Changed by Love: The Untold Stories

October 31, 2019

They call themselves “formers.” And Wednesday, they were on Capitol Hill telling a story the Left doesn’t want you to hear. “We exist,” Elizabeth Woning told NBC News. Surrounded by men and women who’ve walked out of the LGBT lifestyle, her message to Congress is: stop pretending change isn’t possible. Because this group knows better than anyone—it is.

So many of the House’s bills, Elizabeth pointed out, “are based on the premise that LGBTQ people only have one option, and that there are no other ways forward—when we know from our own lives that this is not true.” Wearing shirts that say “CHANGED,” the group hoped to persuade Congress that their Equality Act and therapy bans may actually be doing more harm to the community than good.

On Wednesday’s “Washington Watch,” Janet Boynes tried to explain why the Left is trying so hard to keep testimonies like theirs quiet. “We’re being silenced,” she insisted, “because we can debunk what they’re saying. They will not sit down and debate any of us that have come out of the life of homosexuality, because we can challenge their ideology. I am in the living example that change is possible through the power of God… We came here to tell our stories [believing that] they’ll impact many men and women and family members who have loved ones dealing with that issue of homosexuality, transgenderism…”

Boynes, who had a traumatic childhood, watched her dad abuse her mom—then became a victim of sexual assault herself. She says that’s when she started to associate men with “rape and abuse.” Despite knowing God, she says she met a woman who she felt safe with and started to have a sexual relationship with her. “I walked away from my faith,” she admits. “After that four or five years, I was empty.” She tried to fill the void with food, drugs, other women. “These are the things that I started medicating my pain with outside of God… I never dealt with the issues that propelled me to go into that life…”

Janet says, “There are Christians that walk away from their faith to go into the homosexual life. But the Bible says, ‘When I leave 100 sheep,’ God said, ‘I’ll leave that 99, and I’ll come after you. And God came after me.” She met a woman at the grocery store in the middle of the night who told her she was a Christian. “I told her I was a lesbian. She invited me to church. Two weeks later, I went to church and I have rededicated my heart to the Lord.” She wants people to know, “it was the church, the body of Christ, that assisted me in my journey of walking out of that life.”

She hopes Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) takes that to heart after their chance meeting outside the Capitol yesterday. Janet saw her across the grounds and stopped to talk to her. She handed Pelosi a book full of testimonies like hers. “I hope she takes the time to read it, because these bills they’re coming up with [are] to silence us… And as long as [we’re silenced], they’ll continue to make inroads…” And the next target, she warns, are kids.

Christians, she says, can’t afford to sit back. But in a world where they’re called “homophobes” or “haters,” some are shrinking back. “What would you say to them?” I asked her. “What should they do?” Love them, she said simply. “God never called them by their shame. He always called them by their name.” Let them know, “God is there for them. God loves them. And I believe that what He has done for me, He will continue to do for them and their families as well.”