Susan Cottrell's Blog, page 57

Guest Post: Discourse

My friend’s daughter Kelsey posted on Facebook the following discourse on the LGBTQ issue. It represents years thought and struggle around this issue. I repost with her permission for any Christian dealing with this issue with family, church, or self.

Discourse, by Kelsey

People must ignore certain things in order to survive.  This is true especially for those who believe in Christianity.  Depending on their level of commitment, they will frequently be made aware of their shortcomings.  Americans who do not believe exist in an environment ripe with moral quantifications (=a country with strongly religious (=Protestant) roots), and they will either agree to some degree and know they fall short, or they will disagree and be made to believe they are different (=outside of the mainstream).  Yet every day, when people wake up and go to work, they are forced to forget these matters, at least partially, and go on about their day, to whatever extent accepting who they are.  Christians with an inordinate amount of pride are forced to take their focus off of their flaw in order to focus on their day: choosing an outfit for the day, processing paperwork, conversing with people, the billions of minute decisions that we each make every day, and the most prominent distraction, SLEEP.  When we go to bed at night, we must accept that the sun has risen and fallen on our imperfections (flaws, weaknesses, sins…..whatever the terminology) and that it was out of our control to perfect them during the time the sun was up and we were awake.

I have spent many nights without sleep. I have spent many days too distracted by these issues to get out of bed and fulfill my myriad responsibilities, often opting to take the day off than finish my work and go to class.  I have spent most of that time trying to fix things, trying to think through what was wrong in my life (and in me) and what I could do to make it right.  And these were not peaceful hours, spent in thoughtful contemplation and the feeling of progress deep in my soul.  They were often too chaotic to process coherently, or rather void of any clear feeling.  Numb and anxious, rest did not come easily, and meeting my responsibilities could only come at the price of forgetting what I had spent years fighting to hold on to.

Only after years of sweating it off was I able to get a decent job, do decent work for that job, maintain a steady relationship, and maintain the acceptable level of hygiene and bodily care.  Do I miss the days of lazy wandering and the nights of insanity – spent either agonizing over existence or totally wasted in some stranger’s apartment?  No, I don’t.  It was not the Ke$ha song most people believe it to be.  I was never cool enough to make my antics look like a dope gangsta film, and my flaws followed me everywhere.  I was free and flew fast, like anything anytime.  But where was I flying?  Nothing led anywhere, in fact nothing was connected at all, and the situation was comparable in my mind and in my heart.  I ended up the way I started…completely numb and confused.

I have since given up on trying to solve my problems.  The past, the present and the future are still there to demand my attention.  I will continue looking, but no longer with the expectation of finding.  The point is to look and to be responsible to what I see; that’s all one can do.

With all that said, I must make my point.

When we get to talking about homosexuality – whether it’s right or wrong, whether we should talk to our gay friends about it or not, and whether or not our Christian brothers and sisters who cannot reconcile their orientation with their faith can change or should change – a few questions should be asked:

1) You ignore flawed traits in yourself every day in order to survive.  If you ask a gay person to change (whether or not that task is possible), you might be asking him to make his flawed trait an obsession for the rest of his life.  Are you willing to do this yourself?

2) Perhaps you know what that task will entail, perhaps you don’t.  Which means: you should think a little bit about the consequences of this idea (that his orientation is wrong) before you incept it in his consciousness.  Do you know what he will have to do?

3) If you ask him to be slave to this idea, you should know that he will either spend his every waking hour alone, or in agony with himself in a heterosexual marriage, and that it could affect all of his other relationships.  What would you do with a life lived this way?

If one or more answer to these questions is no, or if you are not sure and are not willing to find the answer, please refrain from speaking about this topic with authority…..or, better yet, refrain altogether.  There are more important things for you to spend your time doing.

I, for one, am busy surviving.

Filed under: Christian Gay Community

Who Ya Gonna Call? Sinbusters!

My desire is to pull us beyond the question of “sin and no sin” and to the place of “now what?” What if someone you love tells you he or she is gay or lesbian? Where do you go with that? I’ve been writing on viewing this through a different lens, opening the possibility that it is not the slam-dunk we are taught, based on intensive study on both sides. I know some of you who are wrestling with this.

But many of you have no room for doubt that this is a sin, period. Now what? If you have been shocked by a son or daughter or cousin or sister or friend who has revealed he is gay, where do you go from there? I have seen the heartache parents have gone through. The years of talk about the wedding and the grandchildren, and all that you had in mind, now lies in a crumpled heap. To grieve the loss of your images is healthy and expected. But that is not the same as trying to change them.

We seemed to have the idea as Christians that we are supposed to address, convict and excise each other’s sin. When were we instructed that — and when has it ever worked? We can hear from gays, lesbians, college dropouts, pregnant young women, drummers, who have been shut out of their family until they change their ways. This is not biblical. And this is not Jesus’ heart. Let’s instead imagine this.

Your son Nick has told you he’s gay. You are sitting across from him telling him everything you can think of and Jesus walks in the room. Jesus says, “Would you like me to talk to him?” You turn to Him and say, “No, no, I got this.” How ludicrous would that be? Let’s say Jesus does sit across from Nick. His interaction will likely look quite different from yours (wouldn’t it?). Perhaps Jesus is just saying, “Hey, Nick, what’s going on in your life?” He’s engaging with him, but you are impatient. Finally you say, “Jesus, you are just not moving quickly enough. You’ve talked to him for three months now and I haven’t heard you tell him this is wrong, he’s wrong, and he has to stop it.” Jesus looks at you with that beautiful smile I always imagine on Him as He talks to His beloved and headstrong children! He says, “My child, trust Me. Let Nick be, and you trust Me.”

You wait another few months, maybe a year, but Nick is not changing. You come back to Jesus. “Perhaps I should talk to him again,” you find yourself saying, boldly. “If he’s not going to listen to You, maybe he’ll listen to me!” You hear how preposterous this is, but you can’t help it.

Jesus smiles again. “You think that if He won’t listen to me, he will listen to you?” You don’t talk. “And who says he’s not listening to Me?” You’re dumbfounded. This is not what you expected to hear. Or wanted to hear. He speaks again. “I want you to continue to come to Me, My sweet. Walk through this with Me. But leave Nick alone about it. He listening to Me more than you know.”

This is not an easy road, mostly because no one — least of all Christians — expects their child to be gay. It isn’t in our thought process. But the damage caused by requiring change, or secrecy, or celibacy is told in countless tragic stories.

If you have discovered that a loved one or you yourself has same-sex attraction, love them, love yourself, and bring it all to Jesus. Trust Him to do what He will do. Let Him take you wherever He wants to take you. And let Him bring you that peace that is beyond understanding. My thoughts and heartfelt prayers are with you.

Filed under: Abiding In Christ, Christian Gay Community, Love

Happy Mother’s Day

Just a special note to wish you and yours a Happy Mother’s Day (since I do still talk about marriage and parenting!)

Filed under: Christian Gay Community

A Tribute to Brennan Manning

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.” Brennan Manning

What I know about Brennan Manning is he knew (experienced, lived, trusted) the love of God. He lived in his position as God’s beloved child. And Brennan gave that gift to many, many people in his books and talks. Brennan died only recently, but his work showing us God’s uncontainable love lives on.

Brennan didn’t always grasp for himself the love of God. He spent some time in the gutter as an alcoholic. He tells that one time he saw an attractive young blonde, holding her little boy’s hand. The boy approached Brennan and said, “Mommy, look at him.” The woman pulled her son away. “Don’t look at that filth. All that is is pure filth,” and she kicked Brennan and broke two of his ribs.

During his gutter time, Brennan says, a friend flew down every two weeks just to sit with him in the gutter and to take him to breakfast. “He didn’t try to change me,” he said, “he just loved me.”

If Jesus had not pulled Brennan Manning out of the gutter — and if Brennan had not allowed Jesus to pull him out of the gutter — we would not have the enormous blessing of Brennan’s legacy of Christ’s love in his books and teachings.

But even more important is this: Jesus loved him and accepted Brennan and had compassion on him every bit as much when he was in the gutter as when he was teaching people about Jesus.

If you’ve never been in a gutter, how do you know Jesus loves you in the gutter? If you haven’t experienced desperate desolation in your life, how do you know the compassion of Jesus you experience there? We try to get people to get their lives together, and that’s all well and good. But how do we know what they will find only in their desperate place? At the end of his journey, the prodigal son knew his father far more intimately than did his brother, who’d been faithful all along.

Life can be hard, and we cannot anticipate all its twists and turns. God is not as concerned about the twists and turns as about our knowing Him in intimate relationship.

“The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.” Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

Filed under: Abiding In Christ, Christian Gay Community, Love

Born Selfish

We’ve been talking about whether or not people are born gay.

The other morning I woke up full of conviction of how selfish I am. I had dreamed that a close friend ended our friendship because of my blog. Suddenly everything felt very tender and close to the surface. As I began to read John 18, I was flooded with my own selfishness. People have been helping me nonstop to meet writing deadlines. But I’ve been so focused that I have been more demanding than grateful.

I was born selfish – no doubt about it. It’s all our tendency from the fall of humankind. But I also grew selfish, starved for nurturing in a family with no mother and a preoccupied father. Both are true. But knowing why I’m selfish does not in any way fix my selfishness. It is a God-sized job. Period. Here’s what I am infinitely grateful for: that God has been extremely patient and healing with me. He has allowed me to grow as I needed to while He healed age-old wounds and filled in broken places. I am also endlessly grateful that my family and friends have loved me through my mistakes, instead of rejecting me or pulling some kind of ultimatum or church discipline. No matter what my issues, they have loved me fully and unmistakably. If they had rejected me until I got my act together and renounced my selfishness, I would be a puddle somewhere, a complete mess. I would never have made it.

We know some people are born LGBTQ, with no choice involved. We also know that environment (abuse, family issues) are influential but not causal. (How many men have been abused or have overbearing mothers and absent fathers but do not turn out to be gay?) But so-called tough love, threatening, rejection, ultimatum and excommunication do not have any legitimate track record of actually changing anyone’s attraction. No one who has been rejected turns around and says, “Okay, you’ve shown me how important this is; now I’m no longer same-sex attracted.” Even those who have changed (that’s another post) did not do so because they were rejected by those who loved them. “Now that you have shown me what I stand to lose, I’m at peace about this issue I’ve been struggling with for years.” It doesn’t work that way. It works no better than it would have worked for my selfishness — and my selfishness I know for sure is a sin.

Carla has always been attracted to women. She found a church where they “accepted gays and lesbians” — it was part of their doctrinal statement. She taught bible study. Then she got into a relationship with a woman, and the church said she had to leave. Not only quit teaching but leave the church. After four years. She said, “Even if I’m celibate?” “Yes,” they said. She noted that they don’t ask if the straight dating couples are celibate — how many of them are having sex? Now, she wants nothing to do with the church. Any church. Can you honestly blame her? Her experience has effectively turned her off to the whole church and God experience. Some of her lesbian friends found a different church where they accept gays, and Carla said, “Don’t trust them. They’ll turn on you. No matter how long they say they accept you, at some point they’ll burn you.”

Jesus needs to be the focus of all of us who claim His name, lest we get distracted by what Christians and churches do. As Mike Wells wonderfully said, “Glance at men and gaze at Jesus.” But the church and Christians together provide an effective fortress on this issue that requires a lot of independent thinking to move beyond. Especially when the love of Christ in us is meant to be the real draw. (“But it’s not love to let people stay in their sin.”) I can’t say that, because that’s their Savior’s job, but to reject people like Carla for their sin or perceived sin is definitely not love.

So what do we do?

A friend sent me a link to a sermon at a huge church. The pastor gave warm reception to whatever gays and lesbians may have been in the congregation, saying, “You are welcome here. With open arms.” I listened with interest, because this is a departure. Churches often avoid this controversy, and I’ve never heard gays and lesbians welcomed like this. Props to him. Then he said that every single one of us has sin, in a multitude of ways, and he began to give examples as if this was a new concept. But I already knew where this train was headed. I knew the verses he was going to pull out, that the bible says it, that there’s no getting around it. So whoever was sitting out there with this weight of discovery already on their hands now had to hear the pastor’s opinion about something they already feared, something over which they had no control, nor could they see the light at the end of the tunnel. As one young woman put it, “I don’t care how young and hip they are, if it’s just a cooler package of the same old rejection.”

His talk, in my opinion, brought them no closer to resolution and definitely brought them no closer to Jesus’ loving compassion for them. They were given the rules, again, instead of the loving, abounding, tidal wave of love of Jesus into whose arms they could sink and rest and let Him rule their hearts and minds. Let Jesus bring the solution the pastor lacked.

My position all along has been to point people to Jesus; let Him guide their hearts. We don’t always guide hearts well, do we? And even when we’re certain we’re right, can we possibly guide them as beautifully and intimately as Jesus does?

Filed under: Abiding In Christ, Christian Gay Community, Love

Now that I’ve Come Out of the Closet

I recently came out as a straight, married, Christ-following mother-of-five, in support of the LGBTQ community. Since then, I’ve received quite a few emails and comments — many incredibly encouraging and some less-than-loving. I understand that views on this issue are deeply rooted, and people don’t want to make the wrong move. I took this on because I know in my heart that families are facing this issue every day, and theirs are the hearts I want to connect with.

My vision is 1. to be a voice of encouragement to LGBTQ in their struggles and 2. to be a safe place for family and friends of LGBTQ to express their questions and challenges. While I welcome open dialogue, I’m not particularly interested in answering naysayers to the nth degree, especially those who don’t have a horse in this race. Those issues have been answered at length (check my Resources), and while I have unique things to say, answering those issues to your satisfaction is not my direct purpose. I cannot answer every question, but I will soon post an FAQs section.

We Christians love to say homosexuality is a sin like any other sin. I have challenged us on whether it is a sin. But even if Christians truly viewed this as any other sin, the overarching perception of us would be a lot closer to the love of Christ than the current perception. You see, we don’t really treat this issue the same as other issues. People are more disgusted by this particular issue than many other issues. I’ve watched it happen. For example, my friend joined me at my daughter’s volleyball game. As we took our seats on the bleachers, I sat in front of her so she could massage my stiff neck. This friend was wearing baggy sweats and a baseball cap. A nearby couple turned and looked at us in disgust, and then scooted away. That was their response to what they thought they were seeing. I thought, boy, that would be hard to take after a while. I don’t blame gays and lesbians for getting angry/frustrated/depressed when they have been on the receiving end of this time and again.

On the other hand, a conservative Christian friend who speaks in favor of traditional marriage told me he has been on the receiving end of the same judgment his whole adult life; he’s received death threats starting when he was 21; he’s had to leave events under police protection; and he’s feared for multiple threats against his family. “Hate speech” cuts both ways.

I wish we had the freedom just to be with each other. As I took a long flight recently, a woman took the middle seat, between me on the aisle and a man at the window. I’m guessing she was a lesbian. She glanced at me, and the CS Lewis book in my lap, and then turned and talked to the man on the other side. She had no interest in the person she’d sized me up to be. Of course, I was sizing her up too — I could be way wrong. I tried to engage with her. Mildly. But after a couple of sentences about the Words with Friends app vs. the Scrabble app, I found myself wondering what to say. “You can talk to me — I am gay-friendly! I talk about LGBTQ on my blog — I’d love to know what your issues have been. And by the way, do you know Jesus??” Yes, that’s what I’d really like to talk about, if we could get the other issues out of the way.

What might the world look like if we were Safe Havens for each other, as Brent Bailey guest blogged on The Marin Foundation website? Whatever else may or may not be true, Jesus offers us a safe haven in Him, as He wants us to offer that for each other. It’s part of loving Him and loving others.

Filed under: Abiding In Christ, Christian Gay Community, Love

Born that Way? – Part 2

90% of gay men interviewed said they were born gay and have never been attracted to women. They have no experience of having chosen it any more than straight people chose to be straight, and they are told in no uncertain terms that it is sin.

That’s my haircutter’s situation. I asked when he knew he was gay. He said, “Oh when I was five years old. I didn’t know what it was, but then the kids at the lunch table said, ‘Are you gay?’ I asked what that was and they told me. And I thought, ‘Well, yeah.’ But I knew from the way they talked about it, it was not a good thing, so I didn’t say it — but it was definitely me.” That fits with findings that suggest that people’s sexuality is set by about three years old.

Only the narrowest thinker would say, “Well, that’s just too bad.” The issue cannot be summarily dismissed like that.

Because to restrict the possibility of God’s blessing in a same-sex relationship is not only to say, like the soup nazi on Seinfeld: “No sex for you!” But it is also to say no companion, no life partner, no significant other, no one with whom to share life’s journeys and victories and defeats. That is a very steep price to extract, especially on the basis of 6 verses whose interpretation has been legitimately challenged.

This is the cognitive dissonance I described in Part 1 – the sinful choice of homosexuality vs. my experience of gay people. I understand that we must bear through trials as God conforms us to the image of Christ. That’s what brings growth. But for God to hold people accountable for something with no viable remedy did not fit my understanding of God. So I asked Him to show me.

Over the next several years, God challenged me to look into the verses. I read Love is an Orientation, which first showed me that the verses are in valid dispute. Scholars who have researched the verses, in the original context, suggest an intellectually honest interpretation that is not what we thought. This was news to me — news worth knowing. I didn’t want to believe we’d misinterpreted these verses just so I could be at peace, but because it was true. I wanted to believe it only if it was true.

Then I read Torn. It is the story of Justin Lee, raised Southern Baptist, who believed as he was taught that homosexuality is a sin. Then he discovered he was gay. No abuse in his past, a great relationship with his parents. And all the prayer in the world didn’t change his orientation. Torn tells not only Justin’s story, but his study of the verses involved. I prayed as I read it carefully.

By the end of the book, I had no doubt that the traditional interpretation was flawed. I am not asking you to believe me, agree with me, or take my word for it. I am asking you to look into it for yourself. I won’t make the case myself because I cannot do it as well as it’s already been done; instead I link you to resources. But bear this in mind: unless God has prepared a heart to hear the astoundingly good news of Jesus as Savior, the most persuasive presentation will not convince them. And unless you are open to new information about the interpretation of the 6-7 verses in question, the most persuasive presentation will not sway you.

There are rebuttals. And rebuttals to the rebuttals. (Pick any topic you like, search it on the internet, and you will find rebuttals.) In the end, you must find out what God would show you for yourself. Allow God to lead you through whatever process He wants. And remember that a process, by definition, takes time. Meanwhile I ask you to consider this.

If you stub your toe on a chair, don’t get mad at the chair. If you are uncomfortable that some people are gay, don’t get mad at them. However confused you may be with these ideas, the issue is really between you and God. We can’t pretend judgment and condemnation are tough love when they’re really judgment and condemnation.

One thing is sure: Jesus loves the LGBTQ community. Period. As much as He loves anyone. I pray for His revelation to each of us as we strive to understand His heart and truth.

Filed under: Christian Gay Community

Born that Way? – Part 1

How do some men and some women — even as children — just seem gay? With the mannerisms, voice, overall demeanor? Of course plenty of gay men and women you couldn’t pick out of a crowd. Does this strike you as interesting? A question worth asking?

My haircutter is absolutely flaming. You should see how adorable he is. He dresses like a New Yorker (he’s a Texan) and he told me all about his boyfriend and that they’ve been together four months but that’s like dog-years at their age but they are having so much fun and he hopes they stay together a long long time. I smile and enjoy him. For the life of me I cannot imagine him with a woman. Ever. Gay he is and gay he will ever be.

Gay was much more closeted when I was a teenager. I didn’t even know our neighbor was gay… and he was pretty obvious. I first realized what gay meant when my best friend in high school told me he’d been molested by his Catholic priest and he was gay. For anyone to molest children is tragic, but for a priest in his sacred position to molest boys is unconscionable.

Some years later, Ellen Degeneres talked about her stepfather molesting her as a teenager. As he tried to kick the door down, Ellen had to climb out her bedroom window. The worst part, she said in the interview, was that her mother didn’t believe her.  In my mind, two and two had already added up: being gay comes from wounds in one form or another. I actually went to Ellen’s house in California once, when she performed in a charity event for my husband. I met her roommate and she gestured to the living room, kitchen and the one bedroom. “Oh,” I said, and nodded. She wasn’t yet out of the closet, but it was pretty clear.

Fast-forward to Tina and Michele, a couple we met through Rob’s work with kids with cancer. It had been a big ranch event for all the kids and their families. I loved them right away, and they confessed to me later that they almost didn’t come to this Christian event because they didn’t know if they’d be rejected — as they had been by most Christians they’d met.

I was deeply touched that they felt immediately loved and accepted by Rob and me. They’d experienced plenty of rejection in churches over the years. They recalled their years in the conservative College Station, Texas. “We got out of there as fast as we could,” Tina told me. I was torn about them, because by now, having spent years and years in the church, I knew the church’s position: homosexuality is not okay. What did that mean? For them to find a life in Christ, by the church’s standards, meant come to Jesus, renounce your relationship, divorce and either marry a man or remain alone the rest of your life. Hm. I couldn’t see that. I couldn’t see offering all that as the astoundingly good news of the gospel, of the life in Christ I’d come to know.

It’s irresistibly human to attribute cause for things we don’t understand. We are not comfortable with the unknown, really, and if we can fit this whole issue in a box, then we can be less afraid. I found myself troubled regarding Tina and Michele, that somehow we’d put up unnecessary roadblocks. The gospel says Come to Me all who are weary and I will give you rest. But I felt the church pressing me from behind to say, “Come to Jesus, give up your partner, and hope He changes the sexual attraction you have always felt… if not, you have to be alone. Don’t you want to be a Christian?”

I’m not saying it doesn’t cost us to come to Christ, sometimes it does. But I’m not going to be the one to determine the price. Bring them to Him, let Him work in their lives and hearts–whatever that looks like. One day Michele asked me over lunch, “Do you think our relationship is wrong?” Taken be surprise, I said, “Let me get back to you.” I knew what the church would say. But I also knew I couldn’t say that in good conscience. I didn’t know it to be true.

But something shifted in our relationship that day. She didn’t say it, but I knew she no longer trusted me. I don’t blame her – I didn’t trust me either! What did I know about this journey?

Not to be cliched, but I wanted to know how would Jesus handle this. So I began a search that would not only change the way I looked at this issue, but would deepen my relationship with Christ.

To be continued in part 2.

Filed under: Christian Gay Community

How Do You Love the Gay or Lesbian in Your Life?

“The outstretched arms of Jesus exclude no one, not the drunk in the doorway, the panhandler on the street, gays and lesbians in their isolation, the most selfish and ungrateful in their cocoons, the most unjust of employers and the most overweening of snobs. The love of Christ embraces all without exception.”  Brennan Manning

Someone you love is gay – now what? You know your job is to love, but how do you do it?

In Jesus’ last couple days on earth, He’s having dinner with His guys — a pretty somber time. Just days before His crucifixion, He’s preparing these guys to go on without Him. I give you a new commandment, He says. Just as I have loved you so should you love one another. These are His parting words, and He says, Love one another.

What does it mean, As I have love you? How did Jesus love them? By embracing them. By directing people to Himself. He offered living water. He said that He is the way. He did not correct behavior directly. I know, Christians always point to the woman caught in adultery because He said, Go and leave your life of sin. The point of the story is His redemption. Why aren’t we pointing out that, in fact, He let her go? A capital crime, punishable by death, and He ran off her accusers. I could say much more about that story, but the point is not the parting remark, which really means, You don’t have to live this way. Because people don’t really up and leave a life of sin, do they? Not usually. Sheer willpower does not work well — we see that every January by the New’s Year’s resolutions littering the side of the roads.

No, the example He gives in His interaction with people is that you grow in Him, you know Him more fully, and that stuff that does not suit you falls away. I used to read Nancy Drew as a teenager and someone asked me, “Aren’t you too old for that?” And my wise friend said, “When she’s too old for it she’ll stop reading it.” It was a beautiful trust in unfolding maturity. I also no longer wear clothes I wore as a teenager – they no longer suit me. When you grow in Christ, whatever does not suit you falls away. It stops appealing to you. Isn’t that the beautiful way that Jesus offers us for real transformation? Jesus does not focus on our sin. He focuses on our relationship with Him. Why in the world are we so focused on sin, particularly other people’s sin, instead of relationship with Him? Point people to Him! We do not have to slog away to stop sinning. That never works. Only life in Him brings out in us the best we’re meant to be.

I understand the compulsion to appeal to your gay loved one to change, what with the church breathing down your neck, but such an emphasis is potentially very harmful. (We saw that in Ryan’s story.) And Jesus never told us to do it. I have a much better idea. If you are convinced they are in error, send them to Jesus! If anyone can change them, He can. If He doesn’t, why do you think you should? Let’s refer them to Jesus, and let Him direct as He wants to direct. If you’re wrong about this being changeable or about it being a sin, then it’s better if you don’t direct that person.

We’ll talk more about “ex-gay” ministry, and more about what is sin. Meanwhile we have a lot to focus on just loving each other. Jesus did not say in His final time with His closest friends, I give you a new commandment, love one another, and tell people not to sin. No! I know we have Paul dealing with the church that we use as example, and there’s much more to say about that — about context and dealing with specific issues, and writing to community, and in answer to their questions. (We’ll get to all that.)

Jesus loved people by showing them who He was and their lives were transformed. We need to drive people to Jesus, and let their lives be transformed. And we need to remember that transformation may not look the way we think it should look. And consider that more often than not, we are wrong about how someone else needs to look.

We must be very careful as amateurs messing about with people’s lives, when Jesus said to send them to Him. He doesn’t do behavior modification like we do; He transforms lives!

Filed under: Christian Gay Community

What Do You Do When Your Son is Gay?

“Mom, I’m gay.” Earth-shattering words to a parent — right up there with, “Your child has a brain tumor.” Actually, people will empathize with a brain tumor, but just try telling a Christian friend your child is gay and you will find the wall. It may be gentle, but it’s a wall nonetheless, a standard about how wrong it is and you must hold the line so you don’t “encourage the behavior.”

I do not blame the parents in these situations for one nanosecond. Lord knows, they are trying to respond, with the wind knocked out of them, in an area where the church at large allows no breathing room. Parents blame themselves and Christians blame them. Seriously. No sooner do we hear the g-word than we brace for impact — because we know it’s coming.

This story was posted on FB. My daughter went to school with his brother. The mother, Linda, gave me kind permission to post this  in the hope of impacting lives and preventing tragedy. This is why our response as a Christian community matters. A real person with a real story.

The photo above is of Linda and Ryan Robertson.

Just Because He Breathes

by Linda Mueller Robertson (Notes) on Monday, April 1, 2013 at 12:35am

Written on December 5th, 2012

First posted on January 14, 2013 – Ryan’s would-have-been-24 birthday

On the night of November 20, 2001, a conversation held over Instant Messenger changed our lives forever. Our twelve year old son messaged me in my office from the computer in his bedroom.

Ryan says: can i tell u something

Mom says: Yes I am listening

Ryan says: well i don’t know how to say this really but, well……, i can’t keep lying to you about myself. I have been hiding this for too long and i sorta have to tell u now. By now u probably have an idea of what i am about to say.

Ryan says: I am gay

Ryan says: i can’t believe i just told you

Mom says: Are you joking?

Ryan says: no

Ryan says: i thought you would understand because of uncle don

Mom says: of course I would

Mom says: but what makes you think you are?

Ryan says: i know i am

Ryan says: i don’t like hannah

Ryan says: it’s just a cover-up

Mom says: but that doesn’t make you gay…

Ryan says: i know

Ryan says: but u don’t understand

Ryan says: i am gay

Mom says: tell me more

Ryan says: it’s just the way i am and it’s something i know

Ryan says: u r not a lesbian and u know that it is the same thing

Mom says: what do you mean?

Ryan says: i am just gay

Ryan says: i am that

Mom says: I love you no matter what

Ryan says: i am white not black

Ryan says: i know

Ryan says: i am a boy not a girl

Ryan says: i am attracted to boys not girls

Ryan says: u know that about yourself and i know this

Mom says: what about what God thinks about acting on these desires?

Ryan says: i know

Mom says: thank you for telling me

Ryan says: and i am very confused about that right now

Mom says: I love you more for being honest

Ryan says: i know

Ryan says: thanx

We were completely shocked. Not that we didn’t know and love gay people – my only brother had come out to us several years before, and we adored him. But Ryan? He was unafraid of anything, tough as nails, and ALL boy. We had not seen this coming, and the emotion that overwhelmed us, kept us awake at night and, sadly, influenced all of our reactions over the next six years, was FEAR.

We said all the things that we thought loving Christian parents who believed the Bible to be the Word of God should say:

We love you. We will ALWAYS love you. And this is hard. REALLY hard. But we know what God says about this, and so you are going to have to make some really difficult choices.

We love you. But there are other men who have faced this same struggle, and God has worked in them to change their desires. We’ll get you their books…you can listen to their testimonies. And we will trust God with this.

We love you. But you are young, and your sexual orientation is still developing. The feelings you’ve had for other guys don’t make you gay. So please don’t tell anyone that you ARE gay. You don’t know who you are yet. Your identity is not that you are gay – it is that you are a child of God.

We love you. We will ALWAYS love you. But if you are going to follow Jesus, holiness is your only option. You are going to have to choose to follow Jesus, no matter what. And since you know what the Bible says, and since you want to follow God, embracing your sexuality is NOT an option.

Basically, we told our son that he had to choose between Jesus and his sexuality. We forced him to make a choice between God and being a sexual person. Choosing God, practically, meant living a lifetime of loneliness (never to fall in love, have his first kiss, hold hands, share intimacy companionship, experience romance), but it also meant the abundant life, perfect peace and eternal rewards.  So, for the first six years, he tried to choose Jesus. Like so many others before him, he pleaded with God to help him be attracted to girls. He memorized Scripture, met with his youth pastor weekly, enthusiastically participated in all the church youth group events and Bible Studies, got baptized, read all the books that claimed to know where his gay feelings came from, dove into counseling to further discover the “why’s” of his unwanted attraction to other guys, worked through painful conflict resolution with my husband and I, and built strong friendships with other guys – straight guys – just like he was told to. He even came out to his entire youth group, giving his testimony of how God had rescued him from the traps of the enemy, and sharing – by memory – verse after verse that God had used to draw Ryan to Himself.

But nothing changed. God didn’t answer his prayer – or ours – though we were all believing with faith that the God of the Universe – the God for whom NOTHING is impossible – could easily make Ryan straight. But He did not.

Though our hearts may have been good (we truly thought what we were doing was loving), we did not even give Ryan a chance to wrestle with God, to figure out what HE believed God was telling him through scripture about his sexuality. We had believed firmly in giving each of our four children the space to question Christianity, to decide for themselves if they wanted to follow Jesus, to truly OWN their own faith. But we were too afraid to give Ryan that room when it came to his sexuality, for fear that he’d make the wrong choice.

And so, just before his 18th birthday, Ryan, depressed, suicidal, disillusioned and convinced that he would never be able to be loved by God, made a new choice. He decided to throw out his Bible and his faith at the same time, and to try searching for what he desperately wanted – peace – another way. And the way he chose to try first was drugs.

We had – unintentionally – taught Ryan to hate his sexuality. And since sexuality cannot be separated from the self, we had taught Ryan to hate himself. So as he began to use drugs, he did so with a recklessness and a lack of caution for his own safety that was alarming to everyone who knew him.

Suddenly our fear of Ryan someday having a boyfriend (a possibility that honestly terrified me) seemed trivial in contrast to our fear of Ryan’s death, especially in light of his recent rejection of Christianity, and his mounting anger at God.

Ryan started with weed and beer…but in six short months was using cocaine, crack and heroin. He was hooked from the beginning, and his self-loathing and rage at God only fueled his addiction. Shortly after, we lost contact with him. For the next year and a half we didn’t know where he was, or even if he was dead or alive. And during that horrific time, God had our full attention. We stopped praying for Ryan to become straight. We started praying for him to know that God loved him. We stopped praying for him never to have a boyfriend. We started praying that someday he’d come back to Jesus. We even stopped praying for him to come home to us…we only wanted him to come home to God.

By the time our son called us, after 18 long months of silence, God had completely changed our perspective. Because Ryan had done some pretty terrible things while using drugs, the first thing he asked me was this:

Do you think you can ever forgive me? (I told him of course, he was already forgiven. He had ALWAYS been forgiven.)

Do you think you could ever love me again? (I told him that we had never stopped loving him, not for one second. We loved him then more than we had ever loved him.)

Do you think you could even love me with a boyfriend? (Crying, I told him that we could love him with fifteen boyfriends. We just wanted him back in our lives. We just wanted to have a relationship with him again…AND with his boyfriend.)

And a new journey was begun. One of healing, restoration, open communication and grace. LOTS of grace. And God was present every step of the way, leading and guiding us, gently reminding us simply to love our son, and leave the rest up to Him.

Over the next ten months, we learned to love our son. Period. No buts. No conditions. Just because he breathes. We learned to love whoever our son loved. And it was easy. What I had been so afraid of became a blessing. The journey wasn’t without mistakes, but we had grace for each other, and the language of apology and forgiveness became a natural part of our relationship. As our son pursued recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, we pursued him. God taught us how to love him, to rejoice over him, to be proud of the man he was becoming. We were all healing…and most importantly, Ryan began to think that if WE could forgive him and love him, then maybe God could, too.

And then Ryan made the classic mistake of a recovering addict…he got back together with his old friends…his using friends. And one evening that was supposed to simply be a night at the movies turned out to be the first time he had shot up in ten months…and the last time. Ryan died on July 16, 2009. And we lost the ability to love our gay son…because we no longer had a gay son. What we had wished for…prayed for…hoped for…that we would NOT have a gay son, came true. But not at all in the way we used to envision.

Now, when I think back on the fear that governed all my reactions during those first six years after Ryan told us he was gay, I cringe as I realize how foolish I was. I was afraid of all the wrong things. And I grieve, not only for my oldest son, who I will miss every day for the rest of my life, but for the mistakes I made. I grieve for what could have been, had we been walking by FAITH instead of by FEAR. Now, whenever Rob and I join our gay friends for an evening, I think about how much I would love to be visiting with Ryan and his partner over dinner. But instead, we visit Ryan’s gravestone. We celebrate anniversaries: the would-have-been birthdays and the unforgettable day of his death. We wear orange – his color. We hoard memories: pictures, clothing he wore, handwritten notes, lists of things he loved, tokens of his passions, recollections of the funny songs he invented, his Curious George and baseball blankey, anything, really, that reminds us of our beautiful boy…for that is all we have left, and there will be no new memories.  We rejoice in our adult children, and in our growing family as they marry…but ache for the one of our “gang of four” who is missing. We mark life by the days BC (before coma) and AD (after death), because we are different people now; our life was irrevocably changed – in a million ways – by his death. We treasure friendships with others who “get it”…because they, too, have lost a child.

We weep. We seek Heaven for grace and mercy and redemption as we try – not to get better but to be better. And we pray that God can somehow use our story to help other parents learn to truly love their children. Just because they breathe.

Linda Diane Robertson

robertson.family@frontier.com

Written on December 5th, 2012

Posted on January 14, 2013 – Ryan’s would-have-been-24 birthday

Filed under: Christian Gay Community