So, saying yes to Jesus didn't just wipe out my attraction to other women. And that was something that my brothers and sisters in Christ knew about. But they didn't treat me as like different or weird. They were like, every single one of us all experienced temptation and we're all trying to grow together. And how do we say yes to Jesus?
and no to temptations. you might be drawn toward whoever. But the The muscle of Christian obedience is the same. We have to fight our sin by the power of the Spirit. I think this generation of parents are dealing with things that we didn't really have to deal with, and that is the LGBTQ topic.
Raising your kids. Yeah.
So we got Rachel Gilson with us. Your story's pretty extraordinary to me. When I've heard it, I'm like, man, this is so powerful.
So we're wondering if you would go back and give us a little part of your upbringing and how you came to know Jesus. Give us the Rachel Gilson memoir. I would be happy to.
So I grew up in Southern California, which is what the new heavens and the new earth will be patterned after. You think so? I feel pretty convinced. Yeah.
And I was raised by my mom and dad, neither of whom had a deep Christian background. My mom had been raised. Catholic, but with quotations. Yeah, in her words, she gave it up at 13 for cigarettes and boys.
So you can't do both. Did she tell you that? Yeah, that's what she's told me several times. Yeah.
And my dad sort of grew up nothing in the hills of Appalachia, western Pennsylvania.
So by the time they were raising, my brother and I, we just weren't a church-going family. You're the youngest? I, well, we don't have time to do this, but I'm technically the first, middle, and only child, depending on how you s slice my complex family. Like now I'm constantly. I'm so sorry, yeah.
Like Jesus, I grew up with my birth mother and my adoptive father.
Okay. You just said you're like Jesus. Wow. This is the only way, the family structure.
So in my household growing up, I was the oldest. Older.
Okay. So I have a younger brother. I can't call him my little brother. I'm like five, four on my best days and my brother's six, four, so there's nothing there's nothing little about the guy. Yes.
He's big. And this is where the having different biological fathers comes in. Yeah.
The size difference is apparent.
So My parents just didn't bring us to church because it wasn't part of their background, so it wasn't going to be a part of the way they raised their kids. Like, never, not even Christmas and Eastern. Not even Christmas and Easter. Did you have any concept of God or Jesus?
So I knew at Christmastime you sang about Frosty and Rudolph and like baby Jesus came up sometimes. I also had some Mormon babysitters. And I have a distinct memory. I was probably like eight years old or something, and I was making fun of their picture of Jesus on the wall. You know, that like 1970s, like soft-hair, middle-distance Jesus?
Yeah, Stave had that in his house. Oh, yeah. And I was like, You're sort of cool. I thought it was like their weird relative or something.
So I was making fun of it. And I really didn't know. Yeah, I got in trouble for making fun of Jesus. I had to sit in the corner, and I remember being like really mad about it. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You really didn't know. That's how uninitiated you were.
So I think in American culture You know, you've kind of, there's rumors and stuff, but it just really wasn't, it really wasn't a part of my life. Yeah.
So when I was going into high school, My grandfather bribed me into reading a bunch of books. My grandfather was also not a Christian.
So there's, I. I don't even remember a lot of the books. Robinson Crusoe was one of them. One of them was a paperback book that had been really popular in the 50s, I think. It was called The Robe.
It was a historical fiction book about one of the soldiers who had been at the cross when Jesus died. They made a movie of it, didn't they? Did they? I don't know. I'm sure they did.
I think they did. Yeah.
So, I had to read this book. And so, I remember that was my first time thinking about Jesus from my non-believing grandfather. It was so funny. And so, at that point, I was like, hey, this is kind of an interesting story. And I know that several of my peers go to church.
Like, I kind of knew that background. And so I thought, oh, well, I'll ask these other 14-year-olds, you know, what do they know about Christianity, about Jesus? And I think maybe the questions I asked them probably weren't.
well framed, or maybe they were a little intimidating. Maybe I came on too strong. But I remember thinking, And the answers my peers gave me. Weren't particularly interesting or impressive. And so I.
Over time, as I was asking more questions about big ideas and bigger things, I was like, Oh, maybe faith is for people who Don't want to think for themselves, or a little lazy, or a little stupid. The further I got into high school, the more prejudiced intellectually. I became against faith. Mm-hmm. I'm guessing you're pretty smart.
Well done student. I'm really only good at reading and writing.
So that means that if you get into Yale, it just means you're really good at high school. I'm not sure what else it means besides that. You can meet a lot of Yale students who don't know how to do very basic things. Really? Yale?
Oh, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, we just had lunch with you. You're a lot more than the basic. Anyway, I was very interested in big ideas.
I did want to know what was true. And two of my closest teachers in high school. Were atheists and I respected them intellectually. I thought they really had something. And so I was drawn to that aspect of the life of the mind.
And I thought, well, once I go off to university, I'm finally going to get to really explore big ideas. Cause I can do reading here now, but. I was in a literal like cow town. Like my high school had a working farm. Oh, okay.
And there was an, well, because California, you think like Los Angeles, but I grew up in rural California. There was actually a place at my high school where you could tie up your horse.
Now, no one had used it for a few years, but there were a lot of ranchers' kids who went to the high school.
So, you know, yeah. Take care of the cows. You're not talking about downtown LA or Hollywood. No, not at all. We had like a back parking lot at school that was unpaved kind of thing, you know?
Like that kind of vibe.
So I thought, oh, I need to get out of this out of this town. The other thing that happened in high school, so that was like my intellectual development. The other thing that happened in high school was that I realized the way that my female friends felt about young men was actually how I felt about other young women. And this took a little time. to emerge.
One of the narratives that's popular around same-sex attraction is that often people who experience same-sex attraction will know. Very young. And that is actually true for many males. For it's not a surprise, right? Male sexuality and female sexuality are different.
And for men who experience predominantly same-sex attraction, Even when they're little, they can often tell something is different. They might not have the words for it. But for female sexuality, That's often not the case.
So it's just one of these differences.
So it wasn't like as a child. I noticed attraction to my female playmates or anything like this. I was just sort of a standard tomboy in a way. And I'd try to have boyfriends, like early in high school. I was like, oh, this is what my friends are doing, you know, and this guy asked me out.
And I liked him because I enjoy the company of men. But You know, the actual dating him and beginning to have sexual experience with him, because again, I didn't have a church background and there was like no. Moral code code in my house. Yeah, that just wasn't happening. And I remember thinking, well, this is a little awkward.
You know, I don't. But then I thought, well, maybe it's just something you need to grow into. You know, like I've heard people say sometimes you don't like certain foods, you just gotta keep eating them, or maybe you don't like certain types of drinks, but you keep drinking them and you kind of grow in your taste. Like maybe you just kind of need to have More sexual experience with guys, and then it'll kind of grow on you.
So it's like, okay, you just got to. Grit your teeth and bare it, maybe. I don't know. But then, during my sophomore year, and I don't have to linger long on this, but my My first romantic and sexual experience with another young woman. I was like, oh.
This is what all the songs are about. This is what all the movies are about. This is what my friends are talking about the way that the boys make them feel. This is how I'm feeling now. It was a little like uh attempting to have romantic and sexual relationships w with guys was like putting on a pair of pants that like Technically fit your body, but are not comfortable at all.
You're like waiting to take them off. You can't really sit in them, you can't really walk in them. Whereas having romantic and sexual relationships with other young women felt like that perfect pair of pants that like look really classy but are also super comfortable. You can do I was like, this is where I wanna this is where I want to live my life. And it's interesting, like some of our listeners who don't know your name, who don't know anything, they might be thinking, wait, what's happened to family life today?
Yeah, that's right. What are they doing? I just want you to know: like, Rachel's married and has a child. That's right. This is a teenage means.
Yes, keep listening. Keep listening because this is a pretty incredible story. Yeah, that's right. No, this was, this was. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old me.
And it was 2001, 2002, you know, this is back when Will and Grace was still edgy, not nostalgic. People were not talking about it. It was before any state in America had legalized same sex marriage. It wasn't, it was just a totally different culture. You know, now when it's Pride Month, it's like every corporation puts a rainbow flag on their door.
There was no Pride month like that. Yeah.
it during this time. And so I I don't know. It would have been really different if I had been born in 2005 instead of 1985. Culturally, it would have made a huge impact. At this point, I was like, okay, well, I know how I feel in these relationships.
And everything in my culture had taught me: in order to be your true self, you have to do what you feel. You probably thought, this is who I am. This is who I am. At least who I can become once I get out of the countdown. Yeah.
Yeah.
So The other thing that's really interesting to me is I reflect on my high school experience. Is that I had never been mistreated by a Christian or by a church group. because of my sexual relationships. No one had ever treated me poorly. And yet I sort of understood in my mind that Christianity was against my sexuality.
I got that even apart from personal experience. I just sort of absorbed it from the ether. Like, oh, not only are Christians people who don't want to think for themselves, but they're also bigots. Like, I just had a strong. Anti-Christian framework when I went off to college.
So much so that I think if my 17-year-old self saw my life now and what I do now, she would I'm not sure she'd believe it or she'd be horrified. Like it would be very. Yeah.
Different. Yeah.
I mean, it's just wild.
So when you were leaving high school, that's where you were. Yeah.
And now we're sitting here with a woman that's a Christian apologist, an author, and married and mother. Very different. It's like something happened. Yeah, Jesus happened. Yeah, what happened?
How?
So I got tricked into moving to New England. Tricked. Yeah.
So the thing about the advertising for Yale University is all the pictures are taken in October. It's so true. You know, when the light is golden and the leaves are red and orange, and you think, oh, wouldn't it be great to study under those trees? And it's all a lie. The campus looks like that for like 10 days.
But the summers and spring. First of all, spring doesn't exist in New England. I challenge you to find it. You watch these early Red Sox games. Everyone's wearing a parka.
But Michigan's like that too. But we still call it spring. It just doesn't exist. Emotionally, you have to call it something. It needs to be different than winter.
Yeah.
So I was I was excited to go off to this world class university. I thought, finally I'm going to be able to live into my intellectual identity. Finally, I'm going to be able to live into my sexual identity that I that I want to embrace. Did your parents know? Yeah.
My mom knew. And my my dad had moved out at the beginning of high school and He didn't know.
So I actually accidentally found out that my dad had never known until I published an article in Christianity Today in 2017. I. Because I I'd had these relationships with young women and then I came to Christ and no longer had those relationships. And so my dad just sort of missed the boat. Oops.
I felt bad about that one. Yeah, I bet. I mean, was it something even in high school that was sort of hidden or did your classmates know it? My classmates sort of knew it was very different. You know, it was like I wasn't necessarily.
Hiding it. I would never have said I was closeted. Yeah.
But there wasn't even really anyone. It's not like our my high school didn't have like a gay, straight alliance club. It was sort of like, who would I who cares to even tell? Like, yeah, there's not really a lot going on.
So I just thought, once I go off to Yale, I'll just find more people like me. And I was dating this girl who I Functionally worshipped, like that kind of fear and love that you should only give to God. Like, I really worshipped her.
So I thought, I'm awesome, and I've got this awesome girlfriend in my life. I'm going to build on this foundation. It's going to be great. If I pull on my rural background a little bit, it's like a God took his truck and took the chains out and wrapped him around those pillars I built my life on and just drove and pulled the pillars right out from underneath me.
So you get to Yale, does it feel like, oh, this is it? Yeah, it feels like this is it. And oops, I was unprepared. It felt like everyone at school was smarter than me. They went to these fancy high schools, they were ready.
And I'd built my identity being on one of the smartest people in the room, and suddenly I was like, maybe the stupidest person in the room.
So that pillar just crumbled. Bad news for me. And then the other thing that happened Right after I got to school, was that my girlfriend broke up with me. And you know, you may have had a teenage breakup. You know, they're dramatic, they hurt.
Yeah.
And she left me for this guy. who hadn't even graduated high school. And he lived in a van. And that's just embarrassing. Like, you don't want to be left for that guy no matter what.
You know, it's just shameful.
So I was like, shoot, like, if I, I. I'm feeling not great about myself right now. And I remember in the middle of that winter of my freshman year, sort of casting around for what am I going to I was basically having an identity crisis. Like, what am I going to do? And I thought, oh, well, maybe I could write for the school newspaper.
Except it turned out you had to be smart to do that too.
So I couldn't do that one. And then. I thought, well, maybe I'll go to the gym more. You know, that'll be my personality. And then I remembered that I'm really lazy.
And so I was like, oh, shoot, I can't do that. And it never occurred to me. To turn to Jesus. Like, Jesus, in my mind, was a cartoon character. You know, like.
some bumbling dude in a toga or something like this. But I happened to be taking a course through Western philosophy. In one of our first lectures back in the quote-unquote spring semester, it was actually winter the whole time, but you know, that's what they call it to make you feel better. was on a guy named Rene Descartes. You may have heard of him.
He's the old dead French guy who coined the phrase, I think, therefore I am. And I remember the lecturer was explaining. How Descartes moved from that phrase, I think, therefore I am, to this whole proof for the existence of God, because Descartes was a Catholic, so. you know, who's philosophically working on his system. And I remember sitting in the lecture thinking, That's a pretty stupid proof of the existence of God.
Like, I wasn't very impressed by it. But I was curious about it because I'd never heard. That proof before. I was familiar with a couple of them that I thought were sort of weak, but that sparked in me this question: like, maybe there are proofs. for God's existence that I'm not aware of.
And that interested me and I thought maybe there's something I need to know about.
Now I didn't actually want to ask another human being about it because I considered Christianity and faith in God in general just below me. Mm.
So what do you do when you have a vulnerable but Private question. You ask the internet. You know, that's what you Google it. That's what you do. Which they probably didn't have Google.
Did they have Google? No, they did. They did. This was 2004, you know, so it was. when people had laptops but they were really so big you couldn't carry them around.
Like I had a Dell that I needed both my arms to like get the top lid open, you know?
So I'd pop that thing open and just start typing random religious search terms into Google. I would slam it closed if any of my roommates or friends came in. Like you're a kid caught looking at something inappropriate on the family computer, like, well, I'm just doing my. It's about Jesus. Yeah, you know?
Pretending to do my French homework, I was never doing my French homework. And my grade reflects that. You know, when you're reading something online and you start in one place and you just kind of follow hyperlinks, you know, you're reading about. March madness or whatever, and then suddenly you're reading about like the kingdom of Finland, and you're like, How did I even get here? You know, it's like crazy trails.
And no matter where I started, I just kept coming back to reading stories about Jesus. And again, I thought of him kind of like this cartoon. But the Jesus I was reading about was really interesting. There was a Jesus who was terrified. tender?
Like a careful, caring guy, but also really intellectually interesting.
Some of my favorite stories were when his obvious opponents were trying to come up to him to like. Trick him and he would just shut them down. You know, it's like, oh, that's. That's cool right there. I was growing uncomfortable because I'm like, well, I can't be interested in Jesus as a character.
You know, I'm I'm an atheist. I want to marry a woman someday. Like, this just doesn't this doesn't work. The only two people I knew at Yale who identified as Christians. were these two young women who were dating each other.
I met them in the marching band and they um they had an illegal cat, which I thought was really cool. And one of these women was I knew her plan vocationally. was to become a Christian minister. And so I thought, okay, well, these are like varsity level Christians, you know, like when you go into it professionally, that's the real deal.
So I thought, well, maybe I should ask them about this because I don't know.
So I went to them all nervous. And I was like, so in my mind, these things do not go together. But clearly for you they They do seem to go together. Can you tell me how you got there? And they were like, Oh, yeah.
It's all been. A huge mistake, you know, misinterpretation. The Bible actually affirms monogamous gay relationships, but it's been wrongly interpreted. And I remember thinking, wow.
Okay, that sounds very interesting. Yeah.
And they gave me this packet. I really wish I still had this packet today, you know? But they gave me this packet explaining the quote-unquote correct way to interpret the Bible. And I remember. you know, I love a packet.
So I I was taking it back to my room and I was flipping through it. And I remember thinking, okay, this makes a lot of sense. There's like an internal consistency here. I understand what they're doing. But I was also studying to be a history major and so I n I knew Well, you shouldn't just look at interpretations.
You should look at the original documents. Ooh. Yeah, it's not like I had a bunch of papyrus under my desk, but I had the internet, and so I was pulling up. The Bible verses that the packet was claiming to interpret. and over and over again.
I mean, I wasn't a Bible scholar. But I knew how to read and write and so I was like, uh I don't think these interpretations are very good. I remember thinking at one point. I'm not sure that David has a man problem. He really seems to have a woman problem in the text, you know, things like this.
So. Eventually I was like, I don't buy any of this. The Bible clearly says no. To these like you read, just from what I was following their package back to the Bible, and I was like, I don't, this seems like wishful thinking to me. These girls are really sweet.
But I can't follow them here. I think they're deluding themselves.
So I remember kind of being frustrated. Like I felt. Stupid for Even being interested and for thinking maybe that this packet held something for me. And I remember throwing it in my cheap dorm room trash can, and the trash can like fell over because the was not substantial enough to handle a packet of paper. I remember thinking, you need to cut this stuff out.
Like, do your homework, you know, stop thinking about this distraction.
Well, a little while after that I happened to be in the room of one of my friends. She was like a friendly acquaintance, we weren't close, and she was a non-practising Catholic. And so I remember I was standing in her doorway one day. She was deeper in her room, like putting something in a bag because we were going to take a walk somewhere. And she had a bookshelf next to her doorway and one of my favorite hobbies is looking at people's bookshelves and judging them.
She says, Well, you know, you can tell a lot about someone by what shows up on their bookshelf. You asked us at lunch, what are you reading? Yeah, I like to know. And did you respect her bookshelf? I don't remember anything about her bookshelf except that there was one book on there that said Mere Christianity by C.S.
Lewis. And yeah, I see, I wasn't raised on Narnia, so I didn't know to make the yummy noise, right? You know, but the title of the book. Mirror, I was like, of course I should be reading a book and not just the internet. Yeah.
But again, I was embarrassed by my interest and I didn't I didn't want to ask her to borrow the book. She surely would have lent it. I just didn't want her to know.
So I just stole the book. She wasn't looking. She stole the book. It's not big. We know.
We have big. It slipped right into my bag, no problem. And again, I had no moral compass, so what did I care? That is such a God thing, right there. That one, you check out her books, but even the fact that of the books, you would see mere Christianity.
It's interesting to me, too, when I think about. I don't think she was walking with Jesus.
So, who even knows who gave her that book or how she. Came to own it. But there for you. Oh, I can't wait to hear what you thought of it. Did you take it back home and start reading?
So I was reading it.
So I would read it at different points when I should have been doing my homework. There was this one day where I had sort of an awkward period of time between my classes. Like it was not enough time to go home and rest, but too much time to go to the next class, and it was cold outside 'cause it was February.
So I was sitting in one of Yale's libraries, kind of kicking my feet up, just waiting and passing time by reading Mere Christianity. And I don't actually remember what chapter I was in. What paragraph, sentence, anything like that? All I remember is that there was that day when I was reading the book, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the reality that God does exist. And not like Some store brand god or Zeus or something like this, but the god.
Who made everything. And the God who is Perfect. And I knew. That that meant he made me and that I was going to have to give an account. Yeah.
And I'd met me. Uh Great news. You know, it's like, I'm. I'm a liar, I'm arrogant, I'm unkind. I cheat on things, I'm sexually immoral, I'm reading a stolen book, you know, it's pretty clear all the chips were going to get pushed into the guilty category.
So really God confronted me With the bad news First. But really quickly with that Mm-hmm. I also for the first time understood that part of the reason Jesus had come was to place himself as a barrier between God's wrath and me, so that the only way to be safe was to run towards Jesus. not away from Jesus. Mm-hmm.
And I remember my first thoughts being I don't want to become a Christian. Christians are really lame. But I was also like, This is a really good deal. I should take the deal.
So I didn't have a nice pastor or campus minister with me, but I kind of knew I needed to pray, so I. I closed my eyes and I was like, okay, fine. I'll become a Christian. And then I just went to class. You know, what was that?
That's your salvation prayer right there. They're not always elegant. Yeah, yeah. But it's an interesting even. It was real.
It was. And you're faced with your sin. Yeah, but there was I was cornered. There was clearly no, I wasn't going to be able to dig myself out of that hole. But Jesus had thrown me a ladder.
Hmm. It's like, okay. Then what happened?
So later that day, I saw a little advertisement right outside of one of the dining halls that Yale Students for Christ. which is a Ministry of Crew. Was having their Valentine's party in a couple of days. And I remember thinking, I didn't even know we had a Yale students for Christ, which proves I'm probably not that good at Googling, but.
So I showed up to that Valentine's party pretending I was there by accident because I was still too embarrassed. to like even know what to do with myself.
So I showed up And the first person there who recognized me was this guy who had, in the fall semester, had been in my. A literature course, and we'd done a week on the Bible as literature. And he knew I was not a Bible fan from that class. And so when he saw me, I saw his face go like, Oh no, this is gonna be bad. Other people were like, oh.
You know, where'd you come from? You know, and I was like, well, I just became a Christian two days ago. I stole this book? I stole the book, yeah. Yeah.
And they were all surprised. Yeah.
And so I just followed those kids around like a little baby quail. You know, learning. They were like, Well, okay, do you want to come to freshman prayer? And I was like, Sure. And they were like, Oh, well, uh, do you want to come to freshman Bible study?
I'm like, Yeah. They're like, Here's a paperback Bible. They're like, Do you want to come to church? I stayed at that church for the next 12 years. You know, I just I learned all the The little things, you know.
I learn we don't cuss, we don't drink too much. I learn we, there's a lot of hugging and raising of hands. I learn. That the music was not that great. It's gotten better.
At the time, I was like, hmm, not sure about that. And, you know, all the things you needed to know to be learned the rules. And the community is new friends. How did God contend with your heart? Did you feel like he loved you?
Well, you know what was so interesting? Because I had viewed Christians as so stupid. It was beautiful. That the first Christian community got Gave me the, you know, the fan, the expression of family I was born into. was a community that loves the life of the mind.
And so I was with college students and even in the church community. People who also took the life of the mind really seriously, but took discipleship just as seriously. And I saw fairly quickly: I'm like, oh, Christianity isn't for stupid people. Christianity is like the greatest intellectual tradition. That's ever happened.
I love that. Was really, really important for me. But the other thing that was really important was that my Christian community. They knew So saying yes to Jesus didn't just wipe out my attraction to other women. And that was something that my brothers and sisters in Christ knew about, but they didn't treat me as like different or weird.
They were like, um, so we're college students? every single one of us Experiences and expresses our sexuality in some way that's falling short of what God has said. We all experience temptation, and we're all trying to go grow together. And how do we say yes to Jesus and no to temptation?
So. you might be drawn toward whoever But the muscle of Christian obedience is the same. We have to fight our sin by the power of the Spirit. And that was so helpful and healthy for me to be like, hey, we're in this together. Like, this is Christian obedience.
We're all going to feel things that. are reflections of our disordered, broken heart. Hey, sorry for the quick interruption. Are you really sorry, though? I am, but let me just say this: we know life is full of challenges, and families today need biblical truth more than ever.
Yeah, that's true. And as a Family Life partner, your monthly gift can help Family Life bring biblical wisdom into homes every single day through podcasts, events, and resources.
So let's make a lasting difference together. Become a partner today. Here's how you do it: just go to familylifetoday.com and click on the donate button. All right, let's get back to our conversation. Did you ever go through a time of lament in terms of I guess maybe I won't get married then to a man Or did you not even think through that?
I was so trying to keep my head above water that I don't think I was thinking that far ahead. You know, sometimes people will use the phrase someone is. Struggling with same-sex attraction. In my early walk with Jesus, I was often struggling with same-sex attraction like I struggle with a cheeseburger when I'm hungry. Like there was.
Major I experienced failure. And sin. And it was my community and the scripture that helped me. Ask for forgiveness again, stand on my feet again, receive grace again.
So I was more. If I was my campus minister self now, 39 years old, meeting with my 19-year-old self, I'd be like, I'm not sure this girl's going to make it. Yeah.
You're just trying to be obedient and walk every day with Jesus. You're fighting for obedience.
So I wasn't thinking about, gosh, who am I going to marry? It was like, I'm fighting for my life over here. But you said earlier you felt in high school that Christians were stupid and bigoted.
So you didn't experience the bigotry there? I didn't experience that at all. My friends were just so for me. They were like, hey. We're all fallen.
All of our hearts are busted. What do you think would have happened if they would have been? Gosh, I don't know. Because, you know, I've talked to friends of mine. Other Brothers and sisters in Christ who experienced same-sex attraction, who've grown up in different contexts, who did have communities where.
You know, maybe there were a lot of jokes about gay people or stereotypes about. things. And it was much harder for them to talk about. What was going on in their hearts because they were so afraid. Wasn't safe.
It wasn't safe. Even for even for kids who knew that their parents loved them, there was just still a fear that somehow this sexual sin is so much worse. Then others The truth is. Jesus looks at sexual sin and all of it is horrific. All of it tramples on God's good design.
There's not Any of us. who Jesus looks at us and thinks, wow, you are really owning this. Like every one of us needs the Spirit's power. I mean, you minister in this area so much, and we're going to talk about your book. Why do you think that is?
There's a sense. I've been a pastor for 47 years. That sexual sin for heterosexual relationships isn't anywhere near as bad as gay sin. I know. I mean, it's there.
It's a belief. Why? It is. I think for any of us. It's easier to talk about the sin of others.
Because you got two mms on that one. It's really. It is so hard to actually be vulnerable and confess our own sin, and church. can sometimes be a place. Where we feel like we have to play a righteous A righteousness game?
Damn! And so I think sometimes Instead of talking about, like, I have a major pornography problem, I have a major masturbation problem, my marriage has been sexless for 15 years. It's much easier to point to the Pride Parade. And be like, isn't that? Mm.
Isn't that shameful?
Now let's be clear. The experience of same-sex attraction is something that arises from the fall. It is part of original sin. Each of us is born With original sin gets all of us. It might come in different flavors, but it gets.
all of us. And Whenever An aspect of our original sin, rises up to tempt us, When we give in, that's actual sin.
Some of us Are so prone to unrighteous anger. And we are tempted by our own capacity to quickly jump to anger. And when we give in and snap, And yell or am violent? That's an expression of real sin, right? But we don't want to talk about that.
it's just easier to talk about other people's.
So it's It's not trying to say That same sex attraction is good. No, this is a part of the fall. It's part of how they how Adam and Eve's sin has landed on me. But grace is that I don't have to do what I feel. The world wants to say you're only a true and happy person if you do everything that's in your heart.
But we know that that's garbage. The only people I meet who do everything that's in their heart are toddlers or spoiled celebrities. And you know what? They're not free. They're not free or necessarily happy.
No. Maybe for a moment. Yeah, but it's chaotic. We all know that there are some things we feel in our heart. that we need to say no to.
And this is what the gospel has always proclaimed so powerfully and so well. It's like, listen, all of our hearts are broken, and we're not going to know which parts unless we have God's word because I'm a broken compass and I'm liable to permission my own sins. Be like, well, they're not that serious. You know, like if you read another CS Lewis book, The Great Divorce, where that guy shows up with his sin that's like that little dragon on his shoulder, he's like, No, don't kill it, don't kill it. It's this nasty little thing.
That's how we want to treat our sin. But we're not free unless We let Christ kill it.
So once I have the gospel. I can actually go into my heart. And see what needs to be put to death, and also see the things that God has put in there that need to be. refined by him and brought out and lived into. Every single person has to do that.
Every single person.
So how did that journey go for you as you're Like you said, you're falling, but you're getting grace in your community. And I want to hear how you met your husband. Because that was still in college? Yeah, that was still in college. We met when we were both 19.
Oh, yeah. So the next year? Yeah.
I know, I know. I wouldn't have written it this way, but God has his own storylines. He has been after you. Your story's pretty remarkable.
Well, I didn't write it. I know. That's what I mean. Good job, God. The Lord's good.
So My community was key. Learning to read the word in prayer like all those standard means of grace I wouldn't have made it. But really early in my Christian faith, I was like, okay, so I see that the Bible says no to these things. No to same-sex lust, no to same-sex sexual relationships. I've got that.
And I've since learned Greek and Hebrew, like, it still says no. Fine. But what I really struggled with early on was why does God say no? It still struck me, I couldn't understand the logic. It seemed.
Arbitrary? Or cruel. And I was like, Okay, well something is wrong here. And I remember at that time talking with my friends and I was thinking a lot about The story right at the beginning of the book, the garden. God created this beautiful paradise.
You know, that chorus in Genesis, good, good, good, good, good, very good. And he gave the man and the woman this beautiful vision, like go in the world, like be kings and queens under me, be fruitful and multiply. It's all like beautiful. And the only Prohibition he gave was actually quite strange. And you could imagine you're reading.
Beginning, and he's got one rule for them. And you could imagine it being something a little more intuitively obvious, you know, like, hey, guys. Uh, here's your one rule. Uh, don't murder each other. And you'd be like, Ah, yes, very good rule, you know?
'Cause you think like, Yeah, yeah, I get it. Like, if you murder that person. Yeah, yeah, you can't be fruitful and multiply. Right. It's just me and taking the life of an image bearer.
you know, intuitively know. that murder is right like if you don't know that murder is wrong you should talk to somebody about that But what's really interesting about the story in the garden. Is that God's prohibition, I mean, I'm sure He didn't want them to murder each other, but the prohibition He names is. Don't eat the fruit. On the tree that's in the midst of the garden, the day you eat it you're going to die.
And that's a strange prohibition. You know, even vegans eat fruit. It's kinda like, what do you mean I just don't eat that fruit? I th to me it's an example of how walking by faith Was supposed to be a key aspect of our relationship with God even before sin entered the world. Interesting.
Can we trust Him? Because in order to obey something you don't understand, You have to trust the person asking them. Like if some rando walked up to you on the street and asked you to do something crazy, you'd you'd brush them off. But if your best friend of decades or your spouse, someone you trust came to you and said, I can't explain this right now, but I need you to do this thing, even though it sounds a little weird. You'd at least consider it.
Based on the strength of relationship. Adam and Eve actually had all all the data they needed to see that God was for them. And he was good. He was good. He had good things planned for them.
So how did the serpent get to Eve? He drew her. To use her own data about the fruit. Like, wait, this fruit is attractive. It would be delicious to eat.
It would make her wise. He pulled the fruit. out of relationship with God. He made the rule. seem arbitrary or cruel.
Why wouldn't God want this for her?
So she had all these good reasons. Wait, she should eat this fruit. And the only thing she had on the other side was God's word saying: if you do this, you're going to die. And I felt like I was in the same position. Like I had all these reasons.
I thought I should be able to say yes to my same sex attraction. Like I could do it in a Christian way or something silly. And the only thing I had on the other side was God's word saying, if you do this, you're going to die. And I was like, how am I going to get to a different place than what Adam and Eve got to? Because we're all living downstream of their Bad decision.
And I hadn't grown him in church, so I didn't know that the right answer is always Jesus somehow. You know, I ran to struggle for that. But it really pressed me into God's character. Adam and Eve should have seen that God was for them. Has God shown me that He's for me?
Yeah.
And it pressed me back into the character of Christ. And it's pretty remarkable in that Short time you're a believer, you've came to all of this. I'm compressing probably a year and a half worth of thinking. A year and a half? That's not that long to understand that God is good and He's for me.
And if He says no, it's out of His love. I think it was the crucible of Constant failure and really being pressed, you know? Like, I, this is a real problem in my life. And if I don't resolve it, there's no way I can stay here. Yeah.
And it wasn't even that Jesus was willing to die for me, although. Frankly, that would have been enough. It's that he came at all. Like Jesus didn't owe me to leave The glories of heaven and be born in a backwater before the internet even existed in an oppressed country. You know, you look at his life.
Joseph doesn't appear in the later narrative, so Jesus probably had to help his mother raise all those other children. And then, as an adult, he's a homeless man. All of his friends are idiots. And the people. Who should have trained to recognize him, their religious elite, instead go on a successful murder campaign.
Right? Like, he didn't have to do that for me. I would have died, stood in my sins in front of God, and said, Well, yeah, you have to condemn me. But God loved me, sent his son, who willingly came to rescue me. Who suffered?
Who suffered? Mm.
I mean, were you capturing all that in that time period? Yeah, I was really having to dig back and like, who has Christ shown himself to be? I saw his character was not arbitrary or cruel. Everything he did was for me. I mean, also for God's glory, but certainly for me.
And so I realized I might never understand what he says about sexual ethics. But I can trust him. Hmm. 'Cause he's not against me. And here's the thing is I'm sure most of The people who are listening to us today Most of them don't experience same-sex attraction.
But for any of us, there's going to be some place where Jesus asks a type of obedience that feels. Terrifying. or risky. And I don't know what that is. for each person.
But if we're not anchored in the fact that Jesus is good, not just like good ontologically, but for you good. There's no way we're actually going to be able to get to risky obedience. It's hard to surrender. It's really someone you don't know or understand or who is good. That's right.
And you can't live off of the fumes of someone else's conviction. Like your spouse or your parent or your family. Yeah.
No, it's got to be you. Yeah.
You've got to press into Jesus and figure out: is he for you? What do you say to the person? A Christian woman or man who says, I really have same-sex attraction. I'm struggling with that. Yeah.
Well, I think it's just, it's so important to listen, right? Because. Everyone's got their own particular story. And part of what I say is, um, You're not some freak or alien. This is part we were talking about early.
earlier. every single one of us. has need of Jesus. Like he didn't come to heal the healthy. He came to heal the sick.
He died for you knowing everything about you, not just this sin struggle. Like the other ones that are lurking in your heart as well. That every single person has. That every single person has. You might be frustrated with yourself because you continue to experience this, or you might be frustrated with yourself because you're in a season right now where you're not winning the battle for obedience.
But if you're hidden in Christ. There's always grace. He's not looking at you, like looking at his watch, being like, when are you going to get it together? He's looking at you and saying Hey. I love you.
His eyes are full of affection. He's always running toward you. He's always running towards us. That's why Peter's like, you know, how many times should I forgive? Seven times?
Like, if our repentance is real, Sometimes we might need 77 in a day. And there's so there are people who experience same sex attraction, and part of their journey with Christ is that He removes that. It's not a lot of people, but it's some people. And that you know what? That shows God's power.
He is powerful enough to change something that really As far as we can tell, it feels like a natural setting. Natural doesn't equal good. This is what's important. We of all people should know that because of original sin, a lot of things that come natural to us are actually just. But for many of us God doesn't necessarily remove the experience of same-sex attraction.
But he does build in us a muscle of obedience, so when that temptation comes up, Our muscle obedience says, no, I don't need to say yes to that. I'm saying yes to Jesus. And in a culture that is obsessed with sex and romance. And in a culture that basically makes you a hero if you identify as LGBT. If you are consistently saying Oh, yeah, I could give in to my desires, but Jesus is more beautiful, then part of what that demonstrates is his worth.
So, either way, you're either a demonstration of God's power or of his beauty, and both of those things are beautiful. And so. We could be in a position even where we wish we didn't experience same-sex attraction. But right now... God can meet anyone in that and say, I can make myself so beautiful.
in your life. Even through this hard thing, like Paul said. But Paul spoke about his own thorn in the flesh. Three times he asked God to take it away. God was like, My power's made Perfect in weakness.
My grace is sufficient for you. And so I think there are some disciples where that. That is some of their experience.
Now, other disciples who experience same-sex attraction, they're like, they're fine, they're fine in the sense that, like, oh, that I've got accountability in my life. If that temptation comes up, I like, I've worked on my muscle of obedience. The real thing I'm working on is the fact that, like, my daughter drives me crazy and I want to throw her out the window, or my spouse drives me crazy, et cetera, you know, whatever, like, I'm mad at work. You know, so like, it's really important too. There might be people in our life who this is part of their experience.
But actually the main thing they're working towards in their discipleship is actually something else because all of us are More than our sexuality. And yet, some feel like that. Desire is who I am. It's their identity. It isn't a sin I'm struggling with.
It is my identity and I. To suppress it means I'm suppressing who God made me be.
Well, you know what's really interesting about secularism, and this is something I talk about in Parenting Without Panic as a conversation to have with older kids. Secularism is sometimes talked about as if it's this big, scary cloud that came from we don't know where. Yeah.
But the reality is, secularism is a radical Christian heresy. Secularism only arises when a culture has been soaked in the gospel for a long time and wants to cut Jesus out of it. And so that means a couple things when we come to the sexuality conversation. One of the things it means is like we were talking about authenticity. Secularism.
constantly says, Well, you have to be You have to do what you find inside, and that is who you truly are. And it sounds it could sound appealing. And do you know why it sounds appealing? Because it's stolen from the gospel. It's stolen and perverted from the gospel.
You think about who was the one who talked about, hey, your inner life needs to match your outer life. It was Jesus of Nazareth. He also warned Out of the heart come all these sinful things. He's like, hey, You're a whitewashed tomb. If your outside life doesn't match your inside life, You're dead.
Jesus Paul, Augustine, Calvin, deep Christian thinkers where all people say, Hey, We have to go inward in order to go upward. That's one of the ways Augustine talks about it. Calvin talks about you have to know man and God, like you have to know them both. Together. Authenticity actually belongs to Christianity.
That's why it feels.
So, right when we hear a cheap version of it. But secularism wanted to cut God out. It's like the. A rebellious teenage girl Her face looks just like her mom's, but she claims to hate her mom. That's what secularism is to the gospel.
But she also still wants to use her mom's stuff. Secularism wants to use the good things of Christianity, but they don't want Jesus. The problem is, if I go inward, But I can't go upward, I have nowhere to go for forgiveness. I even have nowhere to go with the good things I find in my heart that need Christ's power to activate them. And so if I go inward and I find bad stuff, Which I will.
I either have to pretend it's not evil, which will drive you crazy. or I see that it is, and I'm driven to despair. Mm.
So sometimes we talk about secularism. The reason it sounds so good is because it's pilfering. gospel goods, and that's how it traps my neighbors. Paul said, Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our battles against the principalities, the spirits of, you know, satanic evil that has trapped my neighbors.
Secularism doesn't want to save my neighbors. It's not interested in my neighbors experiencing life and goodness. It wants to chew them up and spit them out. The gospel is actually the answer. To those things that they feel.
Often, with my neighbors, if I walked up and down my street, Polled everyone that lived on my street. They wouldn't know who Tim Keller was. They wouldn't, like, you know, they. They they probably uh they might not even be able to name Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But every single one of my neighbors.
Few of them identify as gay or trans or anything like that, but all of them. advocate for and celebrate LGBT identities. And their ethics are often Actually, Christian in that sense of like, well, we know about authenticity, we've just got a scrambled version of it. Or, The ethic of justice They see That LGBT people have often been mistreated, sometimes horrifically, sometimes. in more social ways.
And they know That justice means you take care of the little guy. Where did justice come from? Let me tell you, the ancient Romans didn't believe in justice. Justice comes from the God of the Bible. God is the one who said, I take care of the widow and the orphan and the sojourner, and Jesus is the one who gave justice to the West.
That is a Christian instinct. It's so interesting. It's like the enemy is so like twisted. It's just twisted. Just enough, like it still sounds legitimate.
And then the world sounds appealing and it seems right.
Sometimes my neighbor's best critiques of Christianity are when Christians just aren't being good Christians. They don't even know they're offering Christian critiques. And this is a bridge for the gospel to be like, hey, You can't believe that we're all meaningless atoms and that we have universal, inalienable rights. That doesn't make sense. You have to pick one.
Yeah.
And you feel like human rights. are real. Your feelings are truer than your thoughts. And that comes into the sexuality conversation because what advoca What motivates people to advocate for and celebrate LGBT identities is often that authenticity and justice thing. Those Actually, it belongs to the gospel.
And so the real response is: of course, every single person is made in the image of God, and no one should be mistreated no matter. what they believe in. Period. They're image bearers. They deserve dignity, honor, respect, no matter what they think.
And the right aspect to authenticity isn't. Do everything you think or shove it down and never talk about it. The right response to authenticity is In a community of people who loves Jesus and loves you, Really talk about what's happening in your heart. Under the authority of the word, so the good can be dealt with and the bad can be dealt with.
Well, let me ask you this. Were you being discipled? You had this great community group. Did you have like. Were you involved with crew?
Yes, I was involved with crew. I got into a freshman Bible study and there was a girl who was a junior when I was a freshman named Sylvia, who was later the maid of honor in my wedding, and I was the maid of honor at her wedding, and we're still very close friends.
So sweet. And she was the first person to really disciple me, to be like, Hey, Do you know you can read the Bible every day? Hey, do you know the practice of prayer and confession is important? And then also, there were staff women who came alongside me and helped me ministering the gospel to me, people at church who spoke. truth and goodness into my life.
So yeah, I had I had a good community of people who were discipling me. And then you end up going on a summer project with Crew. I went on a summer mission with crew.
So I had a friend. She had just come back from the summer mission in Yellowstone. She was like, It's amazing. You'd love it. And I was like, ooh, that sounds fun.
Mm-hmm. So I signed up and There I was summer that I turned twenty, going out to Yellowstone National Park to get jobs, you know, like Cleaning toilets and making beds and doing evangelism with a bunch of other college students. I was the only student there from Yale. And a bunch of us from New England, a big group of students from the University of New Hampshire, because the guy leading it was on staff at the University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire, as they'd say it up there. And my husband was one of the UNH kids.
Well, he wasn't my husband then. He was just this other teenager. You met this guy. I met this guy. Um, who wore clothes that was too big for him and had a a goofy haircut.
Have you fixed all that? Uh he's responded to it himself. I think he I think she liked that about him. Yeah.
Well, at first when I met him I thought Nobody's this nice. What's this guy's deal? You know, I thought there's something suspicious about this, but then as I got to know him, I'm like, Oh, actually, he's just really a nice guy. Um So when I You know, when I met him, I wasn't like, oh. You know, he was just a really nice guy.
But he was also a really good guy. And so that's how we met. That's how we developed our friendship.
Now after the summer mission was over And I write about this more in my first book, Born Again This Way. I got myself into a pickle with an ex-girlfriend. It was a really bad situation. And Andrew, that's his name, Andrew called me kind of out of nowhere. He's like, hey, out.
I was just on RA duty tonight and I was thinking about how you doing I was like, Oh, I just made this terrible mistake and I was just able to tell him everything 'cause he already knew the story and he really ministered to me as a friend. And we realized we were going to go to the same winter conference. Crew runs these great winter conferences for students. And he's like, oh, I'll see you there. That's great.
So we were hanging out at the winter conference, and then one of the last days, he was like, Hey, do you want to go to breakfast? And I was like, Oh, sure.
So I went to breakfast with them, we're chatting. going back to our rooms and I was gonna get off the elevator before him and so went to give me a hug and like I went to break away, but like the hug was like too long, and then the elevator door shut, and I thought, oh no. Oh no, okay, what's this?
So I went back to Yale and he called me and he was like, Hey, what are you doing this weekend? University of New Hampshire is about three and a half hours from you. I'm like, I don't know, just hanging around. He's like, could I come visit you? I was like, oh no.
I guess, fine. And so at the time I was training for the Los Angeles Marathon. And so I remember I had just done a twenty mile run.
So when he like when he pulled up, I was sweaty, like I was nasty. He got out of the car and he gave me these flowers, and I was like, oh no, oh gosh, like, I don't want nothing to do with this. At this period in my life, it's hard to explain. I really felt like the Spirit of God drew very near to me during this time. I think that's frankly ca so I wouldn't run away from Andrew.
Like God kind of. I remember that weekend, in probably his bumbling way, he asked me out, and I really wasn't sure.
So I kind of put him off and I was like, well, and he knew your whole story. Oh, he knew my whole story. Yeah.
And I tried to put him off. I looked him in the eye and I was like, well, but I've slept with more women than you ever will. Try to get him to leave and be understood. He was like.
Well, but Jesus has forgiven you. Like, how could I hold that against you? And I was like, dang it. And so it was really important. During that time, I'd also, with a friend, been exploring what the Bible actually says about marriage, which I don't have time to go into now.
Okay. But in looking at the scriptures, I realized I had assumed you enter marriage because you have these giant firework feelings. But actually, marriage is designed to be a picture of the gospel. And sex is an important part of that, but it's not all of it. Um And so I I was working with this picture.
Like, wait, marriage is about something much bigger, deeper, more textured than I had thought. And this guy, this really good guy who loves Jesus, has drawn near to me. And so, as I was getting to know Andrew, I really felt like. Oh gosh, okay. I feel something for him.
In contrast to some of the relations I've had, which felt like fireworks, this feels like, you know, like a tiny little flame that I have to kind of cup my hands around so it won't, the wind won't blow it out, but it's real. And I think we could. I think we could do this together. I think we could display the gospel together.
So it really ooh, I love that. I think we could display the gospel together.
There's a new way to think about marriage. It's one of the purposes. It is one of the purposes. Yeah, a big one. It's one of God's favorite metaphors for the gospel is a well-functioning marriage.
So there was a lot of faith. It wasn't necessarily like I fell in love with Andrew, but I did love him. And I was like, you know what? I think. I think God is bringing us together.
I told this story once to a friend of mine named Laura, and she was like, It's like almost like you had an arranged marriage, but like God arranged it and not like your parents. And it's been so Good. God's kindnesses to me was that He gave me as a husband someone who was like. Designed to be a husband. Like when I read Ephesians 5.
I'm like, that is Andrew Gilson. Like So he's actually super easy to be married to. Ugh, makes me cry of God's goodness of what he's given you in comparison to what you could have had as a counterfeit. Yes. How many years have you been married?
We've been married seventeen and a half years. Wow. And you have a daughter. And we have an 11-year-old daughter. Mm.
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