Caring for your teenage child who has Same-Sex Attraction, Part 3.

Difficulties of Caring for Your Child

Ideally, as you continue to teach, love and guide your child about the truths of sexuality and what it means to grow in wisdom, the Spirit will be working, and your child will choose to trust the teachings of God. However, one does not live in a perfect world and not everyone reacts to the truths of Scripture the same. As a parent, you need to be ready for certain difficulties to arise and know how to wisely interact with these issues when it happens. Perhaps the most difficult situation you could face is your child refusing to even listen to your advice or accept the Bible’s teaching on sexuality. Gilson, commenting on the desire of SSA, says that “because this feeling is so powerful, it can be the precise place where we rebel against God.” SSA can feel so normal to an individual that it is hard to believe it’s wrong, and the desire can be so powerful it seems impossible to resist. You need to decide to stand firm on your Christian convictions and choose to acknowledge to your child, that while he is under the age of eighteen, he is not allowed to pursue a same-sex relationship. Once the son is of age and moves out, he is no longer under your authority but until then it is important that you implement the truths of the Gospel to him, in a loving and gracious way, for the sake of his soul. However, you should remember that the goal should never be a change of behavior for your child, the goal is his heart. “A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. Is it not the hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees?” (Tripp). Gilson writes that “the Bible points to a spiritual source of all desire that is contrary to God’s will. That it is spiritual doesn’t mean that it isn’t also ‘natural’…natural doesn’t automatically mean good, therefore. We may well have been ‘born this way,’ but every one of us was born sinful.” 

There will be a temptation for you to want to shield your child from suffering, difficulties, and temptation. The child can see this burden as too much for him and you will be tempted to agree. Gilson acknowledges that this will be hard, “for those of us with same-sex attraction, denying those desires will feel like death, because it is.” It will be even harder because the world says that to be authentic and true to yourself means to live out your sexuality. Carl Trueman discusses our culture and sexual desires by saying that “sexuality is presented as that which lies at the very heart of what it means to be an authentic person.” Again, this is where a robust understanding of the power of the Gospel in each believer, the grace God gives for those tempted will greatly come in handy. Your child needs to see that the way of the cross and salvation is through suffering and each believer is called to suffer, in their unique way. Christopher Yuan says that “following Jesus should cost us everything; if it doesn’t, we’re following the wrong Jesus.” The goal is not to bash the truth over the head of their child but to show the reality of what all Christians are called to, and that will look different for each believer. Taking up a cross of death is a call for everyone, not just those with SSA. Ed Shaw comments that in the end, what we are giving up, is in reality what wasn’t good for us in the first place. “Oddly the self-sacrifice that Jesus calls us to ends up not really being self-sacrifice at all. It is actually in our own best interests-in the long term. Take up your cross and it will be worth it in the end. Refuse to sacrifice something and you will lose everything in the end.” The world teaches us that self-gratification is the way, but the Bible teaches that it is through our suffering that we are changed. 1 Peter 1 speaks of how through suffering, we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. It will be through the pain of his temptations with SSA that your child will see his sin. His self-righteousness, selfishness, pride, idolatry, fear of man. These temptations will help transform him into the man that God desires him to be, a man who is like Jesus. 

You also need to be able to teach your child that because of the fall, all of our desires have been corrupted. Your child cannot trust the moral compass inside of him but must look outside of himself to the truths of God for guidance. Gilson writes about God that “he is clear throughout Scripture that our desires are not a compass for goodness because they are broken. He is the compass for goodness, and he tells us plainly what pleases him and what will result in our thriving.” James 1:13-15 talks about how sinful desires come from within one’s heart. It is not outside of us that sins come to fruition, but they are brought forth from within. Because of our sex saturated world, to be alive is to have sex. The truth for your child is that she is being called to a life of celibacy and never having sex will most likely be a very hard thing to accept. Western world’s view of sexual fulfillment believes that, “without sex you can’t really experience what it means to be truly human.” As a parent, you will need to be able to teach that celibacy is not something to be ashamed of, but something that honors God. While sex is a good thing, it should never be the ultimate thing, despite what the world says. Keller writes that “sex simply cannot fill the cosmic need for closure that our souls seek in romance. Only meeting Christ face-to-face will fill the emptiness in our hearts that sin created when we lost our unbroken fellowship with him.” God promises that even though there will be people who have to give up sex, and the possibility of marriage and kids, those people will not be forgotten. Isaiah 56:4-5 references eunuchs who, giving up families, will be honored and will receive a blessing better than sons and daughters. They will receive an everlasting name and a memorial within God’s temple. In reference to these verses, Gilson writes that “God looks into the eyes of the eunuch and sees the fear: of loneliness, of obscurity, of being utterly cut off-as if it never mattered that that person even existed. To all of these fears, God shouts NO. He answers these fears with a forever family.” Your child needs to be aware that saying no to sin is not about being good and saying no to bad things, but it means saying yes to purity and holiness. To human flourishing, growing in sanctification and in the end it “conveys covenantal commitment” (Yuan).

Some other areas that as a parent you need to be aware of, but this paper does not have space to go into detail with, is how to help your child wrestle through the fears of rejection and homophobia because of his SSA. Grounding her identity in Christ and not the words of others. Helping her work through discouragement, sadness, depression and even suicidal thoughts. Not dismissing your child’s disappointment but lifting his weak hands and knees (Heb. 12:12) The Lord will not break a bruised reed or a smoking flax (Is. 42:3) and neither should you as a parent. Interacting with the belief that a person is not whole unless she has found a partner, this again is a lie of the world. “One of the greatest deceptions of the modern West is the idea that you are not truly happy-or even truly alive-until you’ve found your soulmate” (Gilson) One is made complete and whole in Christ. For example, Jesus, Paul, Augustine, Amy Carmichael, Corrie Ten Boom, Henri Nouwen, John Stott. These were men and women used by God in their singleness and they were loved and accepted fully by God. To say that single, celibate believers are not fully human is a lie, and destroys the dignity and human wholeness that God has redeemed through his son. This kind of thinking “that claims a life without sexual fulfillment is not really an authentic way to live is actually saying that Jesus did not fully come in the flesh, that his was not a full human life. To say that it is dehumanizing to be celibate is to dehumanize Christ” (Allberry).

Allberry, Sam. 7 Myths about Singleness. Wheaton: Crossway, 2019.

Gilson, Rachel. Born Again This Way.

Keller, Timothy and Kathy. The Meaning of Marriage.

Shaw, Ed. Same-sex attraction and the church: the surprising plausibility of the celibate life. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015.

Tripp, Ted. Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

Trueman, Carl R. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Wheaton: Crossway, 2020.

Yuan, Christopher. Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2018.