Author and professor Wesley Hill recounts a time as a young adult when he was struggling with the loneliness of living with same-sex attractions. So he visited a friend and mentor named Chris. After Wesley shared his struggles and asked for advice, Chris 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 60 or 70 or 80 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—that solid, resurrection joy which, if you experienced it now, would crush you with its weight—away from you. Wesley, wouldn't you say "yes" to the journey if you had had that conversation with God?

Then, with his eyes flashing deep care and concern, Chris added:

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. And the joy you will have in that moment will be yours for all eternity. Can you endure knowing that? Can you keep walking the lonely road if you remember he's looking on and delights to help you persevere?