Forums

16, gay male, Pentecostal/Charismatic background

Page:   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
 
 

gettingthere
 
Joined in 2008
October 12, 2009, 21:37

I decided that since it has been one year since I first posted on F2b that I should make a timeline to document important events that have happened in my life since that time and a few months before. Some of the dates and memories might be a bit faded, but I did my best to make this as accurate as possible.


2008

Summer 2008 – I return from a summer vacation where I was forced to attend 3 days of counseling under the urging of my parents and their ministry leaders. The ironic thing is that my counselor was, up to this point, the most encouraging and supportive person I had ever met in person in regards to my sexuality and he encouraged me to not let the issue of my orientation separate me from God’s love.


August – Begin junior year of high school.


August – First meet JH. I know that I talk about Spur like he’s my first supportive straight guy friend, but JH actually preceded him. The main problem with our relationship though was JH’s personal problems made it difficult for us to spend time together. He would eventually leave the school and return to his home country after only a few months. In spite of all this, we still keep in contact.


October – My dad and I begin e-mail correspondence concerning my sexuality. The tone is generally diplomatic. The correspondence lasts for only a short time.


Oct. 10 – Although I had known of him for a while, this is the first time I contact AVB. His reply prompts me to join the F2b forum.



*OCT. 12, 2008 – first post on F2b


November – I have a talk with my Bible teacher and, later in the month, my dad about my orientation. Overall, these are good experiences. However, after this, my parents once again enter a period of silence. From here on out, the only time my homosexuality is ever mentioned (rare) is in a negative way.


Dec. 15 – One of many low days. During an emotional down point, I make my ‘responsibility’ post on F2b, saying how I feel personally responsible for how terrible I had been feeling recently. These low points came fairly often, as they do to every teenager, however the added stress of feeling unable to discuss it openly made these times almost unbearable.


2009

January – I turn 17. I have never once attempted suicide and aside from a stress-triggered struggle I had with OCD (trichotillomania), I have never self-injured. God is looking out for me.


January – Beginning of 2nd semester marks the beginning of Drama class, the first class I have with Spur. This is the first time that we really do anything together. The two of us also end up joining the school play later in the year where we get to spend even more time together.


February – During a school retreat event, my ex-best friend points at me, laughs, and says ‘homosexual’ to a guy who I once told her that I liked. I confront her about this later. She says she doesn’t know what I am talking about. Sure.


March – Another downturn, brought about due to an extreme fear I had of a perceived persecution I’d receive during a Bible class on the topic of God’s design for the family. I spend weeks in anxiety over the upcoming class. Several times, I imagine myself committing suicide because of it.


March – I decide on attending a college in Canada instead of the States. Part of the reason I had wanted to attend a college in the States was it’d put me geographically farther from my family. If accepted, this decision will put me only a few minutes away from my brother’s Bible school. He is not accepting and we didn’t get along very well, so I am apprehensive, but I won’t let that deter me from going to this college.


April (possibly. Actual date uncertain) – While in the lunch line, my ex-best friend comes up to me and says simply “Lev. 18:22” to me in front of the entire school. I control myself right then and don’t make an issue of it, but afterwards, I go off by myself and cry. Again I confront her about it and this time she says she doesn’t care about how she made me feel because she was “right”. Whatever.


April – We have the dreaded class on God’s design for the family. I am nervous throughout it, but find it goes by okay. Although I find ignorant attacks on gay people are made throughout the Bible course (vast majority of the time by other students, not the curriculum or teacher), I maintain my composure and nothing bad happens to me. Thank God. The period of time between the time I realized this course was coming up to the time that the course was over was very likely the most suicidal I had ever been after I came out.


May 14, 2009 – This day marks the 2nd anniversary of my coming out to my parents. I spend it doing something I love with people I care about at the dress rehearsal for the school play. My world didn’t totally cave in after all.


Summer 2009 – Went to Canada. Horrid summer vacation overall, I’d say, but one significant thing that happened was I was able to go to a public library that had a number of gay themed books. I read a few of them and fulfilled a wish I long had of reading positive gay literature.


August – Begin senior year of high school. Spur and I have the same Study Hall period, so we end up getting to see each other regularly everyday.


September – I finally recognize Spur as a best friend. Over and over again, I find that I had misjudged him based on the labels that he had given to himself. I find him instead to be compassionate, understanding, and accepting. He is unable to bring himself to support me 100% due to his upbringing, but I know that he is trying his best to not let that come between us. He could’ve easily rejected me, but he accepted me instead. Given how different he is from me on almost every conceivable level, I appreciate his friendship that much more.


September – I come out to another friend. I was a bit nervous about this since I didn’t want to risk losing her as a friend, but she tells me she figured I was gay since the first time that we met. Okay, then. I guess I got all nervous about nothing.


Sept. 20 – I admit to Spur that I had fallen for him. He responds very well. Absolutely nothing changes. If anything, I discovered that my faith in Spur was well-placed.


Sept. 22 – Begin compiling this timeline. 🙂


Sept. 23 – First time I openly talk about being gay during school, in response to one of my friends telling me to do so. Practically the whole school already knows I am gay, but this is the first time I speak about it so publicly and openly. It happens in Study Hall and my orientation is generally received as being puzzling but not a big deal. I wanted to say a bit more than I actually did on the topic, but held myself back. I resolve that if it comes up again, I will be even more open.


Oct. 12 – One year ago, I posted on this forum. At the time I had been out of the closet for only a year and a half. Thankfully, I found this site and knowing that I had a community of people who cared for me helped me get through some tough times in my life. By this time next year, I plan to be in college in Canada, starting a whole new chapter of life. I’m thankful to this community for strengthening me as I carry on to bring this current chapter to a close. My prayer is that someone, somewhere will be inspired by me and realize that coming out doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the world and that as long as you hold on and keep the faith, there will be a light at the end of tunnel yet. 🙂 Thank you God for being so good to me!



Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
October 12, 2009, 21:53

and being with you on this journey getting there we have a real love for you and care for you very much. when you are not able to post for some time we miss your input…..I always love reading your posts. We are the blessed ones having you here with us.


I have created timelines as well at times. I had to do one for my book….but actually did it in the final stages as I was getting confused with dates.


reading through your posts…..I realise somewhere I missed that you had moved to Canada for your schooling……how did I miss that. thought you were still in that country with your parents…..or am I still missing something here. 😥


BTW…I use excel for my timelines….did you.



Shane Cathcart
Event Coordinator
Joined in 2009
October 12, 2009, 22:23

I think you already inspire people just by telling your story, as we all hope we can do. You’re an awesome young man with great strength, and you should be proud of who you are, who you will become and the great future you will build for yourself. There is so much life to experience, and you are just on the beginning of the adventure.


It’s my greatest hope that at the end of my life I can say as it does in 2 Timothy 4: 7


“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”



gettingthere
 
Joined in 2008
October 13, 2009, 23:27

reading through your posts…..I realise somewhere I missed that you had moved to Canada for your schooling……how did I miss that. thought you were still in that country with your parents…..or am I still missing something here. 😥


BTW…I use excel for my timelines….did you.


Sorry, I meant this time NEXT YEAR I will be in Canada, I was looking ahead to where I plan to be at this time one year from now. So I’m still here in the sunny Philippines for maybe eight months more or so. So far it looks like I’ll be out of here by June 2010. Praying I get accepted and dreaming of being able to be a positive influence at my future Christian college. Would love to be able to organize a gay students group or take a bunch of students up to a pride parade in Vancouver or something like that. So many amazing opportunities to bring understanding between the gay and Christian community… super excited! 😀 First I thought I had to go to a secular school, because I thought that was the only place I’d be accepted, then I realized that wasn’t necessarily true, there is no guarantee a non-Christian is going to be any more accepting of a gay person than a Christian is. Secondly, I decided my faith was too important for me to miss out on an opportunity to go to college in a Christian environment solely because I feared rejection. And thirdly, I figured that Christian colleges are probably one of the best places ever to be, as AVB calls it, a gay ambassador. It’s just full of Christian young people, the future leaders of the world, who come there expressly to learn and open their minds to new ideas. Over and over again, they are challenged to listen to new points of view. If there is a more perfect opportunity to live out a message of reconciliation between the church and the gay community, I don’t know what it is.


And I actually used my e-mail account to write the timeline, I wrote it in a draft and then copy and pasted it here. I find e-mail drafts are a good way to write things or keep lists, because you can access them pretty easily and only I can see them because only I have the password to my account. So as long as you don’t accidentally send them, it’s all good. 🙂



Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
October 13, 2009, 23:42

how exciting for you gettingthere…..now I’ll have to rack my brains to see who I know in Vancouver. Not only am I a gay ambassador as you are…..I’m a connector according to the book The Tipping Point…..hehe.



gettingthere
 
Joined in 2008
October 14, 2009, 00:21

Well, once I’m settled in and get some things figured out, I’ll be already to go. Don’t want to be presumptuous about anything… haven’t even been accepted yet, hopefully I will hear back from the school by November. And by the way, I won’t actually be in Vancouver, but maybe an hour or so away from it and I can’t drive/refuse to buy a car. (Public transportation for the win.) Definitely though, once everything is figured out and I’ve got the basics worked out, if you know of any people who can assist me, I’d be glad to know about them. I still have to go to college and probably have two jobs and who knows what else I’ll be involved with… well it’s good for me to look ahead to think about what skills I need to have to survive in that environment and then begin developing those skills right now. 🙂 But what I’m saying is I think it’d be a bit silly to pop in out of nowhere and say “I’m a gay ambassador, listen to me!” when they don’t even know me and have no compelling reason to trust me. Plus, then I’d be labeled as somebody with an agenda to push or even a troublemaker, and that’s not how I see myself. But if I show them who I am first, then they will be more interested in hearing my message. So I’m not going to go full-throttle on that right away, but I’ll just be watching and relating and learning before I do anything serious. Timing is key.



Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
October 14, 2009, 00:33

just by being you….you authentic lovely genuine self….you will be a great gay ambassador….no announcement necessary.


2 Corinthians 3: 1 Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! 2 The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. 3 Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.


2 Corinthians 5: 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”



gettingthere
 
Joined in 2008
October 24, 2009, 01:39

If you are reading this please be praying for me.


After about a year of my parents and I simply not at all talking about the issue and after having nothing but negative reactions from them whenever I did, I am finally going to try to re-open this topic of my orientation. The fact is that Ps. Rob Buckingham’s sermon is simply so perfect of an opportunity for me to try to get through to my dad that it would be foolish for me to pass it up. The thing is that for a long time I had simply given up entirely on trying to talk to my parents about this based on their reactions to me. My mom (who among other things, continually yelled hurtful phrases at me, apologized months later for doing so, and then UNAPOLOGIZED to me when I told her later that I was not going to change) and my dad (who explicitly told me that he did not have to listen to me because he was the dad and I was the son) basically both freaked out on me and then afterwards the issue seemed to simply vanish into nothingness. It was like they were sad that I was gay and then all of a sudden everything was cheery in the world again. But I know it didn’t really just disappear, because I’ve overheard my dad talking about me to other people in the past, using words like “We’re dealing with it” or “the problem” to describe his own son. The whole situation was utterly disturbing. I came out May 14, 2007 and I can assure that absolutely none of the pain and anguish my parents inflicted on me by their refusal to accept me and for their treating me like a problem that needed to be fixed, I can assure you that none of that from the months and months since I came out has been dealt with, at least not as a family. Whenever we talked about it, it was always in the context of trying to convince me to change and when I said I would not (or could not) they accused me of being stubborn or rebellious.


If I could compare it to a board game, my parents and I have been on square one for the past two years. I basically feel like I have to come out to them again. And the first time I came out to them was easily the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me.


I’m not comfortable doing this! As I said I had given up on my parents and I’m sure that based on what I have said above you can understand why. My plan was to not say anything about it and just wait around until I final got to leave the house. But I know that if anything is ever going to change it’s going to have to be me who takes the first step. I’m so scared that my dad will just respond the same way he’s responded every other time we’ve ever talked about this. So please pray for me! I need courage to do this. And I want you all to be aware of this so that I can have people to talk with about the outcome, whether good or bad. I hope to do this tomorrow night… please pray for me!



Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
October 24, 2009, 10:32

will be thinking of you gettingthere…..and praying for a positive outcome.


think about what would be little wins……you might not get the big one this time…..what would be some little wins that would make you feel more at peace.???



Myfanwe
 
Joined in 2007
October 24, 2009, 11:00

I’ll be thinking of you, and sending up some good thoughts.

Hope things go well for you.


Page:   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
 
WP Forum Server by ForumPress | LucidCrew
Version: 99.9; Page loaded in: 0.215 seconds.