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Introduction
My name is Emily and I am now 25 years old. I have been going
through an amazing spiritual journey these past few years. I dedicated my life
to Christ on April 3, 2002 and was baptized on June 30, 2002.
I was raised in a church that believes that a man, William Branham
was a prophet sent from God based upon an interpretation of Malachi 4:5-6. My
parents have blamed my leaving on various outside influences, but I believe
that it was God opening my eyes to the truth. ‘The Message’ didn’t bring me to
a relationship with God, but rather brought me to a relationship with religious
rules, expectations and social standards. And I honestly believe that, in my
life, God showed me that it had gotten in the way of a true personal
relationship with Him. If you are reading this and do believe in William
Branham please don’t think evil thoughts of me. I know that feeling since I
have been there and done that. I have talked behind people’s backs after they
left the church. Saying they had better repent or God is sending them straight
to hell. I have even sat through the services where the pastor would “turn
someone’s soul over to the devil” after they left the Message.
I had not touched a Bible outside of church for years nor did I
have the desire to. But I read it daily now and have a burning desire to do so.
Religion was the farthest thing from my mind when I was outside of church
growing up. And I would NEVER talk about it with my friends for fear that they
would think that our beliefs were “too weird”. Yeah, I would answer questions
regarding our way of dress, etc. But I would avoid talking about the ‘prophet’
at all costs. Now if someone has a question about my Christianity I have no
problem of talking to them. I’m not ashamed of sharing my beliefs with anyone.
I don’t try to stay off of certain subjects or things like that anymore.
Upbringing
I am the only child in my family. My mother was a stay-at-home mom
who took the time to home school me. I’m grateful for that educational
background. But yet unfortunately, I
get the feeling an underlying reason was to keep me close to the religious way
in which I was raised. Yes, I do have to agree that there are some very nasty
things that happen in school that you are better off not being around. But she
seems to feel that she failed in some way in raising me because I ‘went astray’
religiously. She even feels she wasted her time in home schooling me. But from
what I have heard some people seem to think that I am of slightly higher
intelligence.
When pondering her feelings, I think that it could have to do with
the fact that mom and dad were married five years before they had me. They have
never really told me the story in detail but from what I have gathered they
tried to have a child but couldn’t. So they had a ‘Message’ minister pray for
them and less then a year later I was born. So they have told me that I was a “prayed
for baby”. Which is cool and everything don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I
disappointed them by not remaining true to the religion in which I was raised.
Though recently my mom told me she still believes that God has me here for a
reason.
Beginning of Doubt
I can actually trace the start of my doubts of my childhood
religious beliefs back to one very specific event. It was back in 1993 when the
whole thing down in
Beginning of my Spiritual Journey
My last time that I said to myself that I would give it my all and
pray that God would lead me to appreciate and love the Message’s beliefs etc.
the way everyone else did, was down in Chicago/ Wilton Center for some Labor
Day meetings. I don’t know the exact year but I do know that it was shortly
before 1997. I even remember in that last service my dad wrote a note to mom
saying “Pray for Emily” because it was obvious that I was trying to totally
‘get into the service’ and let myself be ‘taken over by the Spirit’. Still
nothing… so ever since then I had just been going to church to make my parents
happy and because I know that everyone is always worried what someone else
would think in the church. I didn’t want my family to be talked about by the
people in the church, like I had seen happen every time someone left. Then the
church would even have a service to turn that person’s soul over to the Devil
as I mentioned previously. So much for keeping the faith that they would
return. But after awhile that just was wearing me down mentally. So in the
summer of 2000 I came to the realization that I was actually being more
unchristian like than Christian-like by just putting on a good act and be
something that I am not just to make people happy. In that time period I
started sleeping in every service. My parents always blamed it on not getting
to bed early enough, but it was actually my way to make the time go faster so I
could have my duty of going to church over with and get out of there. At this
time I was also leading a double-life. I was a good skirt wearing legalistic
believer at church and a foulmouthed heathen with my worldly friends. Even
though I was underage I also found a way to acquire alcohol and listened to
music from the likes of Eminem and Limp Bizkit. That was despite the fact that
any music with a beat was ‘evil’. I was to the point where I thought
that “life’s a bitch and then you die”. Swerving to hit an oncoming semi would
have worked perfectly to speed the process up, I thought. So anyway, I made the big step in November
2000 to tell my parents that I wasn’t going to Sunday or Wednesday night
services anymore. Then my last Sunday morning service that
I went to was June 10th, 2001.
Where God was Leading
So I didn’t go anywhere on Sunday’s for awhile seeing if I would
get a conviction to start going back to the Spoken
Word Church (or any other ‘Message church’). Or if I even cared about
religion at all. So after a short time I started to study the Bible and felt
that I should see what was out there for me. Since I was finding the Message
wasn’t all that I was lead to believe that it was. I came across too many
things that I was beginning to question. I decided that I should be going
somewhere to worship God. So mid-summer I began going to the local Evangelical
Free Church that my grandma attended. I do have to admit there was a major
culture shock for me. I had been taught all of my life that all other churches
were evil and way off track and only if they were lucky would anyone other than
us make it to Heaven. But as I would attend and listen, the pastor would teach
on something or say something that I had been lead to believe "only we had
the true revelation for".
The Doxology really made my head spin because of the reference to
the Trinity:
Praise God from Whom
all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye
heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
I was a total
skeptic about the Trinity because of my upbringing. William Branham taught…
God is not a
Trinity, but has manifested Himself in three dispensations:
a. As Father in the Old Testament;
b. As Son in the New Testament;
c. As Holy Spirit in His Church.
But then I went
through the entire New Testament looking at the places where there is
interaction between Father and Son. Father and Holy Spirit or the 'Three'. But
it was all for the glory of God. It is something that you really can't explain
with these wimpy human minds. But I would just write down the chapter and verse
that I would find these things. I ended up with 4 full pages when I was done.
And obviously there aren’t three Gods. But yet the way the 'Oneness' people
explain just isn't possible if you read the Bible for what it is not for what
you want it to say.
William Branham taught that
God was not omnipresent because, as a being, He could not be everywhere at
once. "He is not omnipresent in the way that the
word speaks omnipresent. He cannot be a Being and then be an omnipresent. If
He's omnipresent, why would you pray for the Holy Spirit? If He's omnipresent,
He fills every crack, corner, crevice, every cell, fiber, everything else there
is." I said, "Why did He hunt for Moses if He's omnipresent at the
end? Why did He run up and down the Garden of Eden, crying, 'Adam, Adam, where
art thou?' if He's omnipresent?"
He also believed that Jesus was not
God until the Holy Spirit incarnated His body at the time of His baptism. Jesus
was again reduced to a mere mortal man when the Holy Spirit supposedly left His
body in the
There are countless incredibly
twisted teachings, too many to mention here. But one that I have to mention is-
He taught the fall in the Garden of Eden was a result of an adulterous affair
between Eve and the Serpent. This doctrine is known as Serpent's Seed.
As a result of this affair, Cain was born (i.e., the Serpent--not Adam--was
Cain's true father). Even though Genesis
4 makes it very clear that Adam was the father of both Cain and Abel.
I began to see William Branham as
more of a man warned about in II Peter 2:1-3 than a prophet from God.
Surrender
As God was opening my eyes to all of
these things, I discovered I wasn’t where I should be in life. So I decided to
talk to the pastor, Kurt.
I highly recommend when the time is right on your spiritual
journey that you find a pastor (or their spouse) that you are comfortable
talking to. Or anyone else that is a firmly rooted spiritual individual that
you trust. It is very scary at first but I’m glad that I bit the bullet so to
speak and asked to talk to the pastor.
That was the most stressful Sunday morning when I made up my mind
that I was going to ask Kurt after the service if we could get together and
talk. And then the day (Wednesday) of the evening we scheduled to get together
was even worse. But I had to come out of my shy wallflower shell and get these
things off of my chest. He had just preached a series on the stages of the
Spiritual Journey and I knew sitting through the sermons I was at the Seeking
Believer stage but hadn’t surrendered myself yet. After talking on the
religious side of things, discussing what I was taught growing up and what I
had found out to be false and things that I still wasn’t sure on, he asked me
if I was ready to surrender my life to Christ. I said that I wanted to but…….….
we just sat there for a very long time and my mind was going a million miles an
hour. At this time the youth group was over and leaving church (we were in the
pastor’s office). So he asked if I would like his wife (Karen) to come over and
talk also. At this point in time I really didn’t know her at all. Now when I
look back I’m grateful that I said “yes that would be great”. I had brought a
book of emails that I had saved where I had been in correspondence with another
former ‘Message’ believer. I had met her on an ex-cult support group online.
Since then I have had to opportunity to meet her in person. She was born and
raised the same way that I was and even married a man and started a family. But
then in her late thirties the Holy Spirit lead her and her husband to question
some of the same things that I had and began to question the Message as a
whole. To make a long story short, her husband lost it and they have since
divorced and he is on S.S.I. because of severe depression. And he went just the
opposite turning to mind altering substances etc. She says that he just
couldn't handle having found out what he placed all his trust in was false. But
she took it as a learning experience and saw God for who He was. She also had
dealt with one of the same issues as me. She just wrote about it one day in an
email and I was like “WHOA, that’s me”. So we were able to start a bit of
dialog about those subjects. So that night in the pastor’s office I still
couldn’t bring myself to verbalize those things because I was so ashamed of it.
But I knew that it was something that I had to get out there before I could
surrender my life to Christ. So I had Karen read the emails that pertained to
those subjects. I was feeling relieved while sitting there waiting for her to
finish but yet sweating and terrified almost to the point of shaking because I
had been so used to people overreacting and judging me about lesser things.
For
the first time in my life I was able to tell someone the part of my life I
swore I would take to the grave with me. When I
was 12 years old there was a guy my parents were friends with from their
church. He was 26 (14 years older than me) and completely infatuated with me.
For ~2 years he made that very clear to me. Fortunately he was more verbal than
physical. He would tell me that he was waiting till I was 18 so he could marry
me. He would look at me and say he could hear wedding bells ringing in the
future. He also found it appropriate to tell me that he would get erections
when he was around me. That consisted of him pointing to his pants and telling me
that he was getting all tight and tingly. He took any chance that he could to caress my hand or arm. I wrote my dad a note at
one point in time, asking him to tell this guy off. But he laughed me off and
thought that I was making it up.
So that is where Satan saw his opportunity and ran with it. He hardened my
heart and began to develop my deep-rooted hatred and distrust towards all men
that would last for years.
The natural progression from that is to turn your attractions towards members
of the sex that you do trust. At this time I was very withdrawn and depressed.
From time to time I figured life wasn't even worth dealing with anymore.
Instead of doing the unthinkable, I found my stress release in masturbation
which turned into a 9 year struggle and addiction. At some points it was all I
could think about throughout the day and I had no self-control over my urges.
As the Bible warns us once you open the door to even a HINT of immorality it
can just keep creeping into your life and building on itself. I also began to
find (homosexual) pornography very appealing. I would always feel extremely horrible afterwards
so I really didn't get to deeply entrenched in this sin though.
I thank God continually that through all of this I never acted
upon my homosexual desires to any extreme. Though as we know, sin is sin. It
was limited to unhealthy infatuations, obsessions, fantasies, and flirting.
There was a tennis player that was my #1 obsession. Now to this day I won't
allow myself to watch matches that she is participating in. Even though God has
delivered me from all of that.... WHY GIVE SATAN A CHANCE TO TEMPT YOU??
Salvation
After I was finally able to confess all of those things before
God, Kurt and Karen; I was ready to pray for forgiveness and salvation. They
had not laughed at me or thought I was weird like I had always feared. They
simply started to pray with me. That night I gave my all to Christ as Romans
3:22-24 and Romans 10:9-11 instructs us. Words can’t describe the burden that
was lifted!!!
It won’t always be a bed of roses if you reject what you were
taught if there is the attitude that you are going to hell for it. It is down
right depressing at times and you even feel like going back just to get over
the feeling. But stay the course. If God is for us then who can be against us?
(Romans 8:31). I have gotten ignored by people that were my friends growing up.
It hurts, but I just made new friends. I have even gotten a letter from someone
that had known me since I was very young. I was put off by it but then realized
that I would be feeling about the same way if the roles were reversed. It was
just a way for this individual to express their shock for seeing me in jeans
for the first time. My parents have even told me that I’m blind to the truth
and going to hell for rejecting the “prophet’s message”. That used to really
bother me. But now I know the Truth so all I can do is hold onto Faith in God
that they will see it someday, too. Matthew 17:20.
In the beginning of my Christian walk when differing religious views
came up in conversation my parents would get me to question my newfound belief.
Now when
religion comes up in our house I can talk about what I believe confidently and
with great conviction.
Direction
After I found out who I was personally I had to discover my
direction in my life. I had basically been a bum out of high school working a
various number of odd jobs. Then I felt the strong call to work with kids. If I
didn’t have anyone when I needed it I wanted to give at least one kid a chance
to have someone. So I started looking into going to a Christian college for
psychology or teen counseling. At that same time I started going to a Bible
study. It was there I discovered a job opening at a local veterinary hospital
doing what I had dreamed of in my early teenage years but it had slowly been
fading out of my mind.
So I found out about the job on a Sunday. I was actually asking
for a friend of mine who was in hard times. So she applied on Monday. Thursday
she called me, asking if I had applied yet. I hadn’t even thought of it because
I had only been asking for her. So she convinced me to apply. I applied on Thursday,
was hired on Friday, and started on Monday. Less than 4 months later I was
asked by Karen if I would be able to help out with youth group. So God has
blessed me, in that I’m able to do both things I’m passionate about.
Because of my experiences while growing up, I like to use my life
as a teaching tool for teenagers. Homosexuality is everywhere around us. On TV,
in movies, magazines or we probably even have friends or relatives that are
'gay'. I have both. People fallen for this lie hook, line and sinker. We were
created in God's own image. Homosexuality doesn't align with that image so
therefore we aren't really born gay like a lot of people are trying to tell us.
There is also a movement out there trying to promote the lie that you can be a Christian
homosexual. The Bible is very clear on this subject. Read Genesis 19:1-13,
Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Judges 19:22-23, Romans 1:24-27, 1
Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, 2 Peter 2:6-8, and Jude 7.
Now I'm not saying that you can't be friends with people who are
gay. We need to show them love but yet uphold God's Word and God's standards.
If you have any questions on this subject a great place to check out is
exodusyouth.net and exodus.to . Exodus is a worldwide interdenominational,
Christian organization called to encourage, strengthen, unify and equip
Christians to minister the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ to those
affected by homosexuality. It is awesome to read through the testimonies to see
how real God's power really is. People that grew up thinking they were “born
gay”. But slowly God began working in their lives, showing them the Truth. Not
only did they come out of their homosexual lifestyles but God as worked in
their lives He took those desires away and gave then the desires He originally
intended for. Not what Satan was having them believe. Most are now in a happy
heterosexual marriage. God truly transforms lives!!!!
A very
important thing is to find an accountability partner. Someone you can talk to
about anything and don’t try to sugar coat things, like might happen with
someone else. I tell mine if I'm having issues. We talk and pray about it. The
devil is still out there and likes to tempt us even though we are Christians. Just you are a Christian doesn't mean that your life will become
perfect. Life still hurls difficult things our way. But we can find comfort in
knowing because of Christ we can never be destroyed. Even if our physical life
ends we will live on forever in His Glory!!!
I
know all of the arguments that are out there on how you can be a gay Christian.
Before I started going to the
Evangelical Free Church I even entertained the idea of going to a church in
Another
great resource is a book called “The Unhappy Gays: What everyone should know
about Homosexuality” by Tim
LaHaye. He is the co-author of the “Left Behind” series. One other great book
is called “Coming out of Homosexuality” by Bob Davies and Lori Rentzel. They
are involved with Love in Action International.
In
His Service,
Emily