Caring for your teenage child who has Same-Sex Attraction, Part 5.

Practical Care.

It is paramount that as a parent are able to correctly assess and care for your child through his struggles. You both will need to be able to discuss how to best care for your son. What plans and goals you have for your child, and what exactly you believe your child needs. Gilson answers the question as to what the goals for someone in a predominately married church should be who has SSA. “At least three things: a thick relationship with Jesus, life-giving companions, and a realistic, hopeful view of singleness.”

The Lord’s deepest desire for your child is for him to grow into the image of Christ. And he will not do this unless he grows into having a deeper knowledge and intimacy of Christ. French writer Antoine De Saint-Exupery says that “if you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” You need to teach your son how to long for the beauty and love of Christ. When your son begins to imagine these truths in faith, his imagination will catch fire and this will result in “illumination of the mind, conviction and joy in the emotions, and then behavioral change comes naturally. Looking in faith at Christ is the only way to destroy idolatrous longings” (Keller) Why does their son need to grow in intimacy with Christ? Because “singleness will present specific tests of your love of Christ... Knowing this, you must cultivate your love for him. Not just your knowledge or your service, but your love.” Believers are tested every day through the world, the flesh and the Devil and your child needs to learn how to grow his love for Christ so that this love can overpower every other love. Because wherever his love goes, his heart will follow.  Also, if Adam can cultivate an image of Christ, suffering on the cross for his sin, this will help create a hatred for his sinful desires and a love for Christ which will “lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification." 1 John 3:1 will remind him that God bestows love on him for the very fact that he is his child, and not because his sexuality is perfect or what he is done, but for what Christ has done. “God’s acceptance of us in the future, his being pleased with us, means that we may be pleased with ourselves in the here and now as we live our daily Christian lives; or, more precisely, we may be pleased that we are pleasing to God” (Owen).

Not only must your child grow in intimacy of Christ, but he must grow in his reliance upon and his identity in Christ. Your daughter needs to see Jesus as her friend, who comes to her when she feels alone and discouraged by her SSA. Someone who does not pull away in disgust when your child is overwhelmed with lust but gladly draws near to give grace and love.  Dane Ortlund says that “in Jesus Christ, we are given a friend who will always enjoy rather than refuse our presence. This is a companion whose embrace of us does not strengthen or weaken depending on how clean or unclean, how attractive or revolting, how faithful or fickle, we presently are.” Your child’s battle for intimacy with Christ will not be easy, his temptations and desires will be strong and there will be days of discouragement, doubts, and frustration. Gilson writes about those struggling with SSA by saying that “many of us will face dark nights of the soul. The call to abandon Jesus, from within and without, will deafen us. We will look utterly foolish-pitiable, contemptible, or both. Then, most urgently, we must take up the means of grace and trust that he will prove himself true yet again.” Your child must believe that though he may feel incredibly far from God at times, he can have hope that Jesus is actually nearer than he could ever believe. “When we feel as if our thoughts, words, and deeds are diminishing God’s grace toward us, those sins and failures are in fact causing it to surge forward all the more” (Ortlund) Your child can find hope that the deepest truths about him is not that he is sexually attracted to men, but that he is a new creation in God. The old man with the sinful desires has passed away and he is a new man in Christ, with a new heart and new desires (2 Cor. 5:17). Your child must realize that “by faith, a healthy self-conception flows from a wholehearted understanding, consent, and commitment to God’s given identity. As faith grows, people’s identities are increasingly shaped by God’s perspective” (Pierre) The Word of God tells your child who he is, not the world, not his desires, not his sexuality, but God. This can free your child immensely, especially when all those things come at him at once and the farthest thing on his mind is the Word of God. Shaw says that “I need reminding of who I am in Christ, to hear words like these: ‘You are not what you want. You are who you are. And that’s defined by the Word of God.’” 

Helping your child understand his desires was mentioned earlier in this paper. However, it’s important that you learn that your child’s desire cannot be separated from his thoughts and actions. It is incredibly important for your child to see how his emotions, desires, thoughts, and actions are all connected together. “You need to be all eyes and ears; you need to pay attention in Jesus’ name to the soul before you. The only way you’ll know how to proceed is if you attentively discern not just the symptoms of spiritual distress, but their underlying causes” (Senkbeil) You will need to listen to what your child is saying about his SSA. You must understand that your child’s heart is a deep well. The heart is complex, and your need to see how it functions. Jeremy Pierre describes a heart as a “dynamic heart” that functions cognitively, affectionally and volitionally.  Know what your son is thinking, believing, and how he is interpreting his life. What does he desire, value, feel? What decisions is he making based upon what he feels and understands? “The dynamic heart responds to God, to self, to others, and to circumstances. These four contexts are vital to recognize when considering a person’s experience of the world.” Knowing what your daughter is wanting, idolizing, thinking about will be helpful to knowing how to care for your child. This will require humility, patience, and honest communication. The ability for your child to trust you with embarrassingly intimate details of his life. This is important because his desires and thoughts, will eventually lead to actions. “Not only is every desire about something-tangible or intangible, but also every desire has an envisioned purpose or action…desire is ‘an emotion which often leads to a commensurate action’” (Yuan) The heart of your child will be complex, with deep thoughts, desires and actions, but the more confidence your child has to share is pain and struggles, the more you can give him the godly care he needs. 

Another area that you can work on is helping him build strong friendships and community at church. Your child will not thrive on his own, he needs godly men and women outside of his home to help build him up and guide him. “The human person is not an isolated being who is complete in himself or herself, but that he or she is a being who needs the fellowship of others, who is not complete apart from others” (Hoekema). It is in the context of the local church where your child will find friendships and love in the times where loneliness and sadness creep in. Where doubts of continuing in the faith will whisper in his ear. Your son needs brothers to take his hand and guide him through the terrains of life. Yuan says that “if we really lived as a spiritual family, as true brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe we could effectively mitigate issues like loneliness and isolation, along with the sorrow and pain that often accompany them.” Your child will especially need the community of the local church if he is to learn how to live this life as a single man. A future laid before him of singleness and celibacy can be an overwhelming journey to take, and no one can walk that alone. He will need friendships, not shallow, what’s in it for me friendships, but life giving, truth telling, grace giving friendships. Sam Allberry says that a friend is someone “you tell your secrets to, someone you let in on the real things that are going on in your life. They’re the ones who really know what’s going on with you. They know your temptations, and they know what most delights your heart. They know how to pray for you instinctively.” Isaiah 62:5 says that “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”  Your child’s singleness points to the reality that his hope is not in a marriage, or a sexual partner, but in the final wedding feast of the lamb with his bride. Singles can communicate that “a truer marriage is coming and that they are willing to bet their life on it. They communicate that the church really is a family, and we better live like it. Even when his singleness is unchosen and painful, the single man communicates how much Jesus longs for his wife, the church” (Gilson). This is what you can point him to, not a shallow temporary hope of a future physical marriage, but a lasting eternal hope that says, “whatever happens here on earth, I know who waits for me at the end, the one whom all desire and pleasure points to, the lover of my soul.”  

Lastly, to care for your child well you need to educate yourselves on what it’s like to struggle with SSA. Presenting godly material for your child to read, watch and listen to will be incredibly impactful on him. Impactful because he will know his parents care about him because he sees how passionate they are to understand him and his struggle better. And because he will not feel so alone when he is able to hear testimonies of others who have gone before him with this same struggle. It is your responsibility to do the research for the sake of your child. You shouldn’t expect your child to go out and do the research, you are the leaders of the household and must bear the burden to research and read solid books, articles, watch videos, and listen to podcasts. You shouldn’t shove a book in your daughter’s hands and tell her to “read this.” You should read the book, pull out the truths and talk with your child about it. You should help assess where your child’s ability to understand theological facts and truths about sexuality, the modern world and other topics land. Meet him where he is and then help him slowly rise above his understanding. Walk beside him, not over him. Lower yourself and guide him through the truths of Scripture, books, and media. If are unwilling or don’t have the time to do this then that conveys the truth that you are unwilling to truly love your child. You honor God by loving you child, you dishonor God by seeking your own comfort and convenience. Other ways that you can find help for yourself and for your child is to talk with other parents you know whose kids have SSA or talk to friends and believers who are knowledgeable about SSA. Reach out to your small group leader, elders and pastors and ask for help and guidance as to where to get material on how to care for your daughter. If you think she could benefit from biblical counseling broach the subject with her in a loving gracious way, if that is something she is not interested in, then be ok with that. In the end, this should show your child that he is loved no differently than he was before, letting him know how much he is loved and delighted in because of Christ and how much Christ loves him. Reminding him of the living hope that is inside of him every day, walking through his pain and sorrow, not pulling away, enjoying the simple things in life and deepening your relationship with him, expecting it to last for the rest of your lives and for eternity after.

Keller, Tim “Puritan Resources for Biblical Counseling.”

Ortlund, Dane C. Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers.

Owen, John. The Mortification of Sin.

 Pierre, Jeremy. The Dynamic Heart in Daily Life: Connecting Christ to Human Experience.