 Pastor Georgiann, one of the associate
pastors at His Present Glory, can be found before the sermon sitting on
the platform strumming or drumming. She is a gifted musician on the
Worship Team. Besides singing, she shines on the guitar, thunders on
the drums and resounds on the keyboard. Wearing different hats at
church is only part of her deal…
She
wears a variety of hats that are unlikely chums in the secular world,
too. You might use her as your broker, rather Minnesota, or Wisconsin,
she’s liscensed there… or if you were to take a real estate class, she
might be the teacher, because she does that too. Even more
surprisingly, as the children are getting off that school bus in front
of you… Georgiann may be the driver. She is also one of the
entrepreneur partners in new Twin City based real estate company.
Besides that, she is HPG’S office manager and knows more than anyone
else about the church finances. Did I mention that she co-facilitates
Spirit of Counsel groups and on top of that, she takes her turn at
preaching and teaching once a month at His Present Glory, and she’s
been doing that for a couple of years at least.
As
long as she can remember, she tells us, it always was a desire of her
heart to speak in front of multitudes of people. This God given desire
is beginning to be fulfilled since her ordination in October of 2001.
Her teaching and preaching style is pertinent to everyone. Its a mix of
demonstrative personal and practical lessons that will not fail to
change your daily battles into victories, but will bring you into a
scripturally based, Word founded faith that has no where else to go.
You might laugh and you might cry, but you won’t remain unaffected. You
just may learn to laugh at yourself, and have no excuse left to any
obstacle block you. Georgiann was born and raised in St. Paul,
Minnesota as an only child. At the age of 13, while visiting her
grandparents in Las Vegas, she attended their Foursquare Gospel Church.
The moment she walked in the door she said she thought to herself,
“Wow, I feel love here”. She now knows that what she felt was the love
and presence of God. For a short time (maybe a month or two) she was a
member of that congregation, was baptized, and learned of the salvation
that comes from accepting Jesus Christ as her savior. She went home
with a new Bible that her grandparents has given her and was never
quite the same again.
As with many teenagers and their
families, 13 can be a challenging year. Back home in Minnesota, life
turned out to be just that, with a lot of turmoil mixed in. She did
find a local church that she attended for a short time.
At
age 16, during her first year in college, she innocently enough became
involved in a friendship with a woman nine years older that her that
evolved into a lesbian relationship. This began years of struggling
with her biblical beliefs and the gay lifestyle she became so enmeshed
in.
In her early twenties she entered her first inpatient treatment
program for alcoholism. After a short period of sobriety she was right
back where she had started, back in college, in yet another
relationship and eventually drinking again.
She
made another attempt to find a church and this time was befriended by a
Christian woman. She entered counseling again and began to make some
progress. Not long after that she would again end up back in the
lifestyle in and out of more relationships. Would it ever end?
The
gay lifestyle didn’t turn out to be so “gay” for Georgiann. In and out
of many lesbian relationships, she found that none of them were filling
the desire for intimacy that was burning inside. Try as she might, all
she got out of it was a lot of misery and a recurrent drinking
problem.Not that these were the only issues she had to deal with, rage
and anger became major problems and blocks to healthy relationships for
Georgiann. Loneliness was always there, no matter how hard she tried to
have and keep friends. Her desire to fill this void always ended in
disappointment as it led from one relationship to another.
During
all this, Georgiann dealt with long term depression, codependency
issues, and sexual addiction. All the while though, God kept pulling on
her heart and drawing her near.
By the age of 40, Georgiann had
reached a point where she knew she had to get out, this time for good,
or she may never make it. She ended the relationship she was in and
began drinking everyday. She found an outpatient treatment program for
alcoholism and voluntarily admitted herself.
She
was determined, after many former attempts, to get free of the gay
lifestyle and redevelop the relationship with God that she had started
so many years before at that Foursquare Gospel Church. She found a
church, His Present Glory, and Pastor Judy Sky.
Eventually, complete and total freedom from homosexuality would come.
Georgiann shares:
‘Besides
beginning to discover and explore who I was and had rejected, I also
learned some things I needed to know and understand about who I am not.
I heard for the first time about a ‘masculine spirit’.
Although I
didn’t know what it was; I thought it was me, but it was an ungodly
spirit that came along when I needed a way to cope, and it did me a lot
of favors. It ‘protected’ me from men and it drew me to women in a way
that was not of God. I gave my self over to it. I thought it was my way
out of some horribly uncomfortable relationships. It separated me from
the godly love of women when that was what I had always longed for. No
man would ever be interested in flirting with me, they called me sir,
without realizing I was really a woman.
I
don’t understand all the dynamics. It protected me from something I was
not comfortable with and brought me into a lifestyle where it was still
acceptable for me to strive to be completed by closeness with a woman.
I was not promiscuous. I wanted relationship.
All
this was the cheap substitute that was instead of THE REAL THING, that
God has provided in Jesus Chirst. Instead of that masculine spirit, I
now have my spirit-man. So close and yet so far! Cheap substitutes have
to have some similarities or they could not deceive.
My
spirit-man is The Christ in me, a son of God after Jesus The Firstborn
of Many Brethern, one of whom is my spirit! My spirit is just as
masculine as any mans’ spirit.
Spirit
is masculine, rather it is after Adam or after Christ, spirit is a son
realm role and function. The soul realm is feminine, and my soul so
longed for a strong and protective powerful masculine covering that
would draw lines and keep boundaries. The Christ in me is The Real
Thing! I was confused. I need the covering of the masculine in the most
Godly way, and it was not there. I did not sense it until I began to
realize that He is in me. He is over me. He is my covering. His love
constrains me. He will never leave me or forsake me.
Because of my
mistrust of the masxuline realm (I did experience some childhood sexual
abuse) I chose to have my life be as free as possible from anything
masculine that was not about me. I thought I knew and understood all
that was strong and masculine and powerful about myself. I did not
discern it without the supernatural gifts of The Holy Spirit. I was
deceived. I didn’t have eyes to see. I had no sense of smell in the
unseen realm until I received The Gifts of The Holy Spirit.
Besides
that masculine spirit I was dealing with, I had also gradually
developed and taken on a ‘man-hating spirit’, too. It would contend and
reject and criticize and compete with men. It did not want them to have
any power. It’s thoughts were that men were abusive and could not
relate to women. I felt protective over women. Men seemed dangerous and
ungodly. I would rather be alone, or fill all the roles myself than to
have to be ‘open to’ or trust a man with my vulnerability. No way! Not
a chance. So that was another thing I had to confront and face and deal
with… not only a spirit of homosexuality, but also a masculine spirit ,
and along with that, a man- hating spirit. You see, I had to overcome a
stronghold. There were three in one and that kind of a ‘cord’ is not
easily broken, rather it is unto life or unto death, a three-fold cord
is a strong hold. I had a strong hold to overcome. The bolders were
built into a wall and I was block and I was tied and I was bound… and I
have a Savior and I have a Deliverer and I have a Redeemer. Isn’t that
good news?
I yelled and cried, yet I hated it more than anyone else
could. I wanted to be who God designed me to be. I could not find peace
in this world and I could not find peace in that world. I was in
torment. I had a battle going on within, and I thought that what The
Bible seemed to say was impossible.
Today
I know it was not. Today I am so comfortable being the feminine woman I
am, and I once was so ‘butch’. I could not imagine that I could ever be
so much at home in my own skin.
I
worked hard to accept and develop my feminine identity that was so
hidden and bound up. I am learning how to have healthy relationships
with both men and women. Everyday that goes by I become more and more
free.
I also learned about the
spirits of rage and anger that had a hold on me and how to deal with
and have victory over them. I have gained victory over the sexual
addiction issues and the problems that I once had with alcohol. I would
not trade the life I have now for any favor that any of those things
ever did for me. I did not know that this condition existed for me. I
thought I was different and I thought this was hopeless for me.
I
am the first one to say that I am far from finished, but I Thank God, I
am becoming more and more emotionally stable and more and more sane
with every passing day.
I believe with all my heart, that the bottom
line for the vast majority of people in the gay lifestyle is that they
are looking for that bond and that love which come from the same sex
parent. I know I was looking for a mother’s love. I also know that
there is healing and deliverance from the torment, no matter what the
issue is. There is a way out. There is complete and total freedom.
There is a way out of homosexuality and a way into heterosexuality. There is a river to cross. Praise God, I am heterosexual!
Pastor Judy talks about ‘real love’. I believe it is something we all need and all desire.
Where is this real love? It’s in Him. It’s in every one of us who are His children.
My prayer and desire for all of us is found in
Ephesians 3:16-19
(Amplified): May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to
be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by
the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and
personality].
May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle
down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted
deep in love and founded securely on love,
That you may have the
power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s
devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and
length and height and depth [of it];
[That you may really come] to
know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of
Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that
you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God
[may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body
wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!
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