Listen to the song “If I Could Just Sit With You Awhile”

Image courtesy of https://pixabay.com/illustrations/ai-generated-snow-edge-winter-snow-8819780/

After my grandmother died, I remember falling apart emotionally after the funeral. I didn’t get to ride in the family car because there wasn’t enough room. My little brothers needed to be with my parents. I had sworn no one would see me cry...but after the funeral, finality began to set in...and loneliness began to flood over me...and in that car I could no longer hold it all in. I sobbed for several minutes as my aunt Patsy tried to console me. She was wonderful but I couldn’t tell her why I felt so alone. Once I had gotten it out of my system, I went into self-preservation mode. In my mind I had reasoned that no one would be able to understand me even if I had been able to be honest—because they had not been where I had already been in my short life.

As I look back, it is that very reasoning that kept me from receiving help. Pride comes in many forms. For me to not allow others in because they had not been there was rather self-focused and utterly self-centered. As I will share later in more detail, one does not have to have been where I have been to help me. One does not even have to understand me to be able to help me. All that is required is that the one who wants to help is willing to walk toward Jesus with me...regardless of how long or hard the journey. This type of relationship requires true intimacy. True intimacy is born of complete honesty. Complete honesty is born of trust...but I could not bring myself to trust anyone.

During my senior year in high school there were several instances of sexual failure that led me to places of darkness I did not realize “a teenager could get to. In my town there had been another young man who I had an ongoing sexual relationship with for several years. He would use me (and I him) and then he would turn around and call me fag and queer with the other guys. I was too afraid to point the finger at him...and always felt even more disgusted when I would fall into yet another sexual encounter with him. In my mind at least for those brief encounters he made me feel good. Isn’t that sad? To make matters worse, there was an adult male (15 years my senior) who came into my life around this same time. He was a very masculine guy that I looked up to...and after two encounters actually became fearful that maybe I had gotten myself into something too deep...a mire that I would regret getting myself into. Fortunately, this man moved away and was never a factor in my life again—except for the memories and damage that had already been done.

I made it through high school and enrolled in a Christian University—Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Man, was I in for “ a rude awakening! Being raised in the country and having attended a high school where I was one of 12 in my graduating class, I was suddenly thrust into a town of about 25,000 and a school enrollment of about 1800! I (at least in my mind) stuck out like a sore thumb (there’s that subtle hint of self-focus again). I knew no one. Scared. Alone. First in my family to ever attend college...so I had no one to tell me what to expect. (As a side note: isn’t it amazing how the scheme of the enemy is to get the wounded sheep away from the herd so he can have his way with that sheep?)

After the week of orientation where I felt constantly humiliated by the upperclassmen (whose innocent teasing “I took completely as rejection), I attended my first music class. Because I had never studied music but could hear and play what I heard fluently, I was placed in the next-to-the-top theory class. By the end of the first semester I had progressed enough that my theory instructor kicked me out and into the top theory class! I felt like an imbecile among geniuses! I was truly amazed at the knowledge of my classmates and was helped along by their encouragement.

Although my musical education was progressing at a wonderful pace, my personal struggles began to take me deeper into a whirlpool of sexual failure I could not seem to swim out of. Here I was, a wounded sheep too hurt to let anyone close, among a group of creative types...many of whom were just as wounded as I. And we gravitated toward one another. One failure led to the next. Because of guilt, I would avoid those I had been sexually intimate with...but because of the longing to be accepted would eventually fall right back into the same trap. It became a vicious cycle I had not power to break.

As my senior year began, I was confronted with the realization that very soon I would have to face the real world...and that thought scared me to death. I wanted so much to be normal. I longed to one day be married and have a family. To complicate matters, I had been drawn to the woman who would one day miraculously become my wife. We had dated off-and-on for over two years...and my ultimate fear was that I would never be able to perform sexually with a woman...so I knew the day would come when I would need to tell her I never wanted to see her again. I reasoned that it was for her own good (see how easy it is to play God!).

During that same period near the beginning of my senior year an older gentleman who was a respected leader in the community befriended me. Husband. Father. Church leader. My thoughts were ‘I am a worthless worm of a person. Why would he even give me the time of day?’ Yet he poured his life into me with encouragement and affirmation, often taking me out for a Coke and asking me to share “how my studies were going...often praying with me. Basically mentoring me. After just a few weeks, it became more and more easy to share my heart and hopes with him...and eventually there came the night I asked him if I could share my darkest secrets.

He assured me that he assure me…

Dennis jernigan