Greetings in the Awesome Name of Jesus!
I was raised fundamentalist, came out when I was 13, and then spent many years away from God and hating the guts out of anything Christian. I was awash in suicidal depression, rage, loneliness, and more — so much that sometimes I thought I wouldn’t be able to draw in another breath. It was all that heavy on my heart.
But though it all, whether I recognized it or not, I still had an immense draw towards God. Over 25 years, I tried so hard to make that go away!
I tried atheism (God hates me?? Well, I’ll just hate Him back!!). Didn’t work.
I tried therapy (perhaps my want of God is a mental illness???). Didn’t work.
I tried (for a short time) pagan religions (but if I can’t believe in God, how in the world can I believe in witchipoo???). Didn’t work.
I tried zen buddhism (ah! a religion without a god! This might just work!). Nope, didn’t work.
So I wandered without anything for some time, lost, depressed, hopeless.
Then one day I snuck into an empty church, and I sat in a pew and I talked to God. I didn’t even remember anymore how to pray. So I just talked, and cried, and talked, and cried. And I said, “Why do You keep calling me, when You don’t WANT me???”
And I heard God answer back, “It was never ME that didn’t want you.”
I wish I could say that all was rosey and beautiful after that. But I can’t. I had SO much pain, and SO much hate, that I had to take a lot of teeny little baby steps to begin bringing Christianity back into my life.
I wish I had had help at the time (a place like this, for example), and then I might have figured things out more quickly than I did. As it was, I took another few years to release a good deal of that hate and pain.
One of the things that helped me was that God led me at last to a gay pentecostal minister online, and he not only helped me finally resolve being gay and christian, but he also helped me understand and open up to the other parts of my spiritual nature I’d been missing (like being Spirit-filled).
Another thing that helped me was a little gay charismatic church here locally. Within a year or so, it went defunct and everyone scattered. It was SO wonderful to worship in the Spirit with others!
God has blessed me SO much in all of this. I say that even though I still haven’t found everything I’m wanting. I had a split with my online gay pentecostal church because some believed I should remain separate from non-Spirit-led Christians. I believed if we did that, then where would people like me find the truth???
And, as I mentioned, the local gay charismatic church went under, and I have found no replacement for it in the years since. There are gay and straight churches here who welcome gay people — but they are all liberal theology and non-Spirit-led. Neither feeds me anymore than going to Walmart does (no disrespect meant to anyone else — that’s just what doesn’t work for me).
So the Lord is good, even when things are bittersweet. Who in the Bible among God’s people didn’t learn “bittersweet” the hard way? Perhaps some time I will find a local spiritual family to worship and fellowship with, but until then I just remain with the Lord, doing my best to follow and serve Him, and hoping to always do better for Him, in the future!
God bless you, my sisters and brothers!
Link
|
