This Is What I Know

I still don't have all the answers.  I don't think I ever will.  But here's what I do know: my God is bigger than all of this.  His wisdom and guidance and patience and love and peace and mercy are all eternal.  There are so many people, from my immediate family to random acquaintances, that feel like I'm making a horrible "choice" by being gay.  And Jesus predicted that this would happen.  That Christians would turn on one another.

So I can't argue or explain their condemnations away.  Yeah, I can answer questions about the theology.  I'm pretty sure I can explain the ways in which every Scripture passage which has continually been used to condemn homosexuality is really just taken out of context, misunderstood, or blatantly mistranslated to achieve a specific agenda.  So I can have those conversations.  But I know that those conversations won't help.  They won't change anything, because words alone will never be enough to change anyone's minds on this issue.

But, again, here's what I know: I have never felt more connected with God, never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit more strongly than since I've come out.  I also know that it was that same Spirit that confirmed in my heart that these feelings I've always had aren't something to be ashamed or afraid of.  That I am His.  That He is love.  That I am made in His image, held in His hand.

I remember so vividly praying for hours, for days, for weeks and months, for an answer to this question that has plagued me practically my whole life: "Am I gay? And, if so, is it ok?"  And the answer that I got from my God (once I was finally willing to actually listen for an answer), the thing that He whispered to me over and over and over again was "You are Mine.  I am love and not condemnation.  You are made in My image and, as such, you are good.  There is nothing wrong with the way you feel, the way you've always felt.  You are Mine. I am love."

I realized recently that I need to seek God's mercy and forgiveness.  But not for what so many people might think.  I need His mercy because I've spent so much of my life hiding, afraid, and ashamed of ever even asking Him the questions.  Afraid of confronting what I've always known to be true.

And God's mercy is new every morning, so I know that I am free of that sin of hiding.  But it kind of shocked me in that moment when I felt God telling me that I needed forgiveness for not coming out.  It was always something that I pushed aside and shoved away because I didn't have enough faith to believe that God would answer me and, more than that, that He would confirm His answer in magnificent and miraculous ways.  I was also always scared of hearing His answer, no matter what that answer was.  I just didn't have enough faith.

While this whole process has been so very hard and stressful for my family, I am still feeling so much peace.  I feel freedom and even joy for the first time, I think, in my entire life.  And as I've said before, I long for my family to feel that same thing.  But, again, I can't argue anyone into agreeing or believing or understanding.  But I do know that, no matter what, we are a family.  We are all God's children.  And, as such, the disunity we are feeling right now isn't of God (Philippians 2:1-5).  The Spirit of God is of fellowship, love, and unity.  And that's what God longs for His church to have (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).  That's another thing that I know.

Even though I feel so much peace, I still feel Satan crouching at the edges of my family, trying desperately to breed a lack of love and acceptance and wisdom.  Satan has used this very issue for so long to break people, families, communities, even nations apart.  He's forced homosexuality to become this "central" issue to the Christian faith even though there are only about a half a dozen verses in the Bible that seemingly address the topic.

I completely believe that the disunity and hatred and condemnation that engulfs this issue is not from God.  When Jesus was on this earth, He didn't spend His time badgering people with His own moral views, condemning everyone He came across.  Instead, He spent his entire life ministering to the poor, the needy, the sinners, the least.  So because I know that Satan is behind this disunity, I just keep praying and rebuking and repeating over and over again that Satan has no place in my family.  Because we are God's and so Satan has no power over us.

These disagreements that we have, no matter how "huge" they may seem in our finite world, during this finite time, won't even matter in eternity.  But even still, I feel called by God to speak out against this spirit of disunity and hatred and condemnation and lack of love and acceptance and tolerance that has clung to the church at large for so very long.

I'm not claiming to be some definitive authority on the topic of homosexuality for all of Christianity.  All I know is the views I feel God has led me to.  I also know that, to Him, no matter our live's paths and curves and twists and bends, we are still His.  And nothing else matters.

Even if...I'm wrong about this, I am still His.
Even if...it's a sin for me to be gay, He still loves me and always will.
Even if...this is a "choice" that Satan has tricked me into believing and feeling, Jesus still died for me.

Even if...we've all gotten it wrong on nearly every moral belief on which we stand, we are still saved.  We are still His.  And nothing we do or say on this earth can change that.

I'm not saying that moral questions or choices don't matter.  It's important that we Christians live our lives as acts of worship to God.  And that's exactly why I'm writing these things down, journaling my own story of being a gay devout Christian.  Because I feel called to this: to be a voice speaking out into the darkness surrounding this belief that is held so strongly by most of Christendom.  To live a life, faltering and failing but always trying to serve God with all that I have, with everything that I am.

So, no, I can't argue or cajole anyone into changing their minds.  But I can live for Him.  And serve others for Him.  Fight injustice for Him.  Love for Him.

I won't win everyone over.  I don't even know if I'll win anyone over.  But I know who I am in Christ, so I will not be defeated.  Jesus has overcome, so Satan has no power over me.

My life as an act of worship to God might not look the way so many people think that it should.  But neither did Jesus' life when he spent his time with the least, the worst of the worst in His culture.  He was condemned and crucified for speaking a truth He knew to be true and for starting a social upheaval focused on seeking out the lost, serving the least, ministering to the outcasts, and loving...everyone.  No matter what.

Once again, I believe revolution is coming in the church.  I'm not arrogant enough to think that my voice is going to somehow spark a giant movement.  But if enough lone voices reach out to their relatively small audiences, through their words and their lives, revolution will come.  I wholeheartedly believe that.

But even if I never get to see it, even if I live my entire life as a relative outcast from the larger church community, that's ok. Yeah, it'll be hard and painful at times.  But I rest in the knowledge that I am His.  I am still living in the peace and freedom that He has blessed me with.

And, once again, I know that my God is bigger than all of this.

Coming Out

(Written Thursday, April 11th, 2013)

I feel like I should be afraid, ashamed, freaking out, depressed, frustrated, and so many other emotions...  I feel like I should apologize and try to make it better for them, for us, for everything.  But I can't.  I won't.  And, the funny thing is, I don't even want to.

I came out to my family.

And I feel like I should be flying off the handle, freaking out, crying, screaming, running.  I feel like there are so many stereotypical things that I should be doing.  I can't tell if I think that I should be doing all these things because it would make it better for them or just because that's how I always thought I'd act when I told them.

I can't explain it.  I don't understand any of it.  All I know is that for the first time in my life, the very first time, I feel it.  This thing I've been begging God for for as long as I can remember: the respite from the insanity, the passion, the depression, the fear.  This thing that I thought I'd never have.  And now I have it.  And I feel like I should feel bad for having it because my whole family feels like they're spinning out of control.  And yet there it is.  Washing over me, showering me, engulfing me.  I have it now, and I'm afraid to let go of it, that it'll somehow go away, that all of these things that I "should" be feeling or doing will come in and crash it all down.

But somehow I know that it won't.  And somehow I know that this feeling, this thing that I have that I've always wanted will stay with me.  It's washed me clean and made me whole.  For the first time in my life I feel clean of this sickening depression that has clung to me like a plague since high school.  And I don't want that sickening feeling to ever come back.  But most of all, I just don't want to lose this.  Because I have it.  Finally.

I'm at peace.  And I'm free.

Free of the running and the hiding and the fear and the stupid fucking demons in my head telling me that everything would crash down if I ever told my parents the truth.  Free of the inner voice telling me that I should stay hiding, ashamed, afraid of anyone and everyone knowing.

I just feel so free and so at peace, but that doesn't mean I'm not worried.  That part of me still isn't freaking out, trying to find the right words, the right answers to make them understand.  Trying to learn how to act to show them that I'm still me.  Trying to express through the way I act and talk that they need to re-examine their beliefs.  And I don't know if that'll ever happen.  And I'm afraid that if I fail to act in such a way to show them that I truly am still following God not just despite but because and through me being gay, they'll never come around, they'll never accept, and we'll never, as a family, have the same peace and freedom that I'm feeling.

And I want them so badly to have this too.  But for now, I'll just let it wash me over.  And I'll finally be able to do the one thing that I've been wanting to do since I first felt the sickening grip of depression: "Be still and know that I am God."

For once in my life, I'm still.  And I'm at peace.