Before Jesus Changed My Life
Growing up I lived in a single-parent household, and my mother found her devotion by attending Church every Sunday. From a young age, I had this basic knowledge and understanding of God and what Jesus did for us on the cross. But like any other kid, I considered going to Church as something I had to do. When I reached my teenage years, I struggled behavioral-wise and often found myself running with the wrong crowd and soon in the court system. My mother sought help from people in the Church for guidance, and it made me rebel even further. It made me dislike the Church and ultimately God because my troubles weren't MY fault. God was doing this to me. God had created bad things to happen to me, and it was his pleasure to watch me suffer. How could a young person not see their troubles as their own making? Soon after I turned 18 and went on a self-discovery path and realized internally that I was homosexual. My strong desire to act on those internal feelings drove me further apart from God, and I idolized the gay community and the bar scene because they offered inclusion, love, happiness, etc. I thought I would find all of that and in turn, I found alcoholism. The bar offered everything but delivered nothing.
Alcoholism helped me escape my loneliness, my bitterness toward being gay, the heartbreak I endured, my antisocialism, and my overall entire persona. Alcohol made me a different person, the person that sober Damon wanted to be. I had no fears, worry, regret or sadness...no need for God. I started to believe the notion that I was an atheist. I didn't need God’s approval or direction in my life. I was managing it on my own. So, I thought. In 2011, I met a guy who strongly believed in God, and we ended up dating. He understood the disconnect I had with God because he struggled with his sexuality and its relationship with God. He always immersed himself in theology and listened to different theologians on podcasts and YouTube. I decided to do the same. I became an avid follower of Tim Keller (New York), John Piper (Desiring God), Paul Washer, and other pastors.
At the end of that 4-year relationship, I stopped shaking my fists at God, and I had a better understanding of the Trinity. After the break-up I found myself attending Church with his family. I should have wanted to blame God, but strangely I was thankful that God had given Nathan the grace and patience to bring me back to God. Despite all the bad, I could have gone on believing the false narrative that I was an Atheist, agonistic, or whatever. But my struggle was not over, and I turned to alcohol to "save me" from a life that I was struggling to appreciate. By 2018, I lost my mother to Alzheimer's and my best friend, Brandon, to alcoholism (cirrhosis of the liver). My relationship with God was nonexistent once again. My prayers were selfish and only surrounded my alcoholism. I found myself homeless and couch surfing until my ex’s parents reached out and asked if I wanted to enter into residential treatment for alcoholism. Over the next 6 years, I would be in and out of treatment centers. Finding and losing myself all over again and again.
I had finally had enough. I sat and talked with God. I asked him to help me find him in Alcoholics Anonymous and find him in the words of the Bible to help me be sober. I prayed to have a better relationship with him and his son Jesus Christ. I prayed to trust him both emotionally and intellectually. He obliged. I've been sober for 8 months which is the longest I’ve had sobriety in over 20 years. I had to set down my selfishness, and self-will and abandon myself to God to protect the relationship I wanted to have with God and Jesus Christ. There are days in which I heavily rely on prayer and I no longer ask for the difficulties to be taken away but given the ability to endure them.
How Jesus Changed My Life
These past few months have been the greatest pleasure to get to know Christ and rely on him in my wins and losses. It took some time to understand what his death on the cross meant for all of us. It allows me to live my life in accordance to God’s will. I attend Church with an open heart and mind. I no longer see it as something that has to be done. Jesus has helped me be more interactive with the community and how to be of service.
Jesus helped me turn away from alcoholism that was destroying my life. It allowed me to turn away from the homosexual life that was killing me both emotionally and spiritually. I spent a great amount of my life in a lifestyle that never truly made me happy the way I am today with God. I will not always get it right and Jesus knows this. But his death is not the main focus of my turn away from sin. It’s how he lived his life. He showed me that we are to be in the world and not of the world. The story of Jesus' life shows me that there will be many trials and I’ve experienced some hard ones but I keep coming back to God. Jesus has taken away the wrath of God for my sins.
All that is required is that I believe in him through faith. The cross came at a very high cost for Jesus. If God could have found a different way, he would have and I understand this now. Jesus' life gives me the strong motivation and will to keep pushing through my struggles and to know the race is almost finished.
My Life After Jesus Saved Me
Being saved has given me some great peace. It has allowed me to be honest with myself and others. It has given me to ability to be more in line with what God has intended for my life. Being saved through Christ has allowed me to put away my alcoholism and the sexual sin that plagued and ruled over my life. I pause more regularly and remind myself of how to be more God-centered. I find myself more in prayer and wanting more fellowship with God. I find that I can witness to those in the gay community the misunderstanding that God does not hate them but wants a connection with them. To show them the work Jesus has done in my life. That doesn’t mean that the days are filled with ease. Some days are difficult but I pray to get through them. Difficulties are part of life and it’s how you handle them that give the true virtue of character in God.
The true contentment that has come from my work with Christ. I continue to dive more into what the work of Christ meant in his time here because we sometimes only look at it superficially. But the peace I talk about is the peace of knowing of my salvation in Jesus Christ.
The joy of knowing that on the last day of this linear path we are on, we will get to see how all things fit to the glory of God. Nothing ever is good when you are a stranger to your inheritance: salvation in Jesus Christ.