(By: Darol Stacy, Sr.)

I grew up being lonely inside and desperate for love and acceptance, and little did I realize how vulnerable I was for Satan to entice me into emotional and sexual bondage.  This is a brief account of how it happened, and also how God delivered me from it.  If you are starving for love and acceptance with the need for companionship, please take the time to read my testimony, and perhaps more importantly ... what God has taught me about HIS unconditional love and acceptance for you and I, as I share at the bottom, as well as on video, which can also be found at the bottom.

I was born and raised in the south, U.S.A.  I am one of 12 children; the 10th child.  I have a twin sister and a younger brother.  We are the last three of the twelve.  There were many living at home.  At the time, my older sisters helped take care of us ' me, my younger brother, and twin sister.  There did not seem like there was much love in the family.  I guess Mom and Dad were pretty worn out from all the kids they had.  

I was about 17 when my life took a turn.  With me not receiving the amount of love I had needed, I felt like I was missing something in life.  As I became the young man I had become, I did not have any girlfriends in my life.  I was always pushed away as I was growing up.  And I dealt with a lot of people pushing me away, and that hurt so much when you don't have very many friends in your life.  You have to deal with loneliness in life and having to deal with people who did not care in how you felt.  I did not have any girlfriends.  They did not think I was good looking I guess.  I did meet some friends who I did hang around and party with.  I had gotten drunk and smoked some pot and hung out.  But I still did not feel like I ever fit in other than hanging out and partying most every weekend.  So I did make some friends with a guy named Mike.  He was a good friend until we hung out together at his place.  His mom was there, but she drank a lot so she really did not know what was going on most of the time.  So Mike and I hung out a lot.  

One day he asked me if I wanted to spend that weekend with him and just hang out, so I did.  As the weekend began, we talked and watched TV.  It was late, so I went to sleep on one of the beds in his room and him on the other.  As the night went on, I was woken up by someone touching me in my private area.  I wasn't sure what was happening.  He told me that it was alright; it's ok.  I did not push him away because I knew that was what I wanted at that time in my life ... after being pushed away and rejected by the girls in my life.  I had opened a door to my life that started a whirlwind in my life.  I was facing things I could not ever imagine in the many things in my life.  

As time went on, about one or two years later, I found that what had started in my life that night ... it got out of hand.  I and Mike hung out a lot more than we did before.  It was because I felt like I was being accepted as a good friend in his life, and you know what?  It did.  Knowing that he would not reject me as a friend; I did not care, because I felt accepted.  I did follow the Lord for a while until Mike came into my life.  After that, I forgot about God, but He did not forget about me.  He had His hand on my life the whole time, even when I walked away from Him.  

By now my life felt good.  However, my life got darker and darker.  Thank God, I came to find out years later that a few members of my family did not give up on me in their prayers.  

Two more years went by and I found myself back in church again, where God wanted me in the first place.  And again I gave my life to Him one more time and He forgave me.  Again, I did not come to understand His love at that time like He would liked for me to.   And as it was like the first time, I began to walk away from Him.  I went back into doing what most others in the world did.  I started partying again with some new friends and pretty much forgot about God. 

One of the guys ... I become a close friend to; a bud; best friends.  All this time, the devil had another trap for me and I did not see it coming.  I was blinded by the good or true friend I was lead to believe I now had.  Robert was his name.  We hit it off as good friends.  I began to feel like he really cared about me as a friend. Things went well for awhile, until we got to talking and come to find out, he was dealing with the same things as I was: Rejection, loneliness, and partying to cover up the pains of life.  

In time I came to find out that Robert had a secret life that he never told anyone about; not even his family and friends.  Like I never told no one in my family, because I knew how that would not have anything to do with me ... especially my dad and mom and my brothers.  My younger brother and I were talking one time, and he said that he heard that Robert was gay, and that if he found out that I was doing anything with him, he would kill me.  Well, I knew then that my secret life was to be kept to myself. 

As I said before, Robert and I became good friends.  We became more and more involved with each other.  He would come over to my parents' house and pick me up and we would go and hang out together.  We would do whatever we wanted.  

You may not believe what I am about to tell you, but one day I had a desire to go and live with one of my sisters in Michigan.  So I packed up and hopped on a bus to the airport and flew to Michigan.  Remember when I had told you that God had His hand on my life early in my life?  I truly believed that He put that desire in my heart to move to Michigan with my sister and brother-in-law for about a year and half.  Now you have to know that my brother-in-law was a pastor of his own church at the time.  If this isn't God, I don't know what is.   

I did meet someone - a young lady that I worked with.  My sister, I, and this young lady worked in the same place.  After some time, this young lady and I had gotten engaged.  About a year later, we got married.  I still had this secret past in my life that was hidden for a long time.  It was like living a double life and not knowing it.  We were married for twelve years and had two children.  We got divorced because my past was coming out again a little bit at a time.  You know - when you have an addiction to sex and emotional intimacy for the opposite sex - things become a mess.  

I moved out because of the divorce.  I could not live in the same home that we had bought over the years.  I moved into a one bedroom apartment.  Living alone was one of the hardest things I had to deal with in my life.  I had to learn things I had never learned in life.  I was friends with my ex-wife's cousin.  As just friends, I kept my secret life to myself.  

God used my ex-wife's uncle to bring me back to God.  He was given a bulletin of a church that someone wanted him to come to, to check it out and to see what he thought about it.  He turned around and handed it to me later on because he knew I was going through a lot at the time in my life.  So God tugged at my heart to go to check it out.  

I waited for about six months before I went.  As I was in my one bedroom apartment one night, God spoke to me.  I was surprised to hear God speaking too, especially after all that I had been through.  He said to me that I had to make a choice: To either serve Him ... or to continue living my life the way I was.  I had a choice to make and the choice I made was to serve Him.  God had said to me that this was my last chance to serve Him.  I truly believe that He would've removed His hand off of my life to serve Him for the rest of my life.  

God brought to my remembrance of a lady I could call.  She knew why I was calling, to ask her to pray with me to accept Jesus into my life for the third time.  So I did ask Him into my heart.  The moment He came into my life, I knew without a doubt He had delivered me from my past.  I felt those foul spirits being lifted out of my life.  I felt as if my life had become radically changed for the rest of my life, until He comes again.  

I will serve Him the rest of my days here on earth.  The Lord brought a beautiful young lady in my life.  Her name is Laura.  We met at the church that God led me to.  We went together about six months; got engaged; and got married.  We live a very happy, blessed, life together in the Lord.  To this day and the rest of our lives, until the Lord comes back.

What is so wonderful is that God allows Laura and I to go into prisons and minister and share the love of God with other men just like I used to be -- starving for love and acceptance and intimacy with someone they can feel comfortable and secure with.

GOD'S LOVE IS NOT HUMANLY NATURAL -- IT IS SUPERNATURAL AND AWESOME!

May I share with you some truth about God, and God's love, that you may have never heard before?  Or if you've heard it, but never believed it, perhaps God will use this to help you believe it.  My prayer is that he WILL.  When you tell God the Father that you are thankful that He purposely sent His one and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to take all the punishment for all your past, present and future sins (which He DID) ... you are immediately adopted into the Family of God.  What does it fully mean to be adopted into the Family of God?  It means that God now fully accepts you just the way your are!  God can in no way accept you just for who you are and not love you unconditionally.  If you don't accept someone just for who they are, then you aren't loving them unconditionally.  You are loving them conditionally.  

And BECAUSE you accept that person for who they are, you truly want them to be all that God wants for that person to become.  That is how God wants us loving others ... desiring that they become all that God wants for that person to become.  That is the highest understanding of unconditional love that we can possibly demonstrate to someone else.

Yet Satan desires to twist that definition of unconditional love in our minds to mean that we are to accept people just for who they are, and leave it at THAT!  Meaning: If I'm a serial killer and rapist of children for instance, people need to accept me for it because I delight in torturing and killing little innocent children.  That is the way Satan wants a person to twist our understanding of God's unconditional love.

Let's examine this closer.  Does God love serial killers unconditionally because demons are tempting and silently and deceptively energizing that person to take innocent lives?  Yes and no.  Yes ... in that God already demonstrated His unconditional love for this serial killer by pardoning him/her of the sins him/her committed both against God and the children and the families of those children ... by dying on the cross and taking God the Father's wrath upon Himself that this serial rapist killer deserves ... ultimately which is eternal death ... eternal punishment in hell to suffer for this terrible wrong-doing.  I mean, think about it.  When this child rapist serial murderer stood before a judge to be sentenced to 500 life terms in prison for these terrible crimes, and someone steps up to the judge and says, "Your honor, I want to be the one you punish for the terrible crimes this person has committed.  Let him/her go free, and punish me for these terrible crimes.  My Father and I love this person so much that we want to die in this person's place."

And the judge let's the guilty serial killer go free and takes his wrath out on this innocent volunteer.  Would you say the innocent volunteer who has purposely chosen to accept all the punishment for the wrongdoing of this mass murderer is demonstrating the highest unconditional love anyone could demonstrate?  Well ... this is EXACTLY what Jesus Christ did for each and every sinner; for each and every person ever born on this planet, in fact.  He volunteered to take the punishment upon Himself so that after this life, this guilty person would be completely free of any punishment for what he/or she did.  Jesus Christ also took full punishment for this child rapist serial killer to be free from the torment of guilt for all this wrongdoing right now in THIS life.  

We can never fully grow into the person God wants us to become until we are freed from the guilt and shame of our sins.  Forgiveness of our sins is immediate!  Not once we die.  As soon as we confess our sins to Jesus Christ, they are instantly forgiven.  Satan will try to convince you otherwise; don't let him.  And forgiveness for our sins is NEVER deserved, which is another tactic Satan will try to use on you.  He'll subtly whisper in your thoughts, "You aren't WORTHY to be forgiven, so don't think you are going to get off so easily for what you have done, you evil worm!"  Jesus took full punishment for sinners when of all people ... they are the least deserving, which is WHY God's unconditional love of pardon for us in Christ Jesus was so costly to both Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Now ... even though God's unconditional love has already been demonstrated for EVERY sinner, and the PROOF of it was the death of Jesus Christ, God's Son, on the cross, does that unconditional love God has demonstrated to every sinner do that sinner any good?  NOT UNTIL the guilty sinner AGREES to be set free from the eternal consequences of his/her sins!  It requires reaching out and TAKING the free gift of pardon.  It requires a decision to ACT on this free gift of pardon.  It requires a genuine appreciation for this free gift of pardon.  Genuine appreciation on our part is not stepping outside the courthouse and committing that same crime over and over again, continuously riding on God's grace and mercy.  

Genuine appreciation for the free gift of pardon God gave us through Jesus Christ for our sins sooner or later will manifest itself in one's determination to walk in complete freedom from the same sin/s that keep pulling us back into spiritual bondage.  God alone knows the sincerity of each of us, so let us be patient with those who have fallen back into old sinful lifestyles.  Satan will NEVER give up on us, even though we have decided to walk right with our God.  Some of our vulnerabilities must manifest themselves STILL after we have given ourselves to Jesus Christ, otherwise we wouldn't be in a position to become all God desires we become.  Sometimes when we think we are completely healed - completely delivered - Satan is allowed to tempt us so we can realize we need even MORE help from God than what we thought we needed, to receive TOTAL deliverance and healing from one or more vulnerabilities we have lurking in the shadows of our being. 

I want to go back to something I mentioned earlier.  To maybe help someone better understand this amazing GIFT God has given every person to be born on this planet, I can call myself a billionaire because you want to give me a billion dollars - no strings attached - but I'm just deceiving myself if I call myself a billionaire without reaching out and accepting that $1,000,000,000 from you - correct?  I must POSSESS that billion dollars from you before it will do me a penny's worth of good.  

This is the very exact thing about God's unconditional love and his unconditional acceptance for you and I.  We must reach out an ACCEPT it, or it is not ours, and thus it does us absolutely no good!  

No - God does not LOVE and ACCEPT the sin a person commits against God and others.  In fact, He HATES the sin we commit against Him and others.  He hates it so much, in fact, that He HAD to execute His righteous judgment and wrath somehow, and in His great mercy and love for the human race, He was willing to sacrifice His one and only begotten Son for it, which is what the death of Jesus Christ on the cross was first and foremost all about!  It was God's plan of mercy to allow the human race to become right again with Him, after Adam and Eve sinned.  Each of us are born with the sin nature Adam and Eve gave themselves to, because each of are the offspring of these two people.  In other words, we are born with the sin nature in us, because we inherited in from Adam and Eve.

Remember I said earlier, God doesn't just love us unconditionally to be pardoned for our sin.  That is just the first or initial benefit of it.  The second benefit of it is to empower us to become all He designed us to become.  There is only one way to fully become what God has designed each of us to become.  That way is to do what God says we're to do.  How do we know to do what God desires we do, to become all He has designed us to become?  In His instruction manual.  Where can a person find a copy of God's instruction manual?  By reading the Holy Bible.  The Holy Bible is God's instruction manual.  

How can a person UNDERSTAND God's instruction manual, and then be empowered to OBEY God's instruction manual?  It is impossible to do without God's supernatural help!  How does a person acquire God's supernatural help then?  You invite Jesus Christ to be your Savior and Lord (in other words - save you from your sins, so they can be not only forgiven by God, but forgotten by God).  After you invite Jesus Christ to be your Savior ... you then ask the Father in Jesus name to baptize you in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  The New Testament Bible clearly reveals the necessity of desiring to be filled daily with the power the Holy Spirit provides to be obedient to God in every way.  This is done by asking and patiently trusting both God and ourselves. The Holy Spirit is neither our magic Genie, nor our Santa Clause or our Sugardaddy.  He will help us as He determines we need His help ... not always as we THINK He should help us.  Sometimes He will execute a miracle in us that happens in a moment of time.  More often than not however, He forces us to dig in and diligently work with Him to overcome weaknesses in our life.  That process often brings with it much frustration, discouragement, and hopelessness if we let it.  Salvation is free, but working in cooperation after that to let God shape us into the NEW CREATION He fully wants us to become, can be the most COSTLY thing in this life.  With it comes many tears and many sleepless nights, with much heartache so much of the time, it seems.  Yet because we have such a difficult time of comprehending just how much more of a NEW CREATION He wants to transform us into ... most of us will settle for something much less than that, because the pain seems just too much at times.  

And this becomes the difficulty of every true Christian.  The Holy Spirit is a true Gentleman.  He will not force Himself on anyone.  He will woe us; warn us; pull at our heart-strings to do the right thing when we are tempted to do the wrong thing in God's eyes, but He will never leave us nor forsake us as long as we will continue to confess our wrongdoing to God, receive forgiveness one more time (His forgiveness is limitless, by the way), and allow the Holy Spirit to pull us up "by the bootstraps one more time" and get back into right relationship with God AGAIN.  

Remember I told you ... God's unconditional love does not want us failing to become all God desires that we become, which is WHY God will never leave us completely powerless to get right with God again and again ... no matter how many times we fall back into sin.  Nor will God ever forsake us by letting us make such a mess of things that He doesn't provide a way out of that mess to get back in right-standing with Him, BUT ... we must also submit to His chastening and discipline as He determines we need it.  Just like we sometimes must chastise and discipline our children when they disobey our rules -- not because we delight in seeing them suffering in that chastisement and discipline -- but because we are wise enough to realize that when a child keeps falling into temptation to disobey the wishes of their parent/s ... thus God also knows what He needs to do to teach us that bad decisions must NOT get rewarded either by parents, nor by God for His spiritual children.  

I hope you understand a little better now about God's unconditional love and acceptance, and the security we have in Him.  It sometimes takes a great deal of patience to be able to fully grasp just how awesome it IS, so be patient with God and yourself regarding the matter, okay?  God didn't build the Grand Canyon in a day, nor will you become all God desires for you to become in one day either.  God is very patient with each of us, and each of us learn and grow at different levels. 

Please allow me to end by sharing something else with you about your growth in God.  Don't try to tell God that what you love doing isn't a sin if the Bible clearly states it is a sin to Him.  Satan has been, and will continue to do everything in his power to convince gay people that being a practicing gay is not a sin.  Satan full well knows that most gay people have emotional wounds and scars from their past, and he uses our wounds from the past and our past and present vulnerabilities to get us to rationalize that it is okay to be doing whatever we desire to do to feel loved and accepted and secure and have our void filled with a companion.  With the need that everyone has for unconditional love and acceptance and our need to have our loneliness and low-self esteem taken care of ... filling those needs with a same-sex partner, or even having sexual relationship with anyone else outside of marriage, and mixing it with sexual pleasure is the very BEST means He has to keep a barrier between us and God.  We may not realize there is a barrier between us and God, nor even care ... but we certainly WILL care on the Judgment Day, one way or another, the Holy Bible assures us.  Barriers won't necessarily cause Christians to lose their salvation - depending - but barriers certainly have the possibility of determining the type of glorified body God will give them on the Resurrection Day, (Read: 1 Corinthians 15:34-58) and the rewards in eternity they will receive from God (Read: 1 Corinthians 2:8-17).

A barrier exists between Satan and God because of Satan's rebellion, and it is Satan's desire to trap every person God has created into erecting barriers of their own making ... to try to keep them from understanding and reaching out and GRABBING God's unconditional love and acceptance found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ ... and then desiring and allowing the Holy Spirit to make them into the NEW CREATION God the Father desires for them to become.  Satan and demons lost all that and in his and their anger and rage and revenge, he nor the demons doesn't want you or anyone else getting it either!  

Please don't let Satan have his way with you.  Be wise, and let God the Judge pardon you, and then allow Him to shape you fully into the NEW CREATION He wants you to become.  He won't force you to do so.  He loves you enough to allow you to freely choose.  Daily ... it becomes a choice on our part, and a lot of self-sacrifice and determination.  Yet after all is said and done, it will be well worth it!

To view Darol testifying and sharing of this awesome love He has discovered in God, you can do so by clicking on the following parts: 

Darol's Video Testimony: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

PLEASE HELP US HELP YOU SHARE THE BEST NEWS GOD HAS FOR EVERY PERSON BECAUSE...

JESUS DID IT! and...

YOU ARE SO GREATLY NEEDED!

Remember:  All that we do in this life comes back to our God-given purpose which is to serve and glorify God. The money and assets we accumulate, the fame and power we've attained or seek to attain - all of the things of this nature will one day pass away, but those lives of others we impact for Jesus Christ will last for eternity, and we will be rewarded for the part we helped play by impacting those lives ... for eternity.
(Matthew 6:19-21 is our assurance)