In his book Washed and Waiting, Wesley Hill shares about his struggle with same-sex attraction and his desire to obey Christ and remain celibate. He writes about a time when he felt the world was caving in around him:

I had been living in Minneapolis for only a few months, and I felt burdened—physically so, at times—by loneliness, confusion, and fear. During a brief visit to Wheaton, Illinois … I arranged to meet with my good friend Chris, and on a cold winter afternoon I told him how I was feeling and asked for his help.

Out of all the things Chris said to me in response to that day, one sticks out. With compassion in his voice, he said, "Imagine yourself standing in the presence of God, looking down from heaven on the earthly life you're about to be born into, and God says to you, 'Wes, I'm going to send you into the world for sixty or seventy or eighty years. It will be hard. In fact, it will be more painful and confusing and distressing than you can now imagine. You will have a thorn in your flesh, a homosexual orientation that is the result of your entering a world that sin and death have broken, and you may wrestle with it all your life. But I will be with you. I will be watching every step you take, guiding you by my Spirit, supplying you with grace sufficient for each day. And at the end of your journey, you will see my face again, and the joy we share then will be born out of the agonies you faithfully endured by the power I gave you. And no one will take that joy … away from you.'"

"Wesley," Chris said, looking in me in the eye, "Would you say yes to the journey if you had had that conversation with God?" I nodded …. "But you have had it, in a sense. God is the author of your story. He is watching, supplying you with his Spirit moment by moment. And he will raise your body from the dead to live with him and all the great company of the redeemed forever …. Can you keep walking the lonely road if you remember he's looking on and delights to help you persevere?"

Wesley Hill comments: "Your struggle isn't a mindless, unobserved string of random disappointments, I heard Chris say …. It will be worth it. The joy then will be worth the struggle now. In the end, I think that is how I am learning to live faithfully [as a celibate person who struggles with same-sex attraction]."