Continuing, Sexuality and the Sin of Sodom

FROM ROSARIA BUTTERFIELD'S BOOK, The Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert:

I began to understand....my sexuality was sinful not because it was lesbian, per se but because it wasn't Christ controlled. My heterosexual past was no more sanctified than my homosexual present. God had revealed that to me powerfully as I sat under the preaching of his word, as I read the Bible, and as I talked to other Christians in my church about what sexuality meant in God's economy. In understanding myself as a sexual being, responding to Jesus---committing my life to Christ---meant not going backwards to my heterosexual past, but going forward to something entirely new. At the time I thought that this would most likely be celibacy and the single life. Sexuality that did not devour the other person seemed unthinkable to me. And while I never really liked the idea of growing old alone, I accepted that if God could take me this far in life safely, he would see me through this next part too.

Every aspect of my life came under the scrutiny of my new Christian worldview. It was like someone turned the search light on and I couldn't dim the intensity. I understood why the Pharisee Saul was struck blind on the road to Damascus for three days from the light of the gospel! I learned that sin roots not in outward behaviors, but in patterns of thinking.

---Rosaria Champagne Butterfield