TESTIMONY
Tony Spears: Lifted Up After Being 'Down Low'
By Michelle Wilson
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– "I would put her shoes on and walk around the house. You know and my sisters and brothers would call me 'Tonette.'"
As a child, Tony Spears wore his mother’s shoes and clothes to entertain his family. Little did he know, this innocent act was a tell tale sign of the conflict brewing inside of him.
"Even behind the scene when no one is there, I would sneak, put them on, walk around the house, act like my mom and act like my sister," Tony tells The 700 Club.
Tony was raised in a single parent home by his mother. He never knew his dad and had no male figure to guide or protect him through his life – especially in middle school when his peers began to tease him and call him gay.
"I never had a sexual relationship with a male but it was the thought."
But even in middle school, his thoughts pushed him down a darker path. He recalls, "I would go to the adult bookstores, and I would see these men actually having sex with each other in the little booth. You put your little quarters in there and somebody would open the door. At that time I was nervous . I was scared."
As Tony grew older, he continued going to church. He struggled with his desire to serve God, which was in conflict with his homosexual desires.
"The church would preach you don’t do this. You’re going to hell, but it didn’t mean anything because they always say God forgives."
Tony’s shame kept him from talking to anyone about his struggles – that is until he was 17 and he met a man who was living a secret life and lured Tony into his first homosexual experience. Tony was so desperate for a male role model in his life that he continued the relationship for the next year.
"We’d go out and what not and go to his house. Go to his basement while the wife was upstairs.He was always there. We would joke and we would laugh, but I knew that other part came with it."
When Tony went to college, he started living what was called the “down low” lifestyle.
"Down low brothers mean you’re behind the scene. You’ve always got a girlfriend on the side, but you always have a man on the side too."
Tony continued living this double life through his college years. By the end of college, he was fully engaged into the homosexual lifestyle. He went to a gay beach and had four to five sexual encounters with men almost every day.
"I would always say, 'God, just kill me. Why am I here? You know I’m doing this. I know it’s wrong.' It was a place of torment in my mind, because I knew I couldn’t change."
Tony lived this lifestyle for ten years. He continued going to Pastor Danny and Kim Daniels' church. He knew he had to change his life before it was too late.
Pastor Kim says, "He came to grips with the fact that this was not normal. It was unnatural and that to be a Christian he could not be a homosexual."
Then one day while in his apartment he began to cry out to God to save him. That same night he went to church on New Years Eve and had an encounter with a loving God.
"I wanted to meet that real God, because I heard many stories of many homosexuals being delivered. But I’m like, 'God, if You delivered them, then You can deliver me.'"
Just as Tony had done so many times before, he walked up to the altar to repent, ask God to forgive and to totally set him free.
"I said, 'God, here I am.' It was like something was lifted. I was still feeling those emotions, but something like a heaviness was gone."
Tony never returned to the homosexual lifestyle. Over the next four years, he faithfully attended church, read his Bible and allowed God to change him. God also began to give Tony the desire to have a wife. That’s when he met Felicia. After six months of dating, he told her about his past life of homosexuality.
"I said, 'I’m going to just jump out here and say it. I used to be gay. I used to sleep with men.' She said, 'I love you regardless.'"
Six months later, Tony and Felicia married.
"I never thought I would be getting married to a beautiful woman who loved God for real."
Tony is amazed at the unconditional love of God in spite of his past. He says, "I’m supposed to be gone a long time ago, but to be here, have a new life, a new way of thinking, it still amazes me."
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