Miracles of Becoming Whole
Author: Andrew Comiskey
August 01, 2023
Previously published in Desert Stream’s 2023 Mid-Year
Report
Jesus heals the sexually disintegrated. I know this because
He healed me of homosexuality, one miracle at a time. Becoming whole involves a
series of miracles, each elicited and sustained by His saving grace.
Miracles of integration invite an active response on our
part. That response involves our mind and our will. He reveals something of His
good for our divided humanity and gives us a choice: will we accept that good
and act on it, or not?
In inviting us into wholeness, Jesus summons the depths of
how He made us to represent Him in our sexual humanity. Fundamental to that
representation is our capacity to know the good and to choose it. God made us
that way!
Sin dulls our awareness of the good in myriad ways. Redeemer
Jesus frees us to reclaim that good and actively engage it for our healing.
That differs from Jesus’ instant restoration of a person beset by disease or
demons. Healing a soul divided by identity confusion and disordered passions
requires ongoing engagement.
We participate in a series of miracles as we become good
gifts to others. That’s a good definition of Living Waters: a well-defined
‘track’ on which we welcome a series of miracles! What a Savior! In gratitude,
our ‘becoming’ results in eternal devotion to the One who made and redeems us.
First Miracle: Owning Disquiet Jesus frees us for Reality.
Contrary to popular belief, there is ‘an objective reality of being’, including
our human being. I have a human nature! No amount of sin can dissolve that
nature; sin only obscures my awareness of it.
Jesus is kind. He woos us and invites us ‘to mind the gap’
between our ragged self-perception and who we want to become. Holy disquiet!
This is nothing less than the miracle of conviction—I am a sinner, and distress
over my disorder draws me out of dark waters and into baptism: Water, Blood and
Spirit. Only Jesus, and our ‘yes’, can cancel out the domination of whatever
disquiets and disorders us.
Second Miracle: Owning Our Good Jesus opens our eyes to the
goodness of our unique masculine or feminine selves. That was harder for me
than owning disquiet! So inclined to disavow my masculine adequacy, I had to
straighten up to own my masculine good. Both Karl Barth and St. John Paul II
mused biblically, eloquently, on essential man and womanhood and I caught the
vision, as well as the responsibility I had to woman. Eyes open, I could no
longer dodge her but seek to dignify her. Holy Spirit empowered me to take baby
steps toward one woman; desire trickled then flowed as I grew to love Annette.
Third Miracle: Owning Immaturity I discovered quickly that
arousal is a small part of loving a whole person. Jesus was asking me to give
beyond myself, something I had never done in ‘gay’ relating. How does one
become faithful in love—body, soul, and spirit? Real relating exposes our
limits then Jesus helps us to expand the bounds of self-giving. His prompts and
empowerment are nothing short of miraculous! That includes refusing childish
props and caring with courage for those most in need of us.
Immature expectations, lustful escapes, and unhealed fears
must go through the fire of His love—His love for us, yes, but equally love for
those who need us.
Fourth Miracle: Fruitfulness Actively dignifying others
engenders new life. A miracle—our human gift is achieving the purpose for which
we gave it! I don’t refer only or mostly to having children. I mean building
others up—making them better—through the deposits we make in them.
At 65-years-old, I can now step back and reflect on the
fruit of Jesus’ miraculous, everyday impartation. He has taught me to give
myself away freely. Faithful Jesus makes us faithful and fruitful in love, a
series of miracles in which we joyfully participate.
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