Out of a Far Country

Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son's Journey to God. A Broken Mother's Search for Hope. by Christopher Yuan

This was a relatively quick read as it's written in a conversational tone, but some of the subject matter made it a rather tough read. I am glad they shared their stories, both his of falling into the depths of depravity (homosexual promiscuous lifestyle, drug use, partying, drug dealing) which resulted in contracting the HIV virus and prison, and his mother's journey of despair over her son's choices to the point of considering suicide, and then coming to a faith in the Lord and dedicating herself to loving and praying for her son and trying to share her faith with him. I guess as a mother my heart related to her heartbreak as she had to watch him make horrible choice after horrible choice while she stood by helpless to control the situation. At the same time, I was thankful for his honesty in sharing where his head was during that time, even if I didn't always understand it.

I appreciated his mother's comparison between her own sin and Christopher's:
"God really had brought me a long way in just a few years. In the past, I would have been full of shame that my son was in such trouble with the school. But since coming to Christ and realizing my own brokenness and need for forgiveness, I knew that Christopher's rebellion was really no different than my own sins. It was just that Christopher's were more obvious. We're all sinners, and knowing that helped me stop worrying about what other people thought" (72).

And I thought Christopher's realizations about homosexuality being an idol that he elevated above Jesus as he came to a faith in Christ:
"After that, I turned to the Bible alone and went through every verse, every chapter, every page of Scripture looking for biblical justification for homosexuality. I couldn't find any. I was at a turning point, and a decision had to be made. Either abandon God to live as a homosexual--by allowing my feelings and sexual passions to dictate who I was. Or abandon homosexuality--by liberating myself from my feelings--and live as a follower of Jesus Christ" (186).