A Parent's Story

Gloria Rickard

Jack and I survived our 18th wedding anniversary, July 9, 1984! By January 1985, Jack and I were working through our relational difficulties only to be devastated by the revelation that our older son, Steve, was involved in a homosexual relationship with a high school friend. The summer of 1984 and the first few months of 1985 were extremely painful.

Until then, I had seen our family as perfect, even though I was aware of a deep sense of uncertainty. We had each made a sincere commitment to Jesus Christ and attended church regularly. With the teenage rebellion of our younger son and our daughter, we used old tools-tools our parents and their parents used: prayer, Scripture reading, and lecturing. Unfortunately, they had the effect of driving emotions underground and eliminating honest communication. We fostered a false sense of peace, well-being and control.

Jack tried those old tools with Steven also. He asked him to pray about his sin and to "control" his homosexual behaviors. I had little knowledge of homosexuality at that time, but I knew that our strategy wasn't working. As an alternative, I made an appointment with a Christian psychologist I had met a year earlier. The rest of the family wasn't interested in counseling.

The real help with understanding sexual issues, though, came from our association with Where Grace Abounds. Here we found a safe place to express what was really happening in our family and in our individual lives. WGA provided a forum to examine and share experiences and feelings long ignored and unexpressed. Although homosexuality does not conform to God's plan for our sexuality, it is neither worse nor better than any other sexual sin.

We have been involved with WGA for about 15 years and are still convinced that WGA was God's provision for our family. We have learned and grown in the knowledge of the Lord and His plan for our sexuality. Has it been easy? No. Has God worked it together for our good? Yes.