I am a 22 -year -old gay boy. Thanks for reminding me that I am loved by God as they are

Testimony sent to us by Mattia on the listening service I trust you*

My name is Mattia and I am a 22 -year -old boy, I can say first of all that I am one of those who have the life of many tests, but I consider myself lucky because basically also the evidence we face then make us what we are, and through our wounds the Lord can give birth to something extremely wonderful.

My troubled story begins at the age of 7 when because of a block or I would better say a strange fear, which I still did not understand the cause, I can no longer attend school. This entails the beginning of years of pain and difficulty, after a few years, even with a little psychological help I can resume frequenting it.

Then when suddenly the same block returned to the beginning of adolescence again, then it is as if everything had collapsed on me. Being able to attend the school anymore, I then took the average outdoor license.

After the middle school, my terrible ordeal of loneliness, depression, guilt, closing in myself and I hate to me began for having made this "abysmal error" that had ruined my life, to such an extent that I totally close myself in solitude and not be able to have any contact with anyone.

I felt an error in every sense and after many years of guilt I managed to forgive myself and to understand that that error had certainly been due to a triggering factor, in hindsight I understood that it was the homosexuality that I did not accept and repress. The fact of hating me and not being like the others led me to close my heart to every type of relationship and therefore not even to be able to attend school and be with the other kids.

In all this, faith in the Lord has always played an important role for me having been born and raised in a Christian family.
In the years of depression for me the only strength was the presence of the Lord who has always walked next to it, but who perhaps I had never met in fullness, a bit like the two disciples of Emmaus who walk with Jesus but their eyes do not recognize him.

In all these years of my life I have always frequented the parish, I have been close to the Church and this brought me joy but of course it also led me to further repress my homosexuality, given that according to the magisterium of the Church it is "contorting".

So the suffering I carried in my heart because of my past was made even heavier by this terrible anguish and of having to choose between having to leave the faith, which however was something important for me and that had helped me in moments of pain and therefore to be myself leaving my shell and starting to love without fear; Or deny my being forever without accepting myself and continue to be unhappy and to consider me a mistake.

This anguish lasted several years and was bringing me more and more to choose the way of denying and repressing my homosexuality so as not to "betray" faith.

In a moment of great pain in which I felt the need for a path of psychotherapy I reached the point of not wanting to continue the sessions, just when it was realized that my malaise and all my "errors" were due to mine not to accept me as homosexual and want to "heal" at any cost.

In recent years I was satisfied not to think about it much and to put my homosexuality in the drawer without understanding that this "setting aside" led me to be more and more harm, when I explain my malaise of these years I always describe it as an unbridgeable void within me, that nothing and nobody could fill and at the same time an unbearable weight that oppressed my heart.

In February of this year I became aware that I could not do it more and I understood that I also need a cyrenaeus who would help me bring this weight and thank God I found the beautiful people of the young Christian young LGBT project that through the Online listening service "I trust you", even without knowing me, they immediately welcomed me, loved and for the first time they told me they were not a mistake, because God does not make mistakes and does not create anyone by mistake.

It was then that I really met my Lord. Yes, I met him just where I thought I could never meet him, in my weaknesses, in my wounds and especially in my homosexuality, because I finally discovered his true face, which loves me as I am and wants me to be happy in fullness.

After years of research I finally understood that my vocation is to love and be loved without limits and barriers, because it is only the love that fills our life with meaning.

Thanks to the boys of the project I have not felt so alone and I discovered that God often uses men who puts us next to us to make us feel his love and remind us how beautiful life is.

Now I have embarked on this path of acceptance of myself and my gaze towards me and to Jesus has changed completely, I finally feel loved by him and also by myself.

Even if I still have a long way to go, but I know that in this road he is with me and I have many brothers who walk with me, who love me and with whom I can open myself without fear, in the certainty of getting to my goal, that is, being happy in my life by loving and being loved as the Lord dreams for all his children.

I TRUST YOU. Online listening and accompaniment service for LGBT Christians and their parents

I trust you It is the listening service for believing LGBT people and their parents who wish to carry out an interview with one of the religious/s, of Christians or LGBT couples, of the parents, curated by the volunteers of the Young Christian young LGBT project and of the Association La Tenda di Gionata. Write to the email mifidodite@gionata.org To organize an interview by phone or a video call. We are here for you. To find out more click on https://www.gionata.org/tag/mi-fido-di-te/

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