God Can Heal Homosexuality and Transgenderism

GOD CAN HEAL HOMOSEXUALITY AND TRANGENDERISM

The Testimony of Linda Seiler

By Mark Sandford

From her earliest memories, Linda recalls praying over and over again, “God, please make me a boy.” When God refused to oblige, she found a way she could make it happen. In the fourth grade, she learned about sex-reassignment surgery and vowed that someday she would run away and transform herself into “David.” Meanwhile, playmates introduced her to pornography, leading her into sex addictions that would hold her captive for the next twenty years. She spent countless hours alone in her room, lost in sexual fantasies in which she was always the man instead of the woman.

In junior high, Linda woke up to the difficulties a sex change would entail. “How will my family respond?”, she asked. Even before she became a Christian, she began to sense that a sex-change would not be God’s will for her. Linda made a conscious decision to try to look more like a girl, but she still longed to be a boy. She wore dresses on special occasions, but they felt like a costume, like she was a man in drag. When menstruation began, it felt like life was over. Boys Linda’s age were taking on that deep, rich baritone she so envied. She was stuck with training bras and monthly periods. Being female felt like a curse. At the same time, to her dismay, she began to feel attracted to women, especially teachers who were strong yet nurturing. She wished that one of them would hold and comfort her.

During her junior year in high school, Linda dedicated her life to Jesus. Her struggles didn’t automatically melt away as she had hoped. She joined a church youth group where, for the first time, she found female friends who really loved her. But the closer she got to them, the more she struggled. She began to doubt her salvation. She grew her hair out and dated guys, thinking that experimenting sexually with a boy would “cure” her. It only increased her craving to become male.

In college, although strongly attracted to female mentors and secretly enslaved to sexual addictions, she led a campus Bible study. She hated her double life, and begged God to take away her desires without having to expose them to anyone.

God had other plans. During a campus ministry talk on overcoming habitual sin, a speaker quoted James 5:16: “Confess your sins one to another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Linda felt deeply convicted that she needed to confess to her campus pastor. She seriously considered suicide as a way out, but she couldn’t bear the thought of devastating her family. When she finally confided in her campus pastor, she braced herself for condemnation. But he responded from the gracious heart of Father God and assured her that he was committed to finding the help she needed. On a deeper level than ever before, Linda came to know that God didn’t hate or condemn her. Complete transparency turned out to be a healing experience.

Over the next decade, Linda read every book she could find on homosexuality, listened to tapes, attended conferences, and met with many Christian counselors, including some from ex-gay ministries. It was a slow process, as there were few resources at that time on transgender issues. In fact, well-meaning Christian counselors told her they had seen people freed of homosexuality, but never of transgenderism, and they advised her to simply try to cope with her desires this side of heaven.

God gave Linda supernatural assurance that someday her transgender issues would be a thing of the past. Nevertheless, she got worse before she got better. She even fell into sexual immorality with a woman from her church. Eventually, she broke off the relationship, realizing that her fantasy of being a man who sleeps with women would never fill the deep void in her soul. She resolved to tug at the hem of Jesus’ garment and never let go until she found freedom.

The Lord gave Linda a spiritual mother who wasn’t fazed by her attraction. Linda was like a daughter wanting to emulate her mother, so she helped her buy more feminine clothes and gave advice about makeup and mannerisms. This changed Linda on the outside, but in her heart, she still couldn’t stop believing the lie that it is better to be a man.

In the autumn of 2005, Linda came to me for a week of counseling. Looking at her, I would never have imagined that she had ever wanted to be a man. She showed me old photos of a boyish, awkward-looking girl in shorts and sneakers and a turned-back baseball cap. Before me stood a strikingly beautiful woman with piercing, light green eyes. What I saw on the outside didn’t match what she still felt in her heart.

Linda had come to believe that her transgenderism was not an innate identity but sprang from inner healing issues. My week with her confirmed this. More recently, I viewed a video on YouTube that affirmed the same truth. Dr. Michelle Cretella, Vice President of the American College of Pediatricians, spoke of a five-year-old boy who wanted to be a girl. During family counseling, he told his parents, “You don’t love me when I’m a boy.” They asked him why, and he replied that they paid more attention to his little sister than to him. It was true; they had to give her more attention, but only because she was handicapped and needed constant care, not because she was a girl. They explained this to their son and told him they loved the fact that he was a boy. From then on, he no longer wanted to be a girl. Today, a counselor might urge these parents to dress their son like a girl and prescribe puberty blockers to prepare him for a sex change. But this was before transgenderism became the latest fashionable cause. (YouTube has removed the video, calling it “hate speech,” which it clearly is not. To view it, go to DailySignal.com/UncensoredDoctorVideo.)

Like that little boy, as a child, Linda believed she would be more loved if she was the opposite sex. Before her birth, her mom desired to have a boy. Scripture has much to say about how perceptive unborn and newly born children can be. John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb when he sensed the presence of Christ in the womb of Mary (Luke 1:41). David said, “I learned to trust you [God] upon my mothers’ breast” (Psalm 22:9). He also said: “The wicked are estranged from the womb. Those who speak lies go astray from birth” (Psalm 58:3). As I counseled Linda, she sensed that while in the womb, although she was too young to be mentally aware of her mother's desire, her spirit must have known, for she had always believed the lie: “I’ll be loved if I am a boy.” After she was born, her parents happily adjusted to having a girl, but Linda didn’t adjust to being one.

Unlike the little boy in the video, Linda had no one to bring her back to true perspective, so the lie continued to color the way she viewed gender. A woman’s tears can be a sign of feminine strength; they can reveal a heart that remains vulnerable in the midst of pain. But to Linda, Mom’s tears were a weakness she wanted no part of. Yes, Mom had insecurities. But they were magnified to look like the most extreme frailties. In contrast, Dad was stoic and unemotional. Dad had many admirable strengths, but being unemotional was not one of them! Linda saw that as strength, and she made an inner vow to become that particular brand of “manly.” Linda was a natural leader and an athlete, and so was Dad. Mom was domestic and loved homelife. Not only did Linda yearn to be a man, but by shutting herself off from her mother’s love and her better qualities, she set up a yearning for the love of other women that led to lesbian desires.

During my week with Linda, in prayer, she renounced each lie and inner vow and repented for judging her mother. She forgave her parents for ways they had inadvertently confirmed the false ways she saw gender and for initially not wanting a girl. She prayed to renounce the lie that she would be loved only if she was a boy. She sensed that Jesus was speaking directly to her heart: “They may have wanted a boy, but I have veto power. You have full permission to be the woman I created you to be.” I prayed that Linda would feel welcomed into the world as the girl God had designed her to be. She cried and cried as the Lord spoke graciously to her. For the first time in her life, she saw a tender, compassionate side to Father God that she hadn’t known existed. She could almost feel His hands holding her heart! Her lifelong thirst to be held and comforted by a woman was quenched by the loving, motherly side of her heavenly Father. She was set free from sexual addictions that had been a counterfeit to the comfort she really needed.

As Linda continued to walk out her healing, she began to feel genuine attraction toward men. It was as if she was going through delayed puberty in her mid-thirties! And she never again wanted to become a man. God had accomplished the impossible. Today, she tells her friends, “I still feel like I’m living a dream!”

Linda had long desired to plant an evangelistic campus ministry on a Big Ten campus, but she didn’t feel right about starting it up until she was free of lesbianism and transgenderism. At the end of our week, she felt ready. As she was driving to the airport to return home, she saw a billboard featuring a sexy woman, and she felt no attraction at all! Nor did she from then on.

Linda soon pioneered a campus ministry, and has since influenced hundreds of students from all over the world! In a recent newsletter, she reported that staff members she has trained have gone on to pioneer a chapter at another university and to join ministry teams establishing new chapters throughout several states. The ministry she works for has now asked her to serve nationally as a field specialist focusing on biblical sexuality. She trains and equips pastors, missionaries, and student leaders across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and beyond. She is also working with her own ReStory Ministries, established to resource churches regarding homosexuality and gender identity. In addition to training leaders, she is writing internet articles to influence churches as well as Christian educators who are tempted to compromise on LGBTQ issues. She is also writing a book to equip Christians with a biblical and scientific understanding of same-sex attractions and how God heals.

Linda stayed silent about her former struggles until her eighth-year anniversary of freedom when the Lord gave her the green light to go public. She finally “came out of the closet” in a redemptive way, sharing her story to show that God truly can heal anything! The length of her journey has given her empathy for others who are currently struggling to break free. Healing from sexual brokenness (or any issue, for that matter) is rarely instantaneous. But Linda has proven false the lie that it cannot be done, just as St. Paul did for his generation and for all time: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).