I live a fairly happy life. While I don't believe anyone is happy 24/7, I find that I am filled with more joy than most people, most of the time.

Genuine joy, peace that lasts, comes from having a relationship with God. This means not just knowing about God, but actually knowing God. It means seeing God, not as a being that looks down on you to see if you will trip and fall so he can cut you off, but as the loving father who in your time of need wants to hug you and comfort you while you cry. It means being able to come to God all the time because you recognize that he is your constant companion. It means taking time out to talk with him, not just to ask for things, but also to listen. It means knowing God as the father who looks at you, his beautiful creation, and thinks only of how much he loves you. It means not just understanding God's love for you, but truly feeling it. It means spending time in passionate worship. If you do only one thing, let it be this prayer "God, I want to know you. I want to feel your love". A good book on this topic is "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan (also one of my favorite speakers).

To answer your question about staying away from boys, my personal answer is no. I believe that the discipling and mentoring relationships I enjoy with young people are an integral part of God's plan for my life. I do not believe that I would be living a joy-filled life if I were living outside of God's plan for my life. Genuine joy comes from living out the life God designed for me to live.

Having said that, I do not believe that the mere fact you are a BL automatically means that the God-ordained design for your life includes boys. It does in my case and for the present time, but I don't believe it applies to everyone, nor do I believe it will necessarily apply to me for ever. I just know it's where God wants me to be right now.

Seek out God first, seek out a genuine relationship with him. Learn not just to love him, but to be loved by him. Do that, and you will find joy.

Here are some practical observations that I have found help me when my mind wants to trick me into thinking the body of Christ rejects me:

1. You are not defined solely by your sexuality. Yes, your sexual orientation is a part of who you are, but it is not the entirety of who you are. It is possible to be someone who strives to do good, who loves the Lord and obeys him, who seeks always to better himself and the world around him, and who genuinely loves people, and also be a boylover. Don't define yourself by the one word that describes just one aspect of your personality, define yourself by the sum of everything that describes you.

2. When we allow ourselves to think that "if only people knew how I feel, they would reject me", we are being dishonest with ourselves. Yes, people would probably reject you if they thought of you as a pedophile. But they wouldn't be rejecting the real you, because the real you isn't only a pedophile (see #1 above). If people knew the real you, all of you, then in all likelihood, they would not reject you. If the real you is someone who chooses to live a good and moral life and who strives to be a servant of the Lord while also having to deal with a socially unacceptable sexual orientation, chances are the vast majority of Christians would not reject you. It's not the real you people would reject, it's their false beliefs of what a pedophile is and does. To be honest, I would reject pedophiles as well if they were all like society thinks they are.

I hope you find what you are looking for. Genuine peace and lasting joy are very much within our grasp.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you'll stick around. Please ignore the statement of faith on the front page, we don't all actually agree with everything it says.