Hope deferred makes a heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

Strangely enough, as a teenager, I did not know my passions for girls were actually attractions. There were girls that I wanted to be around all the time and drink in their presence. I chalked it up to "looking up to them". Although I was attracted to girls, I did not have a name for it. I was not romantically mature enough for a long time to think in terms of kissing them and having a relationship with them. I accepted that girls liked boys. Boys, I was not as enthused about but figured it was because the "right" one had not come along. I could not understand the passions girls and boys had for each other. I was never "boy crazy" and could not understand why other girls were. I began to think that attraction to boys was really just a warm kind of friendship. By the time I was nineteen, and in college, except for one boy (who was gay) I was beginning to realize that I did not have a "natural" attraction to men. My passion was for women. Most of me balked at this idea, and the knowledge was like a dark closet, always in the back of my mind, barely open a crack. Just the thought of swinging it open wide made me panic. So it was for many years. I had no hope. I fantasized about getting a fatal disease because I faced a bleak life without a partner to share it with. I WANTED to be married, just not to a man, yet even though I eventually could utter the word, "gay", I could not justify living it. I did everything I possibly could to "change", but my depression just became darker and more profound. The only thing I felt I had NOT done was to accept myself. The day I did this, my whole outlook changed. My sick heart filled with hope. I had a future beyond the prospect of spending a lifetime alone. My suicidal ideations basically left me. There was no need; I had hope. I must admit that it has taken years to work through many of my questions with God, but I no longer live in the gloom of despair, my heart bowed with a longing unfulfilled. I do not think "coming out" made everything perfect, it just made the sun rise over my darkened heart.

AMEN!!!