DISQUS

JanaET · 5 months ago

Randy, I am deeply glad for you on this day, and I enjoyed your thoughts on it. I am always impressed with how you have sought God in your life and continue to do so, and I share your joy at the amazing things He can do, has done, and will yet do. I have been reading your blog since the conference.

Randy · 5 months ago

You are very nice. Thank you for the kind words and for reading. I really enjoyed meeting you at the conference. Thank you for sharing your story with me ... very encouraging.

JanaET · 5 months ago

It was great to meet you. Thank you for listening to my story. I needed you to really see me, and you did that.

Gloria Choate · 5 months ago

Celebrating with you, Randy. I have forgotten my "date" but do know it was 19 years ago, in the fall. Love your honesty and way with words. I identify with so much you wrote here.

Randy · 5 months ago

19 years? I don't believe it. You are only 28 for goodness sakes ...

Jason Bruce · 5 months ago

No time to partey? Im doing a celebration desk dance right now in honor of your re-birth or anniversary. Its always good to hear your testimony. Thanks for sharing.

Randy · 5 months ago

Awesome! You need to post the video. I think you need to have something by old school Cameo or the Gap Band playing in the background.

thanks :)

richardholloman · 5 months ago

Congratulations! My skull is thick and I'm a little confused -- 17 yrs or 24 yrs? Regardless, the idea of meditating on all that you have experienced and on how the LORD has ministered to you during these years is important. My anniversary date is November 10, 1995. I'm going on 14 years and I can honestly say it has been the most wonderful, most painful, most enlightening, most difficult, most incredible and joyous years of my entire life! The most important thing I'm learning is that my chief purpose in life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever! Before November 10, 1995, I had no clue that one could have a personal intimate love relationship with God that is totally and completely fulfilling, radical and life changing. Praise the LORD for WHO He Is -- the Great I AM!

Randy · 5 months ago

No you were right to be confused. I just edited the post to hopefully make better since. It has been 17 years. And I love being on the journey with you Richard. You are a good man.

Ruthanne Shepherd · 5 months ago

I try to avoid using this word, but this time it's appropriate... Awesome.

Our God and the work he does to restore hearts is truly awesome.

I'm so happy for you, Randy.

Ruthanne Shepherd · 5 months ago

Reading your facebook comments, I see we all think it's pretty "awesome"! Woohoo. : )

Randy · 5 months ago

Ruthanne - thank you for taking the time to come here and comment too. God is the awesomest and if it weren't for Him this post would never have been made. So if the awesomeness is attributed to His work and Himself ... I think it is appropriate.

;-)

JoeDallas · 5 months ago

Mega-congratulations, Randy. (Many happy returns?) There are plenty of us, known and unknown to you, who really do celebrate God's work in you and the benefit we're all getting from it. My day was January Something in 1984, and while I didn't make note of the date, the event sure is etched deeply! Funny - I was about to say "I've never celebrated it", and just as I was about to type the words, my rascal Jeremy popped into my office to squirt me with a water pistol, pronounce me dead, then run out chuckling.
So I guess I do celebrate every day, in the strangest little ways.

Randy · 5 months ago

Joe,

Thanks :) ... I LOVE your celebration and dude that's like ... 25 years. How OLD are you :)? ::: grin :::

Thanks for being a good man Joe. I have been tremendously blessed by your ministry, leadership and friendship.

donbeeson · 5 months ago

Hi, Randy! I just discovered you in the last couple of days from your testimony on the Exodus site. I am 57 and a virgin unless masturbation negates that. I first understood that I needed to be saved at a Calvary Chapel in the South Bay(Los Angeles) at age 30. And God has shown Himself in incredible supernatural ways since that time. I have had a nonending thirst for His word since then, but I never felt that I loved God or that He loved me and that has always frustrated me. After reading your testimony and others a couple of days ago, for the first time in my life I feel loved by Him and realize that He has always loved me. Since trusting Christ as my Savior I have always realized that I'm a sinner and saved by grace through faith, but I didn't realize that I was a broken person in need of healing until reading your testimony and others. I have masturbated since I was 15, been immersed in pornography, and have had sam sex attractions oddly enough only since becoming a Christian. But my early life mirrors characteristics of your life and that of others whose testimonies I have read in the last few days. It is only now that I realize that I started sinning in reaction to the sins that were inflicted on me by others. I became broken but didn't realize that until two days ago! Heretofore, I have always thought that my sexual sins were done by me in a vacuum, so to speak. I didn't realize that they were driven by a lifetime of brokeness. This is an incredibly freeing realization!!! I finally see that God has been seeing my sin as a result of my brokeness and that He has mourned over that and does love me more that I can fathom :) I just had to share this. My entire perspective has been changed in an instant.
As an aside, I graduated from Cocoa High School. Your Florida pics on Flickr are great.

Don in Tucon, AZ by way of Plano, Fresno, San Jose just to mention a few!

Randy · 5 months ago

Wow. Thanks for reaching out like this Don. Be sure to contact our office (407) 599-6872 and they can help you find local (and online) support if you would like.

Regardless of age or circumstance the Lord is never sparing of grace, mercy and love. He will see you through.

Jonathan · 5 months ago

Thank you for the reminder that God's work on us involves process, and time, and he hasn't 'given up' on making us more and more like him. Lord knows its exactly what I needed!

Randy · 5 months ago

Cool. I am very glad to hear that you are encouraged. The joy is in the journey sounds a little like a platitude but ... there is truth in that statement.

myyellowbug59 · 5 months ago

It's testimonies like yours that give me hope about my son. I deeply regret how I reacted when and how I found out. He put someone on the phone to tell me. I tried to do everything possible but little did I know I was doing it in anger which push him more into the lifestyle. It will be 3 yrs this Labor day that I was told. My son (20 yrs old) and I don't have a good relationship. I have to let God work in out relationship. The conference was very helpful. He went with me becuz I made a pact with him. He would go to the conference and now I have to attended a Street Fair called "Boystown Market Day" in Chicago next weekend. I was speak to Christopher Yuen and he said to prepare myself to what I would see. This coming week I am going to be praying and fasting so God can prepare my heart to sees them with love.

I know that my son has a lot of anger and bitterness and most of it is toward his father and I. During lunch on Sat at the conference he told me he was having an issue with the conference using the term "Struggling". I didn't know what to say, so I left it like that. I know that even though he doesnt see it as a struggle, the struggle is in his inner man. I know he enjoy himself at the Xscape session but now that it's all over but what do I do next? Any suggestion? I have been seeking God daily. Sorry for the long blog. Congrats on ur celebration!!!

Ruthanne Shepherd · 5 months ago

Randy, here's a *wonderful* blog post I know you'll appreciate. Where would all of us broken folk be had it not been for the Lord first, then for other seasoned believers willing to get their arms muddy pulling us out of the sludge and muck?

http://havingtwolegs.blogspot.com/2009/07/embra...

Randy · 5 months ago

Thanks for the heads up and great imagery.

myyellowbug59 · 5 months ago

Randy,
To read your Everyday Thought Collected on your 17 Post Gay yrs later blog gives me Hope for my son. We attended the conference at Wheaton and God dealt with my heart. My son attended because I made a pact with him to attend an activity called "Halsted Market Day in Chicago. Since he attended the conference I will be attending this activity next weekend (Aug 1st or 2nd). I will need to prepare myself emotionally and spiritually since Chris Yuen told me to be ready to see things I will not like.

I don't have a good relationship with my son and I don't know how to approach him. Every time I try to get near him, he pushes me away with his words or actions (and it hurts me deeply). I know the enemy has been attacking me since I decided to seek God and pray for all the sons, daughters and friends that all living the lifestyle. I know God was tugging at his heart at the conference because on Saturday night he went up for prayer. I don't know if he gave his life to Jesus oe just for prayer. He doesn't discuss much with me. I did ask him how he liked it and all he responded was "it was fine". I almost bought all the book at the bookstore because I want to get educated and not make any more mistakes with him. I know that God will have to work with all the hurt and bitterness he has inside toward my ex-husband and myself.

Randy, God bless you and your walk with God. Someday I'll be saying the same thing about my son. Be Blessed.

Randy · 5 months ago

Thank you for your comment and I will pray for you and your son. I also pray that you will find the resources needed to provide you with encouragement. I also pray that if and when mistakes happen that you will be encouraged to know that God wastes nothing. With humility and transparency the Lord has got you covered. I am glad you got to talk with the Yuan's and I pray they, along with others, will be a continued support for you as you press on through this.

myyellowbug59 · 5 months ago

sorry, I wrote twicw. I thought the first one didnt go through. Thanks for the response.

Pianomankugie · 5 months ago

The Lord is good. He's keeping me and growing me. It's difficult to believe that verse about 'momentary light affliction' since the affliction seems neither momentary nor light. But that all goes back to perspective. All he asks is for me not to harden my heart 'today'. I'm so glad we're directed by Him to live in the now and let tomorrow and yesterday take care of themselves. It's not easy to live in the now, but I suppose if it's like music, it will get better as I practice. So I'll keep on practicing living in the now!

Randy · 5 months ago

Great! But as Nouwen said, and I paraphrase, "A man who has no sense of the past doesn't have a full context for today and no basis of hope for the future." The past and hope for the future inform today but you are right ... we can only live in the now so where those two things are helpful and beneficial to the "now" then let them be.

Pianomankugie · 4 months ago

Yes indeed. There is "the past" and there is "my past". I can look at "the past" (of the world, of the church, of the U.S., etc) and I learn from it. I look at "my past" and if it's not something that God has done, I'd rather not look. But when it is the work of God, it does good to remember it, especially in tough moments.