ANDREW FRANKLIN
“I encountered the living Jesus as the only one who could save me from myself. ”
In 2006, I was fresh out of college, pursuing a musical theater career in New York City. I was gay-identified and sexually addicted. Relationship after relationship failed and hookup after hookup just made me feel bad about myself and the choices I was making.
My lowest point came after a party that I had gone to one night with a few friends. I had blacked out, but I found out that I had disrespected my friends in really bad ways and tried to coerce another guy into having sex with me. I realized that seeking love my own way was making me more than disappointed, it was making me dangerous.
Desperate for somewhere to turn, I unpacked an old Bible from under my bed. There, I encountered the living Jesus as the only one who could save me from myself. When I bowed down before him in my bedroom, I heard Him speak to me, “Andrew, I’m not mad at you.” In a moment, my shame was replaced with Hope.
A friend recommended I talk with a pastoral caregiver, who had also come out of homosexuality, and I met with him weekly for the next several years. Through individual counseling, support groups, and reading powerful books from others who had left homosexuality to follow Jesus, God healed the real places of pain in my heart: the bullying I endured as a kid, my feelings of abandonment from my dad who had been emotionally unavailable to me and ultimately committed suicide. I had no idea how much these and other factors were impacting my view of God, myself, and other men, but God faithfully showed me my real needs and met them, all while setting me free from my addiction to same-sex encounters as a way of escape.
Today I am no longer sexually addicted. I’ve been sober for 17 years. I’ve found that having healthy, platonic relationships with men is much more fulfilling than having sexual encounters with them.
Several years after making these life changes, I met a woman from my church who is now my wife. We’ve been married for 10 years and have four children. I have crazy, amazing children and a fulfilling marriage, and I’m learning how to best love her and make her feel safe and come alive. I’m a pastor and church planter now, and I meet with many individuals and help them. My life looks drastically different than it did 17 years ago, and I’m so thankful for that.