Kathy Simonini couldn’t help but weep during prayer on Wednesday at the Decision America Tour stop in Rhode Island.
That’s because she knows the power of sincerely seeking a holy God. She has been in the darkness. She has walked down some dangerous roads. And not a day goes by that she doesn’t thank God that He saved her.
Her past is littered with tales of heartbreak. She was abused as a child. She chose a homosexual lifestyle growing up. She was given bad information by someone she trusted. And on this day in Rhode Island, she recounted how he told her, “God planted the seed [of homosexuality]. Let it grow.”
She received this advice roughly 10 years ago just as her Army National Guard unit was preparing to deploy to Iraq. Kathy believed in Christ at the time, but she didn’t have a personal relationship with Him. She didn’t know Him as her Lord and Savior. That need started to become clearer in Iraq, where she almost died in a Humvee accident.
“God spared me,” Kathy said, explaining that if she’d been in her regular post as M60 gunner, she most certainly would have died after being thrown from the vehicle. That day, however, a fellow soldier asked her to trade spots. He was much bigger than her and she believes that’s why they both survived the incident.
Upon returning stateside, Kathy struggled to find peace with God in the midst of ongoing homosexual relationships. A particularly bad one left her on her knees begging God to show her the way. She repented and immediately started following God.
“When I had enough, He became enough,” Kathy said. “He delivered me.”
Now Kathy volunteers as a chaplain with a local organization in Foxborough, Massachusetts. She’s taking international chaplaincy courses. And she especially loves ministering to young adults who are confused by the lies of homosexuality.
“The young generation who’s into this, I’m telling them don’t go down the road I went down,” Kathy said. “God’s using my testimony to open up their eyes. And I’m using it. [I tell them,] ‘He’s real. He exists. He loves you. Don’t fall for the lies of the enemy.'”
What are those lies? She specifically points to two things—that God would make someone homosexual or that as long as you’re a good person you’ll see heaven. Neither account adds up biblically. In Genesis, she points out, it states that God made man and woman. Jesus also said man would leave his mother and father and be joined with his wife, a woman.
“It doesn’t say anything about man and man, woman and woman,” Kathy said. “[I tell them] God didn’t make you this way. The enemy is feeding you lies and you’re watching society, which is convincing you in your mind. Block out the world and go to Him.”
Standing on the State House grounds in Rhode Island, Kathy said she thanks God for all the heartbreak and confusion she endured during her life.
“I thank God I went through what I went through because I can use it for my ministry today. [I can say,] ‘Look, I’ve been there, I’ve done that. Listen to me. I can tell you. It works.’
“It didn’t happen overnight, but as I got to know my Lord and Savior, [the homosexual lifestyle] makes me sick to my stomach to be quite honest,” Kathy added. “If He can change me, He can change others. Was it easy at first? No, because you have to break away from your old life, your old friends. But God is good.”
