing to prove my masculinity because it was never a competition: the fact that I was born a man makes me 100% masculine. When I had that revelation layers of shame and societal pressure started to fall off me.

As I was spending time in the secret place seeking His face, God took me on this journey of healing and started to expose lie after lie that I had believed about myself, about Him, about men and women, about things around me. He also showed me how the devil cannot operate unless he has me believing a lie, since lie and deceit are his field of operation.

God taught me that words are so important, that in the power of the tongue there is life and death (Prov. 18:21). There were so many labels I had taken upon myself, words I or others had spoken over myself. More freedom and healing came as I renounced all those labels and words. As a result, the same-sex attraction I was experiencing started to decrease considerably.

The language we speak is so crucial. Would Jesus describe one using that word? Is that word edifying or rather enforcing a false identity or characteristic?

The most recent things God has done in my heart were addressing wounds that I was not ready to face some years ago. The most painful thing I had to navigate was a father wound that I'm still healing from. God showed me crucial memo¬ries in my past where I was really hit and hurt by situations and people, thus my trust for male figures was destroyed. There were key moments when I needed the unconditional love of a fighting father, that would protect me and be gentle at the same time, which I felt I lacked many times.

The healing journey can be painful and uncomfortable but it's the best thing you can do for your heart. God is not the author of confusion, and He came to heal the broken-hearted (Is 61:1). The Hebrew words used in that passage and many others are חָבַשׁ (habas), which means to bind up, to bandage, and שָׁבַר (sabar), which means to break in pieces, to crush. In other words, humanity is broken, our hearts are crushed in pieces; some of them are lost, some scattered, some thrown away. The devil uses an abundance of means to do that. But Jesus came to bring all those pieces together; He helps us gather them, He puts them back together, binds them and heals our hearts.

The beautiful part is that that's available for each one of us, it doesn't matter the sin we were drowning in - homo¬sexuality, gender confusion, hatred, idolatry, drugs, lying, gossiping - He came to restore everyone who's willing to die to himself and be born of God.

Today I am co-leading a growing movement of men and women who left homosexual and transgender identities or lifestyles and chose to pursue wholeness in Christ. That's why we call it X-Out-Loud; because we're out of those false comforts and we're loud about it (Rom 1:16). Recently we launched our anthem, which is really a song of our deliverance! It speaks about the redemptive stories of a former transgender and a former homosexual who encountered Jesus in power.

***

Liam Hayden's Testimony
Special to VIRTUEONLINE
www.virtueonline.org
July 24, 2023

I first discovered the same-sex attraction at around age six or seven, which was when the dynamics between myself and the males surrounding me changed. I was expected not to cry and to be already complete in my masculinity, so a rough approach was taken by the men in my life to try and toughen me up. I ended up instead hating masculinity, proclaiming 'I will never be like them', 'I hate men' despite a little niggle in my heart that secretly wished I was comfortable with being one and accepted into their 'tribe' as if it were.

Between the ages of seven and ten, I was then exposed to erotic images, prematurely awakening my sexuality. My focus was mainly on the attention and what seemed like 'affirmation' and 'acceptance' the man gave. By the time I was twelve, I was addicted to pornography, and despite how odd I remember finding it initially, I moved onto gay porn.

My spirit was in anguish. Over the next few years, I began leading multiple lives. I came out to my close friends as 'bisexual' because I couldn't stand the fact that by that point, I had no feelings for women. I tried to be the perfect altar server at church, and I even used that to try and prove to others I wasn't gay when confronted. By that point, I had lost my identity.

When Covid-19 hit the UK, I became lonely. I felt worthless. I felt betrayed by God and my body because all I had ever wanted when I grew up was a wife and children. To be married in the traditional way. I knew the National Health Service would've pushed me in an affirmative direction, so I never reached out to them. After many arguments with God, I disowned Him as I felt myself being swallowed up by the person I was not. I started having nosebleeds from the stress, I was lifeless. I left a suicide note and almost jumped -- but something stopped me.

Something provoked me to start praying to God again, and I asked Him for a change. The next day I randomly came across an X-Out-Loud testimony, so I contacted the person in the video and opened up properly for the first time. We prayed together. God convicted me through a vision to change my lifestyle and I started praying again. From that day forward, life became much brighter than I could have ever imagined. I gave my life to Christ, and thus began a journey of healing and deliverance.

I would read and study the Bible, talk through childhood issues with certain counsellors, go on healing and deliverance courses and fellowship with other men. With all of these combined I got out of shame and into a new identity in Christ. With barely having to mention the same-sex attraction, it decreased as I spoke and prayed through certain childhood events. Joining the support group X-Out-Loud was like taking a huge sigh of relief. I used to think that I was the only one in the world who didn't want to embrace a gay identity. Getting to know and talk to so many people who had similar struggles was such a healing experience, and I formed many wonderful friendships with people who loved me for me.

I was also in a relationship with a woman for some time. When that relationship ended, I learnt the biggest lesson of all: that change really is possible, but that the goal isn't replacing one lust for another. It's growing as a son or daughter into wholeness and completion in Christ.

The following links will put you better in the picture:
the song - https://youtu.be/zQEXJJ_2C6o
the website of the ex-gay community - https://xoutloud.com/
the declaration - https://iftcc.org/the-declaration/