I'm coming out
In honor of Bloomington Pride Weekend...This is my coming out.
I decided that today is the day.
I am tired of living inside myself and keeping it all in.
Here it goes....
About 17 years ago I was attending my first college. I was born and raised in a Christian Church and decided that a small private Christian College was the best option for me. I chose a school that wasn't too far from home but far enough away that I could get the experience I had always dreamed of as well as grow in my faith. It offered many great experiences for me all while gaining some life long friendships. I was able to learn a lot about myself as well as others and the stories they had to tell. We had chapel twice a week that was required and I loved it because it was an all access pass into amazing speakers who shared their trials and triumphs in their walk with Christ and their every changing relationship with God. As time went on, I began to realize that this experience was MUCH smaller than the big, big world that I was blessed to be a part of. Future youth ministers admitting to a small chapel that they have been struggling with Pornography. People judging others because they didn't show up for church. Gossip, partying, pregnancy... Gather together on Sundays and pray loud with hands rested on these "sinners". Show unconditional love and compassion as fellow Christians because that is what the Bible says.
It's what we are called to do. It's what so many of us were born and raised to practice and live and share throughout every.single.part.of.our.lives.
Walls started closing in on me as people started showing me that this label of being a Christian was maybe not as beautiful as the picture I had painted in my mind and how I strived to live.
I was in my third year at Anderson and lived in an on-campus apartment with three other girls that I had grown to know and became close yet at the same time grew apart from others. Relationships are hard at 19 and 20 years old during a time in your life when you are trying to figure out who you are and what matters to you in this crazy world.
At this point in my life, my eyes were open wide as I searched for what my truth was because so many things being preached to me did not feel like MY truth.
The bubble I was in and the universal label of Christian was changing within me.
I will never forget this day...
One of my roommates was a religious studies major and she was doing a paper on homosexuality. I remember thinking that was pretty amazing and brave to research at a Christian University. Admired her so much. There were books and papers spread out in our living room as she was working on her paper. My other roommate's boyfriend, who was going to school to become a Youth Pastor, walked in our apartment and said, "Who's writing a paper on faggots?"
My.heart.sank.
This was my life changing moment. As disgusting as that comment was, it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear in that moment because it answered so many things for me that I had been questioning. I want NO part of a label if this means I am associated with this human being. A man who was going to be a youth minister. A man that was going to have teenagers that are questioning their sexuality at a time in their life where all they need to feel is LOVE. In a time in their life where they are probably being shunned from their families who have told them their whole life that being a homosexual is a sin. This same man that walked into my apartment and used the word Faggot is the same man that stood in front of a church congregation and poured out his heart admitting to an addiction to Pornography. We prayed around him and put hands on him and LOVED him unconditionally.
So many things came full speed at my heart and it didn't feel good.
You see? In the denomination that I was raised, being gay was a sin and a choice. As far back as I can remember this didn't make sense to me at all. It completely contradicted everything I was taught. I was born and raised to understand, to live and to feel that each and everyone of us was made special by God. He created us as a one of a kind. There is no one else just like me/us/you. He knows my/our/your heart, my/our/your future, my/our/your everything...even the number of hairs on my/our/your head. What a LOVE story.
Psalm 52:8b “"I trust in God’s unfailing LOVE for ever and ever"
John 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you LOVE one another as I have LOVED you"
1 John 4:19 "We LOVE because he first LOVED us"
1 Corinthians 16:14: "Let all that you do be done in LOVE"
Psalm 139:13-14 "For You formed my inmost being;You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You,for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works,and I know this very well"
Every single person was specially designed by God.
If that is the case, how can anyone ever tell someone how they feel and how they LOVE is wrong?
It never made sense to me and it makes absolutely no sense to me now.
This is why I am coming out.
I like men, I LOVE my husband. I am not personally gay so make sure you read carefully. I am coming out to the people in my life that may not know that I am someone who believes in Equality because Equality means unconditional LOVE and SUPPORT.
I have kept this a secret for SO many years for fear that my perspective didn't match what the church taught me. I was involved in my church deeply and knew that my opinion on this was very different from what I was supposed to think and feel about homosexuality. So, I just kept my mouth quiet. I didn't want to "offend" anyone.
I may lose friendships and relationships with this but I am okay with that whole heartedly. If people LOVE me as I LOVE them, they will accept this and understand that I am living in the image of MY god and what feels right to me because it's MY truth.
MY love is love is love.
If you're in my life you better be ready to be LOVED.
LOVED with absolutely no conditions.
I have learned that I do not have to LOVE by the definition of those around me that tell me how I should LOVE and who I should LOVE.
Love is love is love.
It's that simple really.
I don't know how else to LOVE.
I support equality.
I can not imagine not feeling like I can live my life for fear that I will be shunned like so many from the LGBT community.
I have feared sharing my heart about this and it seems silly because it doesn't even compare to those who have had to come out to the people in their lives knowing that it could change everything.
It should be simple.
But it's not simple and I hope that those who are in my life know and believe that I LOVE you and I am raising my kids to LOVE the same.
I believe in God and I believe in unconditional LOVE!
Look around and see all the beautiful lives that our God has created because every life is wonderfully and specially made.
Every life matters and every life around you has purpose.
If you are in my life and you are gay and you are scared please know you are SO LOVED.
PSA: Please hold off on sharing with me what the Bible says about homosexuality. I've read the same Bible that you have my entire life and I choose unconditional LOVE over someone else's interpretation of scripture.
being gay is not a sin. being gay is not a choice. #sorrynotsorry
I decided that today is the day.
I am tired of living inside myself and keeping it all in.
Here it goes....
About 17 years ago I was attending my first college. I was born and raised in a Christian Church and decided that a small private Christian College was the best option for me. I chose a school that wasn't too far from home but far enough away that I could get the experience I had always dreamed of as well as grow in my faith. It offered many great experiences for me all while gaining some life long friendships. I was able to learn a lot about myself as well as others and the stories they had to tell. We had chapel twice a week that was required and I loved it because it was an all access pass into amazing speakers who shared their trials and triumphs in their walk with Christ and their every changing relationship with God. As time went on, I began to realize that this experience was MUCH smaller than the big, big world that I was blessed to be a part of. Future youth ministers admitting to a small chapel that they have been struggling with Pornography. People judging others because they didn't show up for church. Gossip, partying, pregnancy... Gather together on Sundays and pray loud with hands rested on these "sinners". Show unconditional love and compassion as fellow Christians because that is what the Bible says.
It's what we are called to do. It's what so many of us were born and raised to practice and live and share throughout every.single.part.of.our.lives.
Walls started closing in on me as people started showing me that this label of being a Christian was maybe not as beautiful as the picture I had painted in my mind and how I strived to live.
I was in my third year at Anderson and lived in an on-campus apartment with three other girls that I had grown to know and became close yet at the same time grew apart from others. Relationships are hard at 19 and 20 years old during a time in your life when you are trying to figure out who you are and what matters to you in this crazy world.
At this point in my life, my eyes were open wide as I searched for what my truth was because so many things being preached to me did not feel like MY truth.
The bubble I was in and the universal label of Christian was changing within me.
I will never forget this day...
One of my roommates was a religious studies major and she was doing a paper on homosexuality. I remember thinking that was pretty amazing and brave to research at a Christian University. Admired her so much. There were books and papers spread out in our living room as she was working on her paper. My other roommate's boyfriend, who was going to school to become a Youth Pastor, walked in our apartment and said, "Who's writing a paper on faggots?"
My.heart.sank.
This was my life changing moment. As disgusting as that comment was, it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear in that moment because it answered so many things for me that I had been questioning. I want NO part of a label if this means I am associated with this human being. A man who was going to be a youth minister. A man that was going to have teenagers that are questioning their sexuality at a time in their life where all they need to feel is LOVE. In a time in their life where they are probably being shunned from their families who have told them their whole life that being a homosexual is a sin. This same man that walked into my apartment and used the word Faggot is the same man that stood in front of a church congregation and poured out his heart admitting to an addiction to Pornography. We prayed around him and put hands on him and LOVED him unconditionally.
So many things came full speed at my heart and it didn't feel good.
You see? In the denomination that I was raised, being gay was a sin and a choice. As far back as I can remember this didn't make sense to me at all. It completely contradicted everything I was taught. I was born and raised to understand, to live and to feel that each and everyone of us was made special by God. He created us as a one of a kind. There is no one else just like me/us/you. He knows my/our/your heart, my/our/your future, my/our/your everything...even the number of hairs on my/our/your head. What a LOVE story.
Psalm 52:8b “"I trust in God’s unfailing LOVE for ever and ever"
John 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you LOVE one another as I have LOVED you"
1 John 4:19 "We LOVE because he first LOVED us"
1 Corinthians 16:14: "Let all that you do be done in LOVE"
Psalm 139:13-14 "For You formed my inmost being;You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You,for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works,and I know this very well"
Every single person was specially designed by God.
If that is the case, how can anyone ever tell someone how they feel and how they LOVE is wrong?
It never made sense to me and it makes absolutely no sense to me now.
This is why I am coming out.
I like men, I LOVE my husband. I am not personally gay so make sure you read carefully. I am coming out to the people in my life that may not know that I am someone who believes in Equality because Equality means unconditional LOVE and SUPPORT.
I have kept this a secret for SO many years for fear that my perspective didn't match what the church taught me. I was involved in my church deeply and knew that my opinion on this was very different from what I was supposed to think and feel about homosexuality. So, I just kept my mouth quiet. I didn't want to "offend" anyone.
I may lose friendships and relationships with this but I am okay with that whole heartedly. If people LOVE me as I LOVE them, they will accept this and understand that I am living in the image of MY god and what feels right to me because it's MY truth.
MY love is love is love.
If you're in my life you better be ready to be LOVED.
LOVED with absolutely no conditions.
I have learned that I do not have to LOVE by the definition of those around me that tell me how I should LOVE and who I should LOVE.
Love is love is love.
It's that simple really.
I don't know how else to LOVE.
I support equality.
I can not imagine not feeling like I can live my life for fear that I will be shunned like so many from the LGBT community.
I have feared sharing my heart about this and it seems silly because it doesn't even compare to those who have had to come out to the people in their lives knowing that it could change everything.
It should be simple.
But it's not simple and I hope that those who are in my life know and believe that I LOVE you and I am raising my kids to LOVE the same.
I believe in God and I believe in unconditional LOVE!
Look around and see all the beautiful lives that our God has created because every life is wonderfully and specially made.
Every life matters and every life around you has purpose.
If you are in my life and you are gay and you are scared please know you are SO LOVED.
PSA: Please hold off on sharing with me what the Bible says about homosexuality. I've read the same Bible that you have my entire life and I choose unconditional LOVE over someone else's interpretation of scripture.
being gay is not a sin. being gay is not a choice. #sorrynotsorry
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