Cognitive Biblical
Therapy Coursework
Counseling Through God’s
Transformative Word
Course 4, Chapter 13
Section 3: Relationship Situations
Chapter 13 Homosexual/Lesbian Relationships
Gracious and caring counselors see the person, listen well to their concerns and respond with God’s Agape love. No matter the type of relationship, couples have their own set of complications. Discover how to help individuals and couples, involved in same-sex relationships, complicated by guilt over past experiences, hurt from past relationships, sexual identity, poor understanding of God and His love for all people.
Essay Questions: Answering the section questions (red buttons) is a great way to prepare for the end of the Chapter Quiz. Chapter 13 questions require you to analyze the case study and apply both present and previous course understanding, while using common sense. The section questions will provide Dr. Wilkinson’s feedback to your answers.
Quiz Requirement: At the end of the Chapter, a score of 75% is necessary on the Chapter Quiz in order to access the next chapter.
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Chapter 13
Homosexual and Lesbian Relationships
Relational Issues and Symptoms
The next discussion will be on homosexual and lesbian relationships, otherwise known as “same-sex relations”, described in Symptoms and Treatment Text (Materials tab). Also, open the Case Study 13 graphs. Before we begin, be wise and discerning how you, as a counselor, respond to a request for counseling, to someone who has identified themself as a homosexual, gay or with a specific pronoun (like transgender individuals). Check your state licensing board regulations and research legal liability regarding a counselor’s response to this type of request and potential referral options if needed. In more recent years, counselors generally refer to homosexual clients as having a “same-sex attraction, relations or orientation”. (Note: Due to the date of Dr. Wilkinson’s writings and recordings, he refers to clients in this section as “homosexual (homosexual men) and/or lesbian (lesbian women)” in their sexual relations and/or orientation. The American Counseling Association generally uses, “gay”, lesbian, and bisexual” when referring to sexual orientation and/or relationships. Depending upon the client’s perspective or relationship, their sexual relations are not necessarily related to their identification of gender, which is not described in this material.)
Let’s begin by looking at the first symptom of dysfunction is guilt and then broken relationships, the false concepts of purpose and the spiritual meaning of sexual relationships, the possibility of AIDS, involvement of another individual through a codependent relationship with the client, and in the possibility of especially strong negative influences of family or authority figures in the past of the client.
In your initial evaluation of the client, remember to consult the DSM-V or newer editions, regarding what is and is not a symptom and/or disorder. If you, as a counselor, are uncomfortable and/or uncertain how to describe symptoms in counseling someone who identifies as a homosexual, has same sex attraction, relations or with a specific pronoun, be sure to consult with a seasoned counselor. It would be wise to attend some continuing education courses on this topic.
Case Study 13 involves the man, who had been a practicing homosexual for a number of years, and then in his late 30s, decided to get married to a woman he loved. There were some interesting things in this situation. One was that he was a foster parent, and he would, at times, have six or seven different children under his care for a period of months. He was also in the sales business and was extremely outgoing and very successful in sales. Just before I met him, he had been arrested for indecent exposure in a public situation in the parking lot outside a bar for homosexuals. He was observed by someone outside the bar engaging in the homosexual act, who called the police. He was well known by the Department of Family Services and the people who were part of the foster care program. He was also married, but wrestled with his attraction to men. His wife, on the other hand, was very sarcastic, manipulative and headstrong, who played the role of a victim quite often. She was this poor, disrespected woman who put up with this awful man. She would justify her inappropriate behaviors of belittling, berating, and mocking him; she contributed much to the problem.
The couple belonged to a church in a rigid denomination, which also contributed also to the difficulties that they experienced through very strict guidelines for external appearance of being a Christian. For example, women had to cover their heads when they worshiped. They had to wear very long skirts that were down to their ankles and couldn't cut their hair. Because he didn’t keep to the external appearances, he was condemned. The wife had a bitter spirit added to the condemnation for his previous lifestyle. Being caught by the police and the threat of no longer having foster children, added to her bitterness. He was torn, because in their marriage there were still sexual issues of frequency, her disrespect, and his sneaking around. They had one child of their own. Guilt and broken relationships and false concepts of the purpose and the spiritual meaning of sexual relationships were life issues for him. While he really didn't understand much about sexuality.
In your first conversation with someone who identifies themself with as “gay” or same sex attractions/relations, be sure to find out if they consider themself as “transgender”. If so, how they desire you to refer to them. Then remember, homosexual relations (same-sex relationships) and being transgender are separate. Be careful in using or referring to any general labels that may sound biased to the one being counseled.
Like with any other client, treatment begins with an evaluation of the spiritual condition and personality through the Analysis Questionnaired. Following up with explaining salvation, and lead the person to Christ, if needed. Next is to teach the concepts of Agape love to the client, along with coping mechanisms, especially of patience, and apply the information to presenting problems. Explaining the spiritual meaning of human sexuality, between a husband and wife is very important here.
Here are my thoughts and explanations of the motivation for acting as a homosexual, with Biblical reasoning. Being a Biblical Counselor, we make our perspectives known, and believe what we believe. Yet be wise and discerning in describing your Biblical perspective and be respectful to their belief and perspective. My opinions are based on my knowledge of the Scripture and my exposure to the fields of medicine, psychology, and psychiatry. There are many other Biblically based resources on sexuality, same sex attraction and gay lifestyles that can give you further understanding about God’s perspective on these practices and lifestyles.
Perspectives on Homosexuality
My first opinion is that homosexuality is not a biological or genetic predisposition. In other words, I don't believe that a homosexual individual was born that way, and can't change. If in your counseling practice, you are told that, you have to explain to the person the basic biblical principles about sexuality. Practical and reasonable reasons that God made people who are physically built to be able to have sex with the opposite gender rather than with the same gender. The reason for sexuality was pleasure and procreation which is only possible with a man and a woman. The same sexes were never designed or supposed to be sexually involved with each other. It, literally, in a practical sense, just doesn't work.
The second distortion is that attraction is something beyond human control. It is not beyond control, but occurs because of distortions of the concepts of love, God's character, and satisfaction for humans. Attraction to something or someone who is beautiful in our eyes doesn’t mean we cannot set limits or controls on our attraction. The third fallacy is that a person who is homosexual can't change. No one who is in any type of relationship is doomed to stay in it, or unable to go through change. Another fallacy is that acting homosexual is centered around sexual satisfaction. That's a fallacy. That's not true. Like in other relationship issues, the problem is not sexuality, but spirituality. Any person involved in this, is attempting to satisfy their spiritual need for acceptance, love, caring and concern that comes from God, not from the human partner. There is a distortion of that whole need. The dominant person is trying to get a sense of security and control, and worth and value. The passive person, who is being controlled, dominated, or the receiver of the sexual act desires to receive a sense of gratification and security. There can be an extreme amount of caring, tenderness, and compassion in a homosexual or a lesbian relationship. You will also find places in the relationship of pettiness, backbiting, accusation, sarcasm, control and manipulation. It's not uncommon in a homosexual relationship for one man to adopt common behaviors of a woman, when in conflict, such as being extremely emotional, moody, gossiping with other men in the same passive role. They complain about being mistreated by their man and other men. Most people assume that the major problem within a homosexual relationship is sexual and it isn’t. It is getting their focus back on where they were meant to get their sense of security and peace from.
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Do you perceive the issue within this presenting problem to be the sexual relationship or the spiritual relationship of the client(s)? Please provide some facts to support your belief.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
Since we have discussed that the real issue for all relationships is spiritual, the same is true within the homosexual relationship. In other words, the security is being sought through whichever role or identity that the client is assuming (active versus passive) within the relationship.
The proof of this is that the client can abandon his or her role and accept, live in, and find security through the closeness of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit across the whole spectrum of life lived through God.
Case Study
The man was not in a pure homosexual lifestyle, he was married to a woman, yet continuing to live a second life as a homosexual or acting out in same-sex relationships. This can be an attempt to obtain normalcy through a heterosexual marriage, hoping to have a new start. At this point in his life, the man tended to be an Active personality, although he had some remnants of being passive, or passive-active. He tried to be more outgoing. His highest scores were in: C envy (18), D boast (18), E pride (15), G self-seeking (14), and O persevere (14) which is a willingness to believe God yet struggle with trusting God. He did have some troubles with A patience (13), so his problem-solving skills were not the best. His other median scores were: F rude (12), I keep a record (13), J-K delight in evil (11), L protect (13), and P fails (11). He tended to be rude, at times, he kept records of wrong and was negative. He would say hurtful things and act out so he did not protect and felt like a failure at times. His lowest scores and greatest difficulties were in: B kind (10), H easily angered (9), M trust (8) and N hope (10) showing that he is not trusting God and has no hope in God.
His personality is towards the active side. But from the score on pride, where he has a 15 all the way across to fails, there is a close pattern to his scores which indicate the classic pattern of passive-active. What pushes the personality toward the active side are his higher scores of 18 on envy and boast, and lower scores on patience and kindness. In a true active pattern, the patience and kindness scores would be reversed with patience lower instead of higher. The active person usually has a spike on kindness, rather than on envy and boast. This meant that he wanted to be a problem solver, and deal with things, but also liked sitting on the fence, being afraid of making a decision. He had very strong-willed parents who used control over him, that created a great deal of fear and insecurity. He tended to be very discerning and tender, making him excellent with children, but also had an underlying sense of insecurity.
In his case, he found security in a homosexual relationship, around other homosexuals from work where he was lonely, living in a big city. He had very weak discernment and was passive in his choices. He also liked the softer arts, rather than the rugged outdoors. He had predisposing factors and vulnerabilities that caused him to be more susceptible to that whole lifestyle, which he chose more as a background, subtle part of his life, rather than an open, willful decision. In his marriage he lived with fear and regret, because he chose someone who, in many ways, had the same types of difficulties. A large part of the issue of homosexuality is personality, the predisposition towards being a problem solver, but acting more passive. These lead the person into being easily misled, weak and avoidant, not capable of solving problems and confronting a problem. They need to know where true peace and security come from. That may be sort of a radical idea to you, that homosexuality is not an issue of sexuality, but a large part of it is personality. The Biblical perspective and personality issues are generally not understood by the person who is acting out in this way. Be patient with them, put the focus on God’s Agape love as a means to be healed and love others, rather than using their broken attempts, like same-sex relationships, as a means to fix themself.
He married a woman who was passive-active shown by her scores: A patience (15), C envy (19), D boast (18) which are her highest scores. The places where the woman had some difficulties are: B kind (11), E pride (11), F rude (10), G self-seeking (11), H easily angered (10), I keep a record (12), J-K delight in evil (10), L protect (12) and N hope (10). This pattern is sort of startling as you see the tight scores from E pride (11) all through to N hopes (10). That variance between her scores isn't much at all. The places of her most difficulty are: O perseveres (9), and P never fails (7). She had a lot of areas where she consistently treated him poorly, rejected and condemned him, and tried to control him. She also had grown up in an extremely rigid home with many rules, and focused on obedience and submission to authority. She felt very betrayed, even though he'd been open about his past, and she thought she had a right to be bitter. His default to homosexuality was three fold, his need for acceptance and tenderness, and not knowing how to confront his wife about her hurtful behavior. He had tried to talk to her, but she was not very responsive. I'm not saying that she was responsible for his being involved in homosexuality, but I'm saying that her disrespectful behaviors contributed to it, because the home and the relationship was not a place of peace or acceptance or support. Instead, it was a place of fear, insecurity and condemnation.
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If the client is married, what kinds of difficulties do you think he or she will be experiencing in this relationship?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
The client will be experiencing difficulties in the areas of sexuality (frequency, satisfaction, etc.), respect (there may be a lot of sarcasm, anger, bitterness), parenting disagreements, adultery with same-sex partner(s), financial concerns, medical issues (A.I.D.S.), loss of employment perhaps multiple times, spiritual issues, and mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.
Counseling the Married Couple
When I spoke with them, he spoke about truly wanting the marriage to work, be functional and good. He had married with good intentions, knowing he had this predisposition and involvement, but he believed he could overcome it, but he didn't know how. He didn't know what to do to change. When I started to work with them, I had to use some basic methods of counseling to make the environment less hostile. First, I had to explain her issues and what she needed to do to support his changes. I taught them how to communicate using the process of patience to solve problems. He took to it very well and started to change very quickly. She was resistant and never fully embraced some of the concepts and processes I suggested. This made it more difficult, because she continued with some of her emotional tirades and accusations. Fortunately, he didn't let that stop him, and grew stronger, spiritually and consistently improved. One of the issues that we had to talk about was human sexuality for men and women. She found this to be very difficult, very embarrassing, but I took her through it anyway. He found it to be very enlightening. He understood where his true sexual satisfaction came from, and this empowered him tremendously. He began to realize how previous situations where he allowed others to manipulate and disrespect him through verbal rebuke and disrespect were twisted into this false sense of caring and tenderness. And when I say false sense, I don't mean that there isn't some degree of a genuine desire to be caring within a homosexual relationship. I just mean that because it does not fulfill the basic needs for men and women. No matter how hard the two try to make it right, it isn't and gives a false, underlying sense of security. As soon as the homosexual act for him was completed, the orgasm is over, the reality of what happened, guilt, shame set in, feeling alone since the act was not about a relationship. This impacted his desired sense of security was not in his homosexual actions. He understood why he was so driven and frustrated. Now able to focus on building his relationship with his wife, in the security of God’s gift in his marriage.
He appreciated his wife and marriage, though also realized his true security must be found through his relationship to God, instead of through a human being and sexuality. His confusion and bondage to seek his need for spiritual security from a human was removed. It is necessary to explain why just the physical side of homosexual acts does not satisfy, just like heterosexual relationships outside of marriage. If the client is married or in a potential relationship, you have to explain to her why she feels scorned and spurned. It's very normal for the wife to feel inadequate, like there's something wrong with her sexually, feeling disrespected, mocked and abandoned. She needs to understand the normal male drive is about satisfaction, especially being sexual give the man a sense of feeling loved, valued and accepted. Sarcasm, disrespect, manipulation, hostility or condemnation will kill his sexual drive, where he feels insecure and tentative anyway. So, the last thing that needs to go on between the two is hostility. She has to give up her right to be mad, because she's been wronged, and ask God to heal her or forgive her of sin in that area. This woman was, in many ways, selfish, rude, proud, easily angered, keeps record of wrong, doesn't trust God, doesn't protect him with what she says. She blurts out anything she thinks or feels without evaluating it according to God’s standard of love. The two major issues in this relationship were 1) the pure definition for sexuality that God wants them to accept, and 2) how to make sexuality safe by creating an environment of honesty and trustworthiness between the two of them.
As you get into counseling, you will find many other issues can be involved. Clients may be unmarried, but have a lover in a relationship. Others will be united in a homosexual marriage. You will need to patiently work with their willingness to deal with their general relationship problems. When they identify as a married couple, you start the treatment process the same way by evaluating their concepts of Agape love and determining their personality type. For those dating, living together, you follow the same steps that are involved in premarital counseling. If only one partner comes in for counseling, in time, ask the other person meet with you, give them a questionnaire, and discern their spirit to see if they are in rebellion, resistive to getting help, or open and willing to get help. You may need to set up a separation. See this as a person who is an active part of this client's life who can control, manipulate, distort or stop your counseling process. When the client views their partner as their mate, or source of security, you cannot expect them to just automatically give it up and be cut off from their source of support. Even if their relationship is false, against Biblical standards, respect their relationship as their present source of support. When you are respectful, treat each individual with respect and dignity, you can be a source of reason, understanding and spiritual guidance for their evaluation of Agape love, who God created them to be, and find security in their relationship with Him. In time, their behaviors, desire to honor God and whole relationships will revolve around their security with God.
Using all of the procedures for setting up accountability is critical in dealing with any individual, especially one who has been and scarred from this lifestyle choice. It will be the same process. Discuss with them their personality type, how they deal with things. Get into the history, the background, what they have been involved with, and how it has affected them. Suggest strongly that they go for a medical check-up including tests for Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The end result is the same. You want to help them establish a relationship to God, so that they can assess relationships and decide to not participate, even when temptations arise, which they will. Changing older habits, manipulative friends and former ways of identifying yourself and available to be contacted to establish the homosexual relationship must be change, since it is strong and pervasive. When they are tempted, they need to know how to work with the Holy Spirit, receive grace, confront the facts to deal with the temptation, and not be overwhelmed by it. Christ centered, self help groups are also a good resource for support. And they also need God's help in establishing regular heterosexual relationships.
Another side to this whole issue is the effect of trauma that opens the door in various ways, to move towards addictive patterns of behaviors and relationships. When you study trauma, you find out that the literal physiological effects of manipulation, abuse, terror, and sense of helplessness can have the person in a constant state of fear or arousal. Their literal ability to process sensory input, sight, sound, words, touch, truth, or logic is distorted, sometimes permanently distorted. Once you meet them, they may be using the distorted set of thoughts and emotions to reason with, which won't make sense to you, yet realized most people are trying to cope and survive the effects of their trauma. Their choices aren't good, but they're not aware it is a bad choice, or know how to deal with it. From our perspective as Christians, God is able to heal the sensory input and the distortions of the way to seek love, and feel secure, as well as establish the ways that we accept love in a proper process to live in security and peace. While this is not a biological predisposition to have the desire for being a homosexual or a lesbian, there are other circumstances that contribute to the tendencies involved.
Here’s a second case study of a man (13C), with similar AQAL scores and abusive wife, which shows a man, passive-active, identifying as a homosexual. The man has the same kind of personality tendencies, and the areas where he has the least amount of trouble are: C envy (18), D boast (21), F rude (18), I keep records of wrong (18) and N hopes (18). He has a sense of hope in God. Hs median scores are: A patience (15), B kind (14), E pride (16), G self-seeking (13), L protects (16), M trust (14). He doesn’t trust God and does things in his own strength. His areas of greatest difficulty are: H easily angered (13), and also in being negative J-K delight in evil (12), and feeling like a failure P fail (11).
He did not receive much help from his very combative wife. She had an Active personality, and in her case, was strong-willed in many areas. She had those patterns of right or wrong and was unwilling to being more supportive, and properly confrontational. Before I met him, he had been arrested for molesting a small child. When I explained his tendencies of being unkind and prideful, he became very aggressive, demanding and manipulative with me. He also was involved with a lover who he wouldn't give up. They went through a separation and ultimately divorced. I wasn't able to help them to any degree at all. I just wanted to show you the second case with the same pattern of passive-active.
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What kinds of background experiences (childhood, parenting, etc.) can cause this presenting problem?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
The client may have experienced situations within the years of childhood that involved the exposure of the child to pornography, sexual, physical, emotional, or mental abuse, the divorce of the parents, poverty, perversion, or conditional parenting.
Lesbian Relationships
I want to describe a case that I was involved in while I was developing the questionnaire, so I don't actually have a questionnaire for the woman who was my client. On the bottom of page 26 in your Symptoms and Treatment Text you will find the lesbian relationship dysfunctions of guilt, broken relationships, false concepts of the purpose and spiritual meaning of sexual relationships, possibility of STDs. Now this case occurred, in the late 80s, so it wasn't as much of an issue then as it is now. There was involvement with another individual through codependent relationships and the strong negative influences of the family or authority figures in the past. In this case, the woman's father was extremely strong willed and he especially wanted to live his life again through his children. When they only had a girl, he was so disappointed that he decided that he would carry out his desires anyway. And from her earliest memory, her father pushed her into many sports. She strongly desired to love her father. She had potentially passive, or passive-active tendencies in her personality, so she bought the idea that she should do sports. She became very active in sports from an early age, T-ball, baseball, softball, swimming, volleyball, and soccer. She became very good, and was excellent in everything except her relationship to her father. He began a pattern of nominally acknowledging her when she won first place in anything. He would brag about her to others, but never tell her he was proud of her to her face. And when she didn't get first place, he would make life absolutely awful for her through his manipulative, critical words, and sometimes yell and scream at her. He would criticize her in public, ignore her at home, and sometimes use affection as a reward. She always walked on eggshells, feeling extremely frightened and insecure constantly.
He had absolute rigid, iron fisted control over his home. Against his wife's objections he consumed pornography. He was specifically addicted to lesbian pornography. He would buy volumes of magazines, books and movies of this pornography and keep it on open display in the home. From an early age, my client began to read and look at this pornography. To her young mind it was a like a paradise or utopia where the thought was planted: this is where you'll find tenderness, gentleness, compassion and acceptance. Since she was literally in an abusive situation, exposed only to conditional love, she accepted this alternative to all of the harshness that surrounded her. So, at a very young age, she began to be involved in lesbian relationships. When the father found out about it later, he expressed no concerns that it was inappropriate or negative. All he cared about was her performance.
Even though the lesbian physical relationship is conducted differently than the homosexual relationship, the same spiritual things happen, so the client's needs will be the same. You need to evaluate the person's personality type, get background information, and assess the spiritual concepts of love that the client holds. Teach them some new coping mechanisms, teach them the process of patience, apply the information to their problem, and especially then, talk to them about the spiritual meaning behind sexuality. Because in this client’s mind, this was the alternative, hugging, kissing, affection, sexual orgasm, performance. In all the relationships that this woman formed, she always picked the passive role, the performance role. She was never dominant or aggressive. She had been in homosexual relationships when I met her for probably 15 years. She was in her late 30s and held a position as a professor at a university. When I began to talk to her about these things, especially about sexuality and the current relationship she was in with a woman, they were absolutely eye opening, amazing, and incredible to her.
She had become a Christian about 10 years before counseling, but still felt in bondage to her lesbian lifestyle, and was still in it. Because she had a relationship with Jesus and could draw off her faith, I had the potential to help her change. As I worked through the concepts with her, and as we talked about her father, she saw the truth about what had been wrong in her treatment by her father. We got closer to a potential breakthrough. She was also very cautious. She told me right up front, I want biblical counseling, but I don't want you to force me into a decision. I want to be able to work things through. And when I come to the point where I understand it and I know exactly what I'm doing, then I will own what you're saying, apply it, submit to God, change or whatever it takes to deal with this.
She wouldn't make any commitment over the weeks and months that we spoke. But there did come a point when a very real and amazing thing happened. At one point in the in that session, she said to me, “You have spoken a lot about submission and giving my will to God, going deeper in my faith and giving the Holy Spirit control. I have decided that I am ready to do that. How do I do that?”
So, I said to her, “What you're going to need is a literal transformation of your mind and emotions, because they're so broken, and the concepts are so wrong and so deeply ingrained, that you have to have both a literal miracle of healing, before the implementation of your knowledge toward practical changes. You need to use what you know, when you work with patience. You've got to confront your lover. You have to make a willful choice to refuse phone calls, to not get into the sexual issues of involvement to find a false security. You have to choose to not be a doormat. You have to confront people. You have to start a new lifestyle. Move out of your apartment, change your friends, and habits.” She said, “All right, let's take the first step for healing.” This may seem unrealistic to you, but this is what happened and how it affected her.
I said to her, “I'm going to lead you in a prayer, and then I want you to finish it. I'm going to pray that God will heal your mind and emotions right now.” To give you a little background, this lady was pretty, she had a tint or hue to her face that was gray, and her eyes were dull. The eyes are the windows of the spirit, of the soul. Sometimes you meet people who have a darkness about them, because of whatever it is that they're wrestling with, pornography, homosexuality, sexual addiction, emotion, sarcasm, or rebellion rather than the Holy Spirit of God. So, this woman had dull, flat looking eyes and a dark hue or tint to her face, and it was basically the fact that her will was not in submission to God. Her life centered around false security that was found through a lesbian relationship, and there was a need for that to change. When people genuinely change, you will see a lightness, or almost a silvery color, or an aura, or a presence of Jesus fill this person that will change that darkness into brightness, with a sparkle in their eyes. The light color to their face is an awareness of the presence of Christ that is restoring them, because they have invited him to have full control.
I prayed and she repeated my prayer phrase by phrase, “First, Jesus please heal my mind and please heal my emotions. Give me the ability to understand what your love is truly like, to reject the bondage that I'm in. I allow you to enable me to understand what you're like, and to hear the Holy Spirit, so that I live out the principles of being Christ-like, and not a doormat. By letting you protect me, I am refusing to continue to be in bondage to this situation.” Then she continued to pray and thanked God for this. But when I finished my prayer and she started hers, I looked up. I can't tell you why I looked up, perhaps the Holy Spirit prompted me, or I just wanted to see if she was genuine, or to gain a sense of her countenance. But here's what happened. When I looked up, I perceived through the Holy Spirit, I guess, that God reached down from heaven, and his hand extended with his index finger extended and touched her on top of the head. She had her head bowed. When he touched her, the presence of light of God’s person began to move from the top of her head, almost like a glass that was was opened up at the bottom, so the fluid went down in one smooth movement. I saw the darkness begin to leave, and that light went down her head, over her face, down her shoulders, all the way down to her toes. And when she stopped praying and looked at me, the darkness was gone, and she began to cry. And she said to me, “I have not been able to cry since I was a child, because life has been so awful and filled with so much ugliness that I did not have the ability to let it out. God has healed my mind and my emotions. I now have the ability to comprehend his love, to accept his love and to live in his love. I do not need to continue in this lesbian relationship anymore”.
Now that might sound far fetched, but I saw it happen. I've seen similar things happen in other situations, but never as dramatically as in this one. I've seen a change in countenance in someone when they commit to God, or when they confront a problem. When they return to counseling and their words have changed, when they start saying the things like the Holy Spirit showed me, or God gave me strength, or this worked out, or I confronted them and it was good. It may be that the relationship had changed or didn’t change, but it's all right, because I'm all right.
After that we continued to work, and she ended the lesbian relationship. She was able to establish heterosexual relationships. She moved towards having intimacy in marriage, feeling safe and secure. Sexuality was understood. Didn't control her or frighten her. She was even able to go back to her father and confront him about some of the issues, to get a sense of peace. She established a new relationship with Him, even though it wasn't repaired, she was set free. The basic issue, whether it's a homosexual or lesbian relationship, is this bondage that's occurred because the sexual part of the life has become the substitute for the spiritual. So, the sexual isn't the real issue, all the innuendos of the relationship, confronting the other person, trying to get them into counseling, that's not the ultimate issue. The ultimate issue is they need to face the fact that they've accepted a substitute for Christ, and when they face that, then they can address the other issues, problems of bondage, the situations they're in moving out of an apartment or whatever, and the whole issue can be resolved. The person can enter back into a place of freedom and have the kind of good relationships that God wants them to have in any area. I hope this discussion of the homosexual issue and lesbian issue has helped you. I know that I didn't get in depth into some of the intricacies of lifestyle and patterns, but the basic issue should be understood. You shouldn't have a sense of fear as to how to counsel if this is the presenting problem of your client.
Copyright 1987, 1990, 1993 by Daniel D. Wilkinson. All rights reserved. For more information concerning this material, write to:
The Biblical Christian Counseling Ministries, Inc., 2730 Radcliffe Dr., Florissant, MO 63031.
Any reproduction of this material without the express written consent of the author is prohibited. Printed in the U.S.A..
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Do you believe that supernatural healing is a part of treatment within this issue? If so, explain why you believe this is necessary and how it will occur.
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
At times, supernatural healing is absolutely critical to the recovery of the client. This need arises when the exposure to sexual abuse and the accompanying emotional and mental abuse has formed a pattern of thinking and a storehouse of knowledge that is false and almost totally based upon the premises of pornography and sexual perversion.
These beliefs are the opposite of the Biblical principles of Agape love and can only be removed, at least initially, by the work of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. The healing will occur through knowledge (the Agape studies in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8), prayer (literally asking for healing of the mind and emotions because the client has a sense of not being able to progress), and through the guidance of the counselor.
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Do you believe that regardless of whether the relationship is a homosexual or a lesbian one that the cure will be the same? If so, why?
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Dr. Dan's Answer:
The cure will be the same for both because in both situations the spiritual need for a relationship to God -- as the client's source of security, wisdom, standards for life, and help -- is the same.
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