Memories, Prayers, and a Healing Blessing
Graphic by Jerilyn Pool
In November 2015, the church issued an exclusive policy regarding LGBTQ+ families and their children. You may remember the perspectives of queer women, women in mixed-orientation-marriages, women who are daughters of queer parents, and many more which were shared in response to this change. Pain was processed as poetry and prose for months afterward. The Spring 2016 issue of Exponent II magazine was dedicated to this topic.
We wept then with our LGBTQ+ siblings, and we weep again today. We join with many others in the expressions of gratitude and relief for the rescinding of this harmful policy. After years of tearful prayers, of struggling to know the will of God and the process of revelation to church leaders, it will be seen as an answer for many. For others, it has come too late to un-do the damage, the lives lost, the souls wounded. We honor your emotions, from anger and rage to faith and hope, and hold space for the expression of those feelings. We honor your experiences of pain and heartache, as well as faith and longsuffering.
As our pioneer foremothers of old who anointed with oil to heal the sick and injured, we likewise offer our healing blessing to the many families and individuals who have been harmed by this policy in the last 3.5 years. We bless you in your grief and struggle. We bless you for the ways you have wrestled with God for your very identities and for the salvation of your relationships. We pray for blessings of strength and love to fill your minds, and bring you peace. We bless your wounded hearts to be shown overflowing love and charity by those around you, that such pure love may be a balm to strengthen relationships and forge connection. We bless your voice, your words, that they may carry loud and long as you share your place as a child in God’s kingdom. We bless the hearts of the membership of the Church to be turned toward gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned. We pray for the spirit of repentance to be with those who have judged and condemned. We plea for forgiveness from those who have been wronged and harmed by this policy, and we pledge our words and our work to stand by you. We love and affirm you just as you are, just as God created you. May all God’s blessings come to you, bringing you the fullness of joy and possibility you desire, and may we ever advocate and work for you until that day.
— Your Sisters at Exponent II
