Testimony Tuesday: Loving the heart of the good Father

By Bella Agnello

Aspen Bevan grew up in a Christian household, but home posed as a juxtaposition for her as she related to Christianity. Now a fifth year Professional Writing and Information Design student, Bevan reflects on her journey to trusting God as her good Father.

Bevan’s father claimed to be the strongest Christian role model in her life. At the same time, he was her biggest abuser. Though she grew up knowing Jesus, she had difficulty reconciling the Jesus presented to her and who Jesus truly was.

After reading the Bible and learning about him in school, Bevan made the decision at age 12 to trust Jesus was the loving, caring Savior he claimed to be.

“I had this deep-seated feeling I knew there had to be something better than this,” Bevan said. “I learned these lessons and I believed them, and so I reached out in faith to Christ, and he answered.”

Bevan learned to trust Jesus as her friend and older brother. However, she could not trust God the Father.

“Me and Jesus were pretty solid,” Bevan said. “I had a really big problem with God as a Father.”

Bevan continued to endure a painful relationship with her own father, often thinking of him as a “terrible, horrible monster” she had to fight and overcome. She constantly swung on the pendulum of directing anger towards her father and directing anger towards herself. This contributed to seven years of wrestling with suicidal ideation.

Bevan said, “My faith in Christ is the only reason I didn’t kill myself.”

During middle school and high school, she suffered abuse—including sexual assault—at the hands of several men older than herself and one her age.

In the midst of wrestling with these experiences, Bevan realized she was attracted to women. Going to a conservative Christian high school taught her that she could not be Christian and gay. Though she tried to get rid of her attraction, she could not separate herself from her desires. She eventually found a group of Christians who encouraged her in her same-sex attraction. She found comfort in celebrating her sexuality with this group and going with them to pride festivals.

Even so, Bevan’s heart still beat for the Lord. When it came time to look for colleges, she searched for a strong Christian school that was as far away from home as possible. Her grandparents told her about Cedarville — much closer to Minnesota than she hoped — and she begrudgingly went with her parents to visit the school. To her surprise, she fell in love with the school’s authentic love for Jesus.

Starting life at a new school meant building a new identity for herself. Bevan decided to wear her hurt on her sleeve: she chopped her hair off, wore goth makeup and exclusively dressed in black and leather.

“I was fully expecting nobody to like me, and I was okay with that,” Bevan said. “Then people accepted me, and people loved me, and people wanted me and people liked me […] at my very rock bottomist, when I’m putting all of my grossness out into the world, people still like me.”

Bevan finally began to heal of all the hurt she accumulated and stored up in her 18 years of life. As she healed, her understanding of same-sex attraction also began to transform.

“I found the secret third option, which is that temptation exists, and you’re not a sinner for being tempted,” Bevan said. “It’s okay to experience temptation, but feeding into temptation and falling into temptation is a sin.”

Bevan learned how to fight her attraction by being non-affirming and sticking to the biblical definition of marriage. She surrendered all her desires to God and waited for him to heal her of same-sex attraction in his own timing.

Shortly into freshman year, friends introduced Bevan to Caleb. While initially unattracted to one another’s personalities and styles, they found themselves spending more time together.

One of their favorite ways to pass time together was climbing trees and talking while the sun set. During one of these times, Caleb confessed that if he were to date anyone it would be someone like Bevan.

That night, Bevan asked her friends to sit down with her and help her process their conversation. By the end, she rejoiced in her realization that she liked a boy for the first time.

“I went and told Caleb because he was my very best friend at that point,” Bevan said. “I knew that he would be excited to know that whether or not we dated, the fact that I was attracted to a man meant that there was precedent — there was a chance — that I could be attracted to another man, and I could get married someday.”

Two years later, Caleb proposed, and the couple married in August 2025.

“It was one of the happiest moments in my life because he is hands down one of the most incredible men I’ve ever met,” Bevan said. “He makes me feel safe and secure and loved in a way that no one else ever has.”

Through Caleb, God gave Bevan the ability to navigate her relationship with her dad. As she’s learned how to have difficult conversations with Caleb in a God-honoring way, she’s learned how to respect her dad and understand his heart in their moments of conflict.

“He was no longer something where I had to deny every fault in him in order to make him into an image of a father that I could respect, nor was he a monster that I had to run away from or defeat in order to be my own person,” Bevan said. “He is just a person.”

Bevan learned to forgive her father, though their relationship is far from perfect. And, she learned how to recontextualize her relationship with God as her Father.

“I’ve finally realized that I don’t have to understand my Heavenly Father in terms of an earthly father,” Bevan said. “I have to understand my earthly father in terms of my Heavenly Father. God is the guide for all fathers on Earth. I don’t have to understand God in terms of earthly fathers.”

God has cared for Bevan throughout her life in tender, powerful ways that she only continues to piece together. Her joy in him enables her to minister to the least of these. She is taking part in her church’s new ministry to reach Christians who deal with same-sex attraction. She also gets to talk to a little girl at church, diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy. Because she also struggles with chronic health issues and seizures, she has been able to empathize with her and draw her to hope in Christ.

“I understand what she’s going through, and I know how to keep her safe because I’ve been through it,” Bevan said. “It makes every seizure I’ve ever had worth it.”

Going to trauma-focused therapy helps Bevan understand the experiences that hurt her every day. In therapy, she has learned to awe at a greater capacity at the traces of grace riddled in her story.

“My story has a lot of darkness in it, and my story has a lot of craziness in it, but overall, it’s a story of redemption, and it’s a story of hope,” Bevan said. “I think that’s really amazing, because that’s what God does in people’s lives, throughout everything that people go through. He gives us stories of redemption. He gives us stories of hope.”

Bella Agnello is a senior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys antiquing, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.