Homosexuality

Will you go with me?…

/ Lesa / 6 Comments

One of the things I like about Facebook is staying in touch with childhood friends.  It really feels like it was just yesterday that we were all together. Really…it feels like it wasn’t that long ago.  The fact that my son is at the age I was when I got married gets me every time I think about it.  How does that happen?!  If you have little ones, cherish every moment because it goes so much faster than you can even imagine.

One of the groups I belong to on Facebook is from my neighborhood in the city where I grew up.  They have postings about the progress they are making on a new rec center.  When I was growing up, the rec center had dances every Friday night that my friends and I would go to.  There was great music, dancing contests and pizza.  What more could you ask for? (smile) The dances ended at 9pm and at that age I thought I was sooo grown up being out “that late”.  It was during my junior high years (6th-8th grade).

Seeing those posts about the rec center bring back a lot of good memories. One memory is of my first “boyfriend” (I use the term loosely).  I was in the 7th grade and back then we called it “going together”.  If you were going with a boy, it meant that you liked each other and would go to the dances at the rec center together and that was it.  Nothing serious…we were just babies.  I’ll never forget when my mom found out I was going with a boy in my class.  It was during one of our school plays.  The mom of the boy I was going with actually went to school with my mom and they were chatting after the play. His mom mentioned that we were going together. My poor mom wasn’t familiar with the term and asked “Where are they going?”…lol.  Logical question…it is a strange term for dating.  Believe me there were a lot of questions when we got home about what “going together” actually meant.

When a boy asked a girl to go together, it was a very technical process.  It went something like this:

Go with me

A folded piece of notebook paper passed from one student to the next (in the middle of class – secretly of course) until it made it’s way to the girl he liked.  She would answer and then pass the note back.

These are memories that make me smile.  We were so young and it was so exciting to know that someone liked you. Imagine for a moment of what that was like for you.  The butterflies in your stomach, the chats with friends, the nervousness of wondering if the person you liked had the same feelings for you.  Now imagine for a moment if the feelings you had caused confusion.  What if you liked someone of the same-sex?  What is up with that?  Instead of the magic of young infatuation, you had feelings of shame, fear, and self-hatred.  What if you grew up in the church and you knew what the Bible said about homosexuality.  You pray and pray for the feelings to go away…but they don’t. Where is God??  Why isn’t He helping you?  You go to church, pray, study the Bible…but it doesn’t seem to help.  You don’t send any folded notes…and if you receive one…you don’t know what to do.  What if someone finds out?  You begin to shut down and tell yourself that there is no way anyone would ever like you.

These are some of the feelings that gay youth experience.  I know that it isn’t that way for everyone…and I am grateful for that.  But for many…more than you can imagine…the experience of puberty is a painful one.  They would do anything for those feelings to change.  My son tried for 3 years to deal with his feelings on his own before we found out.  Our journey was difficult and often times very scary.  I will be sharing that journey in hopes that other parents can find hope in it as we are all doing much better now.

Yield – to produce or provide something…

/ Lesa / 2 Comments

This fall our pastor is doing a message series on love.  I’ve been enjoying the series because hey…love matters (smile).  He has talked about loving relationships, loving ourselves, loving others, and this Sunday he will be talking about loving our enemies.  We talked about that in staff this Tuesday (I work for my church).  Since our meeting, I’ve been thinking about enemies.  Do I have any?  Well at times my body feels like my enemy.  With headaches, unexplained fevers, chronic fatigue, and joint pain…there are days where I feel like I’m in a battle with myself.  But what about other people?  I wanted to find out exactly what the definition of enemy is so I looked it up…not that I didn’t already know what enemy meant…I just like to look up words to see the exact definition to make sure I completely understand what the word means.  This is what Webster had to say:

en·e·my

noun \ˈe-nə-mē\

: someone who hates another : someone who attacks or tries to harm another

: something that harms or threatens someone or something

: a group of people (such as a nation) against whom another group is fighting a war

Pretty much what I thought.  I can’t specifically remember any, but I’m sure when I was younger there were people I would consider my enemy.  I know that there were people who considered me their enemy.  Growing up our neighborhood was divided by railroad tracks.  I lived on one side, but had friends who lived on the other side so I would hang out with them over there.  I dated a guy “from the other side of the tracks” and apparently the girls who lived there didn’t appreciate me “coming into their territory”.  His ex-girlfriend let me know that when she sucker punched me coming out of a store one day.  It got to the point where I would have to call my mom to come pick me up because there would be a gang of girls on the corner waiting for me and I couldn’t walk home. Crazy!  But I really don’t ever remember hating someone…disliking yes, but hating is such a strong word to me.

I did a search on enemy and found this:

yieldIt reminds me of the passage Matthew 5:43-44:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

I came across another blog the other day and I think it’s one of the reasons this enemy thing has been stuck in my head.  It was written by a Christian mother whose son was gay.  She and her husband told their son that they loved him, but there was always a “but” attached to their statement.  “We love you, but what you are doing is a sin.” “We love you, but our church doesn’t agree with your lifestyle – it’s embarrassing.”…the same message…just different ways of saying it. Their son committed suicide.  He never felt truly loved by his parents. The parents realized that how they handled their son was wrong and she is trying to make it right by writing a blog.  This poor mother gets hate mail from other gay people who tell her that she killed her son.  I can’t even begin to imagine the horror of receiving those letters/comments.  She also gets negative posts from conservative Christians because she is speaking out about how she and her husband have changed their thoughts about their son’s homosexuality.  This really makes me so sad. Especially since it could have been my story.  My son was suicidal and the fact that this family is getting “persecuted” from both sides of the fence is just heart breaking.

I found it very interesting that the statement above “Love your enemies…no exceptions” is written on a yield sign (well sort of – that was the first thought I had when I saw it so I went with it).  So, you guessed it…I looked up the word yield and this is what Webster had to say about it:

yield

verb \ˈyēld\

: to produce or provide (something, such as a plant or crop)

: to produce (something) as a result of time, effort, or work

: to produce (a profit, an amount of money, etc.)

So maybe this love thing takes time, effort, and work.  Just maybe putting forth that effort will produce understanding.  Stop arguing…stop trying to prove you are right when maybe you don’t know all the circumstances.  Another definition of yield is to surrender or submit to another.  I think it’s time we surrender all this hate and learn to have empathy for one another.  It’s ok to not agree, but it’s not ok to hate.

Just some late night thoughts…love your enemies…because love matters.

yield signPS:  In case you know me personally and are now afraid to drive with me, I want to reassure you that I know what a yield sign looks like (smile).  I was really tired when I did this post and yield sign is what popped into my head…it wasn’t until I was finished the post that it dawned on me that it wasn’t.  Sheesh!  Something else you should know about me…when I’m tired my brain squishes words together.  I will be searching for the right word and my brain will take two words and put them together.  For instance, it will take snippet and tidbit and it becomes snidbit.  Hopefully none of those will sneak in here, but consider this fair warning (smile).

I shouldn’t be allowed on here today…

/ Lesa / 11 Comments

So I googled the word frustrated tonight and this is one of the pictures I found:

frustrated-baby

I have to admit…it made me feel a little bit better.  Look at that face!  I had a post all ready to go for today.  I wrote it yesterday.  I usually pray before, during, and after a post before I actually “publish” it.  I finished it pretty late last night and wanted to sleep on it before posting it today.  I got sidetracked this morning by an article someone posted about the church and gay people.  There were a slew of comments after the article.  I have to tell you…reading those comments I was ashamed to call myself a Christian.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it…and it made my heart heavy.

There is nothing wrong with having a strong opinion.  There is nothing wrong with standing up for what you believe in and being very passionate about it.  It is, however, wrong to tear other people down when discussing your stance on something.  The name calling and strong language is just wrong.  The funny thing is that the people who have the strongest opinions assume a lot (you can tell by what they say) and they really have NO CLUE what they are talking about.

When I read posts like I did today, it always makes me question if I’m doing the right thing by having this blog.  Is this really what God wants me to do?  Did I hear Him right?  Will it ever really make a difference?  As I was pondering these questions, God showed me these verses (in the translation that I have listed):

1 Timothy 1:12 – New American Standard Bible (NASB)

12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service,

Zephaniah 3:17 – New International Version (NIV)

17 The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Thank you for the reminders Lord.  This was the verse He led me to before I started the blog:

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 – The Message (MSG)

13-14 Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.

As the Tenth Avenue North song says…”Empty my hands, fill up my heart, capture my mind with you”

I’m going to keep on keeping on….

Love each other…you know why (smile)

In Christ Alone…

/ Lesa / 5 Comments

Did you ever have rituals at bedtime as a kid?  You know, the kind that you felt kept the scary monsters away?

scared kid

For me it was the running, flying, leap into bed.  Somehow I thought if my feet didn’t come near the floor of my bed, the scary monsters underneath of it couldn’t get me.  I also thought if I kept completely covered by my blankets (just my head sticking out), they wouldn’t be able to see me and if they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t get me.   When I was really little, I watched the Wizard of Oz and those darn monkeys scared the heck out of me. My mom had to create what she called “monkey spray” to spray away all the monkeys so they wouldn’t get me while I slept.  It’s funny how kids minds work.

I was reminded of these things yesterday.  The things that scared me as a kid…and the things that scare me today.  And yesterday was a pretty scary day.  I went to church like I do every Sunday.  Only this particular Sunday was the first Sunday after my blog went public.  The proverbial cat was out of the bag.  Now I know my entire church has not read my blog… I have no idea who has read it really.  But since I posted it on FaceBook I know that some people from church have seen it.  So, to walk into church was a little scary.  I know how some people feel about this topic so I wasn’t sure what response I would get from them.  I’m happy to report it went really well.  Not because of anyone’s particular response towards me (no one said anything about it at all), but because I felt so FREE!  I finally felt authentic, genuine, REAL. It wasn’t that I was trying to be fake before… I wanted to share this a long time ago, but God’s timing is perfect. And He gave me His perfect peace yesterday.  I felt and still feel so blessed.  Thank you Lord that the tears I’ve cried have blossomed into something I never thought possible.

Our worship team sang, In Christ Alone by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend (one of my favorites).  The first verse spoke to me so much yesterday:

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

Amen and Amen!

And just think… if it was scary for me to walk into church yesterday…how do you think a gay person might feel walking into a church?

Poked with a stick…

/ Lesa / 6 Comments

Have you ever seen a hornets nest?  They are the strangest looking, most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen an insect make and they can get really big.  We had one several years ago in a tree a few feet from our front door.  It was really weird because as big as it was, we didn’t see it right away.  We just happened to notice what looked like a face in our tree.  Creepy!

It looked something like this:

hornet nestDoesn’t it look kind of look like a face screaming in the tree!  It was freaky.  So what do you do when you have a hornets nest in your tree? It was really big and my husband is not a big fan of bees so we called an exterminator. I was really curious about how the exterminator  was going to deal with it, but he told me to stand back.  He then went to his truck and got a stick.  When I saw that, I thought “are you kidding me??”  I went up on my front porch where I could still see, but had an escape. He took the stick and poked the nest, and then ran like a little girl to his truck.  The hornets were swarming everywhere.  I of course ran into the house.  I peeked out the living room curtain and I saw him in his truck on the phone.  I guess he wasn’t an expert in hornets nests and was getting some advice.  He came out of his truck with a can of spray that had a really far reach.  He was able to stand back and he sprayed the heck out of the nest.  The hornets eventually either flew away or died and he was able to take the nest out of the tree.

So why a story about our hornets nest?  Well, I guess because I feel like I’m poking the Christian community with a stick.  I’m tackling a subject that can be touchy in the church.  And I guess I just want to put it out there that I am totally for Big “C” church…meaning the Body of Christ…not just my home church.  I feel like I’m being led to write this blog to reach out to the church and let people know that sometimes the way some Christians handle this subject is very hurtful.  There have been times that I’ve been with friends or in a Bible study where someone would say that “gay people are freaks”, or that “God should strike them all dead”, or it didn’t matter what their own sin was…”they could never forgive that sin”.  Well, all I can say is I’m glad they aren’t God (smile). None of these people knew that my son was gay… and they were part of the reason I didn’t tell most people. It was like being sprayed with judgement and if my faith wasn’t strong… I would have left the church like the bees left their nest.  When they said those things, they were talking about my son.  I was listening to those comments and then going home and some nights staying up all night with him so he wouldn’t kill himself because he didn’t want to have those attractions.

I forgave those people because I knew it came from a place of ignorance; they didn’t really understand what it was like… how could they?  I’m not here to debate.  I know what the Bible says and my son does too for that matter.  I’m here to share my story in hopes that it will help other parents who may be going through the same thing.

1 John 4:7-8 (NIV)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Why…because love matters.