I speak of a young man who entered the mission field worthily but by his own choice returned home early due to same-sex attraction and some trauma he experienced in that regard. He was still worthy, but his faith was at crisis level, his emotional burden grew ever heavier, and his spiritual pain was more and more profound. Often the long, dark nights of the soul were faced by just this boy and his mother.

But with the grace of God, her own tenacity, and the help of scores of Church leaders, friends, family members, and professionals, this importuning mother has seen her son come home to the promised land. And, I must say, this son's sexual orientation did not somehow miraculously change--no one assumed it would. But little by little, his heart changed. I have wept over the courage, integrity, and determination of this young man and his family to work things out and help him keep his faith. He knows he owes much to many, but he knows he owes the most to two messianic figures in his life, two who bore him and carried him and labored with him and delivered him--his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his determined, redemptive, absolutely saintly mother.