CNA Workers, Jun 29, 2025 /
07:00 am
Throughout her senior 12 months of highschool, Catholic speaker and writer Kim Zember realized she had a sexual attraction to girls. She went on to stay a hidden life for years — courting males publicly however courting girls secretly. Finally, she ended up solely in relationships with girls.
A decade later she discovered herself more and more sad and at some point she threw up her fingers and requested God to enter her life. Now, 11 years after experiencing transformation, she’s sharing her conversations with different individuals who have handled sexual id and gender confusion in a brand new podcast on EWTN referred to as “Here I AM Stories.”
“Within the tenderness of God, I simply felt like he stated, ‘I need you to share different individuals’s tales. You’re not the one one,’” Zember instructed CNA.
In accordance with EWTN, the podcast “highlights uncooked voices, radical lives, and actual tales of those that left LGBT identities for a larger everlasting objective.” It airs weekly on Mondays throughout the month of June after which starting in July, two episodes might be aired each month.
“These are individuals who have been strolling it out,” Zember stated. “This isn’t tales of perfection.”
4 episodes of the podcast have already been launched. One notably highly effective episode was a dialog with Jessica Rose, who recognized as a male for seven years, battled despair, and tried suicide till she gave her life to Christ.
One other episode options the story of Angel Colon, who survived the 2016 Pulse Nightclub capturing the place 49 lives have been misplaced. Regardless of being shot a number of instances, he survived and credit the miracle to God, altering his lifestyle.
Zember’s personal story follows an analogous sample because the friends she speaks with in her podcast. She grew up in what she says was a “regular” Catholic family with two older brothers and fogeys who have been highschool sweethearts. She acquired all her sacraments however admitted that she grew up with out having a relationship with Jesus.
She shared that she noticed God like a “cop that type of simply stored tally of all of the issues I used to be doing, good or dangerous, and was type of calculating every little thing. In order that was type of difficult as a result of I heard on a regular basis like, ‘God loves you,’ ‘God’s for you,’ however I didn’t expertise that.”
Regardless of having an honest childhood, Zember stated she didn’t have a “good, tender father” and didn’t belief males. As a senior in highschool, she longed for a relationship and acted upon her attraction to girls.
“My senior 12 months in highschool I used to be like, ‘You already know what? I don’t really feel secure with males, however I really feel secure with girls and I’m attracted and I don’t know what which means, however I’m going to take a step,’” she recalled. “And [in] my senior 12 months in highschool I acted on these needs in the direction of girls with one in every of my finest buddies and that modified every little thing for me.”
From there she started courting girls in personal. Believing that what she was doing was mistaken, she sought a Catholic counselor at age 18 and was affirmed in her gay id. From there, she got here out publicly and now not hid the truth that she was courting girls. It wasn’t till Oct. 17, 2014 — after a decade of dwelling a homosexual way of life — that she “cried out to the Lord and stated, ‘I can’t do that.’”
She recalled telling God: “‘I’ve heard about you my complete life. I’ve examine you my complete life however I have to expertise you now. And so I want you to indicate up.’ And it’d sound horrible however I used to be like, ‘I want you to indicate up and I want you to indicate up now as a result of in the event you don’t present up and present me that you just’re good, I’ll go to somebody or one thing else, like I’ve my total life. So, I’m providing you with your one shot, God.’”
“And I’m telling you, he confirmed up. He confirmed up that night in a means that I’ll always remember,” Zember shared. “Oct. 17 feels typically like my birthday — although I used to be born on Dec. 22 — that encounter I had with God marked me in a means … that I’ve by no means been the identical.”
In that second Zember stated she skilled the “tangible love of God” and “he has been trustworthy day by day since then.”
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“Additionally in revealing his character and nature, he has proven me that he’s the one my coronary heart has been trying to find. He has proven me that he’s the one, that God himself, that made man in Jesus Christ, that he’s the love of my life that I’ve desired.”
Zember now lives in freedom from her wrestle with same-sex attraction and helps others who face comparable battles to search out their true id in Christ.
When requested what the Church can do to higher minister to these battling gender and sexual id points, she stated: “I feel as a Church, we have to acknowledge once more our personal unworthiness; it doesn’t matter what Jesus has already saved us from, we nonetheless want him.”
“If we’d acknowledge our personal brokenness and our personal want for Jesus, I feel we’d have the ability to obtain different individuals of their want for him, too. We’d cease making an attempt to repair individuals, and we’d really attempt to stroll with each other,” she added. “We’d attempt to stroll with each other in our brokenness to Christ, the one one who can heal, ship, make complete, and let loose.”
As for her hopes for the brand new podcast, she stated she hopes it might present individuals “that we’ve got Father” and “that folks would give Jesus a attempt — an actual one.”
“My hope is that folks will say, ‘Wait a minute, if Jesus was that good of their life, possibly he desires to be that good in mine too’ — in no matter it’s. It doesn’t should be homosexuality or id confusion. It could possibly be you holding on too tightly to one thing. It could possibly be you needing a profession and in the event you don’t get it, you don’t know who you’re. It’s all of the longings of our coronary heart to be seen, identified, liked, chosen, and desired, and the way we attempt to go to the issues of this world to fill these when it’s really the very one who created us that desires to fill these.”
Francesca is a workers reporter for Catholic Information Company. She acquired her diploma in Communications with an emphasis in Digital Media from the College of Colorado – Denver. She can also be in command of the social media for Catholic Information Company.
