It Gets Better ? Unlocking Femininity

?It gets better,? repeated dozens of people ranging from columnist Dan Savage to actress Anne Hathaway in last month?s Google Chrome commercial. The online ?It Gets Better Project,? was promoted on primetime TV and encouraged homosexual teens that, despite stigmas and bullying, their lives would get better.? After my initial disbelief at what seemed like a social agenda, the commercial seemed pretty sad.

Political agendas and activism aside, the It Gets Better Project was trying to create a place to belong for people who felt rejected.

Whether it?s from a link to a website or a law from Washington D.C., it seems as though homosexuality is increasingly ?coming out? as a cultural norm. From teenage sexual experimentation like Lindsey Lohan and the hit TV show Glee to middle-aged women leaving heterosexual relationships like Sex in the City?s Cynthia Nixon, lesbianism is often presented as nonchalantly normal. ??In terms of sexual orientation I don?t really feel I?ve changed?I?m just in love with another woman,? she said. ?(Please know at the outset that this is not meant to be a gay-bashing, political or judgmental article. If you or someone you love is involved in a lesbian lifestyle, it?s no accident you clicked here and please keep reading!)

Last March, Meredith Baxter, the TV-mom from the sitcom Family Ties, explained her journey toward lesbianism on the Oprah show.?The 61-year old actress and mother of five described the ?corrosive effect of being belittled, denigrated in front of children, second-guessed? in her emotionally abusive marriage. For Baxter, married life strongly resembled her childhood. ?I came from a place where I had decided I was unloved and unlovable and not capable of love. I found someone who thought of me the same way. It was like, ?Okay, I know how to be in this relationship.?? She describes the initial friendship with her partner of 5 years as the ?healthiest start to a relationship I ever had.?

Baxter?s story is not uncommon. As David Powlison says in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, many lesbian women came from unquestionably heterosexual lifestyles and may have married and raised children without ever questioning their sexuality. ?But over time the men in their lives proved disappointing, violent, drunken, uncomprehending, or unfaithful. Perhaps during the unhappiness of a slow marital disintegration, or while picking up the wreckage after a divorce, other women proved to be far more understanding and sympathetic friends. Emotional intimacy and communication opened a new door.?

For most women who turn to lesbianism, the sexual attraction to other women is a response to the emotional fulfillment that they find in other women.

?The life-reshaping ?lusts of the flesh? were not initially sexual. Instead, cravings to be treated tenderly and sympathetically?to be known, understood, loved, and accepted?played first violin, and sex per se played viola.?

Ironically, women with same-sex-attraction are often drawn to masculine qualities that they find in other women. God created women to be honored and protected by the men in their lives as a picture of how He sacrificially loves those He?s redeemed. But as Al Mohler explains, ?Female homosexuality is often directly traceable to the misbehavior of men. Males have often acted toward women with such violence, anger, and rejection that they can no longer trust men to meet their needs for intimacy.? (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ)

Many women turn to lesbian relationships looking for the tenderness, affirmation, understanding, sacrificial love that God intended husbands to give their wives. (Eph. 5:22-33, 1 Peter 3:7)

God?s Word is clear about our sexuality. He designed the one-flesh sexual union to be an exclusive relationship between a man and a woman in marriage. Homosexuality, as with any sexual act outside of the marriage relationship, is a distortion of God?s design and is sin. (1 Cor. 6:9-10, Lev. 18:22, Romans 1:26-27). As tragic as a woman?s surrounding circumstances may have been, since God?s Word doesn?t excuse the sin of homosexuality, neither can we. But if a woman believes that her real problem with men is that she?s supposed to be with women, we can see the pain behind her choice.

For a lesbian woman, the factor most affecting her sexuality is her relationship with her mother. If a young woman didn?t bond with her mother, felt like she needed to raise herself or blames her mom for a family split, she may feel drawn to other women in seeking to fulfill that broken relationship. Also, if a girl?s father was emotionally distant or if she was physically or sexually abused, she will understandably feel more secure in female relationships. Tragically this was the story of a Christian girl named Rachel.* After the betrayal of being sexually abused as a child, Rachel bonded with her roommate Laura when she went to college. Soon Rachel?s life and identity revolved around her relationship with Laura. Their friendship evolved into an unhealthy dependency and later spiraled into physical intimacy. ?We aren?t homosexuals, I told myself?We?re just very special friends expressing our love.? ?Rachel eventually felt her heart drawn back to Christ and knew she had to cut off her relationship with Laura. ?Slowly, as I chose to obey, I knew God was doing a work in my heart. In time, the overwhelming feelings I had for Laura, I learned to have in an uplifting way for Christ.?

If you?re reading this today and you?re in a lesbian relationship, if you?re wrestling with same sex attraction, if you?ve been shamefully mistreated by a man, if you?ve been abandoned, belittled and humiliated, if you?ve never felt loved by your parents, if you?ve never felt like you were valuable?

It really can get better.

The greatest problem that you and me and every other human being on the planet have is that we?re separated from God because of our sin. And unless you?re reconciled to Him and deeply know your Creator you will always be hungering for an intimacy that can only be satisfied in Jesus Christ.

No matter what your life choices have been, if you trust in Jesus? in His death on the cross as the payment for your sin ? you can be completely forgiven (Is. 43:25, Col. 1:13-14). And then it gets better ? God looks at you and considers Jesus? perfect righteousness as yours. ?He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.? (2 Cor. 5:21 ) And then it gets better ? God will give you the desire and the power to overcome every sin, every failure, every stacked-deck-against-you of a past, every longing that promises fulfillment, but in reality only destroys you.

In Christ, every roadblock to your spiritual freedom has already been removed (Rom. 8:1-4).

For the child of God ? it gets better. No matter what your past experiences may be, Jesus Christ is powerful enough and personal enough to heal your heart. He has broken the power of sin (Rom. 7:1-4). He has guaranteed to make you perfect and keep you blameless for all time (Heb. 10:14). He is changing you from the inside out (1 Thess. 5:21). And He is making all things new (Rev. 21:23-24).

Overcoming sexual sin isn?t easy. But because of Jesus ?It is finished? (John 19:30) and in Christ, it gets better.

*Rachel?s story can be read in Dee Brestin?s The Friendships of Women

Source: http://unlockingfemininity.com/2011/06/09/2916/

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