LGBTQ

And they called it puppy love…

/ Lesa / 2 Comments

When I was a little girl, my parents were in a lot of bowling leagues.  It was a hobby that they really enjoyed. I especially remember Saturday nights at the bowling alley because I was allowed to have a small soda.  I couldn’t have soda during the week so this was a really special treat.  A little cup of heaven each week (smile).  So, every Saturday I skipped to the snack bar and got myself a small soda.  I was about 8 years old.  There was a young guy (I’m guessing he was a teenager, but to me he seemed like a man) that worked the snack bar on those Saturday nights.  He was always young_lovereally nice to me and would chat with me while I drank my soda. There was nothing weird about it…he was just an outgoing friendly guy and my parents were always near by.  At the time, I didn’t realize what it was, but in looking back I realize I had developed a bit of a crush on him.  I not only looked forward to my soda on Saturdays, but I also looked forward to chatting with my friend.  Back in the day they called this puppy love.  I really had no idea about sex, or even kissing for that matter, but I knew that I liked this person.

I received an email from someone last week, and in the email they explained their beliefs about homosexuality. Overall it was a very encouraging email as this person explained that they felt gay people should be loved and treated with respect.  Yay! However, twice in the email they mentioned about the person’s choice of “lifestyle” and choice of sexuality.  I go back to my story of being a little girl.  If you had asked me what sexuality meant, I would have no clue. I just knew that I liked something about the young man who worked at the snack bar.  The same as a little boy might have a crush on his teacher. It’s all very innocent.

As I got older, I continued to notice boys.  I can say that I was never attracted to girls.  I feel that if you are going to say that someone is making a choice about their attraction, then you are saying they must be attracted to both sexes in order to have to make that choice.  Did you make a choice to be a heterosexual?  I didn’t either.  It just happened…it’s who I am.  If you are married to someone of the opposite sex, has anyone ever said to you, “I’m so happy you chose to live a heterosexual lifestyle.” My guess would be that you haven’t.  Yet, I get comments all the time about gay people choosing a homosexual “lifestyle”.   I may have said this before, but I think where communication breaks down on this topic is there are some people who think of gay people as being straight with a “sex problem”.  That is not the case at all.

I wish people would stop for a moment and think of what it might be like to realize you are gay.  I said realize because that is how it happens.  If you knew the difficulties that gay people face, you would understand that no one would choose it.  And if you happen to be someone in a Christian home who reaches puberty and realizes that you have an attraction for the same-sex, you believe all the things you’ve been taught about homosexuality…about yourself.  This is why so many suffer from depression and shame.  When they finally get the courage to speak up, some are exposed to some horrific practices to try to “cure” them.  It’s called conversion or reparative therapy.  To get a glimpse of what this might be like, I invite you to read Sam’s story:

Born Perfect – Sam Brinton’s Story

I can’t even begin to imagine how someone overcomes that treatment.  I know just seeing how distressed my son was in the beginning of his journey caused emotional scars for me.  I had to change my ringtone on my phone because it was triggering memories of him being in the hospital (we would get calls from his counselor).  And songs that brought me comfort during that time, I can’t listen to anymore.  When I hear them, I see my son hurting himself in front of me in the hospital and I hear him screaming at us when we had to leave him there.

We need to be more interested in listening to people and their stories, rather than judging them and making assumptions that we can’t possibly understand.  And above all else, we need to love…because love matters.

(NCLR has launched #BornPerfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy in the next five years by passing laws across the country to protect LGBT kids, fighting in courtrooms to ensure their safety, and raising awareness about the serious harms caused by these dangerous practices. You can learn more about them (here).  I will also be adding them to my Resource page)

Can you keep a secret?…

/ Lesa / 4 Comments

I celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago.  It’s probably the time that I miss my mom the most.  She always made aDIARY-pink415 big deal out of our birthdays.  So I’ve been reflecting on birthdays of the past and remembered a funny story. When I was turning 10, my mom and sister went shopping for a birthday gift for me.  I was hanging out at my grandmother’s house while they did their shopping. My mom of course explained to my sister, who was 5 at the time, that the gift was going to be a surprise and she needed to keep it a secret.  Well, they got to my grandmother’s house and my sister busted through the door and exclaimed, “Lesa, we got you a diarrhea!”  Uh, thanks???  What she meant to say was diary (smile).  So much for keeping it secret!

Growing up I was always taught it wasn’t nice to have secrets.  If I had friends over and I was caught whispering something in one of their ears, my mom would say, “No secrets!”  I think it was her way of making sure that no one felt left out.  Sometimes secrets are fun…like for bridal or baby showers, or a surprise birthday party.  But sometimes secrets are painful.  Things we may have done that we aren’t proud of, or something that has happened to us that makes us feel shame.

I was with a friend recently who had information that she couldn’t share for several months.  Something that she wanted to secretshare, but had to wait.  She explained how hard it was to not mention it when someone would ask how she was doing because it was something really big in her life and she wanted to share it. It struck me when she explained that to me.  I lived that way for six years.  I had a secret.  My son was gay.  There were many reasons why I didn’t share my secret at first.  Like my friend, people would ask how I was doing.  I would smile and reply with the usual “fine” even when my son was in the hospital.  It was hard not to share, but I eventually realized it was God’s timing…not mine…for when the secret should be revealed.

Now that my secret is out, I have realized that I can never go back.  I don’t want to. There are some possible changes coming up in my life and with those changes I want to make sure I can continue on this journey of sharing my story.  I don’t want to go back in the closet.  I can’t.  The most important thing to me going forward is that I can continue to be who I am and pursue my passion of being a voice for the LGBTQ community.  No matter what that looks like.

So, as you encounter people remember that you probably don’t know their whole story.  There may be something that they are keeping inside because they are too scared to let it out.  Tread gently with each other.  Will you be that safe place where someone can share their secret?

My Secret

I have a secret.  Do you see it?

Can you see the pain in my face…my soul?
Do you see my shame….my fear?
Have you noticed the light in my eyes is gone?
Do you see my sadness?

I want to tell you my secret.  Do you hear me?

Do you hear me say that this is something I didn’t choose?
Do you hear me when I tell you I’ve read the Bible passages?
I know what they say.
Do you hear me when I say that I’ve prayed for it to go away?
Oh how I have prayed.
Do you hear me when I say this is who I am?
This is how God created me.
Do you hear my cries?

I told you my secret.  Do you still love me????

I hope so….because love matters.

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Is that something in my eye…

/ Lesa / Leave a comment

“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”  How many of us have heard that over the years from our mothers?  Not a bad motto to live by, but it seems that some people just can’t help themselves.  I’ve run into my fair share of bullies.  It seems that they didn’t learn the “golden rule” of being nice.  For the most part, I eventually learned to ignore them.  My sister on the other hand had a bully that tormented her endlessly.  She was more sensitive to it and offered the reaction that the bully was looking for time and time again.  She would come home in tears day after day because this boy scared her and bothered her on the bus ride home.   It got to the point that my dad knew something needed to be done.  So he sent me.

One day I waited at the bus stop for her to get home.  I was about fifteen which means she was 10.  This bully lived in our neighborhood so I knew that he would be getting off at the same stop.  So there I was on the busiest Seddie12street in our neighborhood….waiting (wearing my catholic school uniform no less).  My sister got off the bus and I had her stand behind me.  The young man got off as well.  He was older than my sister and had no business picking on her.  I marched up to him, grabbed him by his shirt collar (probably had to tippy toe because he was taller than me), and told him that if he ever bothered my sister again I would rip his face off.  Then I gave him a little shove as I let go of his collar.  He never bothered her again.

Now I have said this before…I do not believe in violence of any kind.  As someone who was picked on for being small, sometimes my bark had to be worse than my bite so to speak.   But I promise I was and still am a nice person (smile).  Just don’t ever tick me off (wink).  All kidding aside this bully issue is a big deal.  The official definition says that to bully someone is to frighten, hurt, or threaten someone.  I think this list should include talking badly about people in a way that makes them feel small or less than.  I think sometimes we view bullying as physical or really threatening, but it can be subtle.

I was at lunch one day with a group of moms.  Our children all went to the same Christian school for years and that is how we all met.  These moms all professed to be followers of Jesus.  At the time, I knew my son was gay, but was not “out” with it yet.  One of the moms made a comment that she was never watching the Dr. Phil show again.  When someone asked her why, she proceeded to say that he had a gay person on his show.  She felt that was wrong.  In fact, she thought God should strike all gay people dead and send them straight into hell.  I felt bullied.  I felt like my son was being bullied and he wasn’t even there!  I was really taken aback by her disdain for gay people.  What did they ever do to her to evoke such a strong reaction?  I had to hold back the tears.  This was my child she was talking about.  (I held it together though and I promise I didn’t threaten to rip her face off) (smile).  I forgave her because I knew she didn’t understand.

I’d like to say that was the last time that happened to me, but I can’t.  And as upsetting as it was to me, I cringe when I think about my son hearing something that hateful.  The psychological damage is great.  What many probably don’t realize is gay people tend to already have that negative language in their minds about themselves  because of what they’ve been taught.  Add to that the verbal attacks from others and no wonder the suicide rate is so high.

Every day people are bullied out of their jobs, denied service in stores and restaurants, and are not invited to family gatherings because they are gay.  I saw a post on FB about a lesbian being hired by the Girl Scout organization.  The person who posted it was appalled that this could happen.  I have to wonder…what do people think is going to happen?  That her lesbianism is going to rub off on the girls?  That she is going to teach them how to be a lesbian?  Do they think that this lesbian will not be able to control herself around these girls?  All misconceptions of gay people.  I bet the person who posted it never thought that they could be contributing to the possibility of ruining that person’s livelihood, but it happens a lot.

Unfortunately, in some cases church goers are the biggest bullies in this area.  Christians use the Bible to put others down.  I really think they feel that they are helping…that somehow they are “saving” those that they are pointing the finger at.  But what they don’t understand is that they come off as “holier than thou”.  It may not be their intent, but the Bible also tells us to worry about our own sin before we point out someone else’s (Matthew 7:3).  That goes for any topic of concern. You don’t know what is in someone’s heart.  You don’t know the conversations that they’ve had with God.  Your “helping” could be the very thing that makes them run as far as they can from God.  Do we really think that is what He wants?  Lord help me to always check my eye, my heart, before I check my neighbor’s.

I got coffee from Starbucks this morning and this was written on the sleeve:

blossom

 

 

The negative things we think about someone and how that comes out is what ultimately makes them shrink down to less.  We should be building people up.  So don’t think that you have it all together and know everything when engaging with someone.  God has created everyone with a unique purpose to achieve what He created them to be.  Don’t be the one to get in the way of that.

This is really easy if you love each other…because love matters.

Idols aren’t just golden calves…

/ Lesa / 7 Comments

When I was eleven, I started attending a new school.  Doing that during those middle school years was tough, but I did my best to jump right in and make new friends. Eventually I invited one of the girls to my house for a sleepover to get to know each other better.  We settled in with some snacks and decided to watch some television in my basement.  I can’t remember what we were watching, but I can tell you that I remember what happened when Shaun Cassidy came on the television screen.  My new friend let out the loudest, shriek/scream I have ever heard in my life.  I asked her what was wrong and she exclaimed, “I looovvveee Shaun Cassidy!”  I thought that was all fine and good, but why on earth was she screaming about it.  I got a quick lesson that this was the way she expressed her admiration.  My poor mother came running down the basement steps wondering what in the world was murdering us.  We had a good chuckle about it the next day when my friend went home.  When I eventually went to her house, I discovered that her room was plastered with just about every picture ever taken of Shaun Cassidy.  I didn’t quite get it…my heart throb back then was Scott Baio from Happy Days (smile).

Just about everywhere you look in our society these days, you can see people going overboard with celebrities, sports figures, etc.  All it takes is a night of watching television advertisements for things like reality tv shows to see that we are way out there when it comes to what we look for in entertainment (don’t even get me started on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo). People become famous over the craziest things!  To me, these things are easy to see as distractions and things that maybe I don’t want to spend my time on.  But the idea of idols is nothing new.  I’m in the middle of reading Exodus right now and I’m at the part where Moses comes down off the mountain and sees the Israelites worshiping a golden calf that they had made from their gold rings.  It’s easy to read that and think, ‘What was wrong with those people??  How could they forget what God had done for them.” But I have learned, it’s easier than you may think.  Did you know that your problems can become an idol?

When I found out my son was gay, my world was turned a bit upside down. His being gay was not an easy thing to face, but the real difficulty came more from knowing how he felt about himself.  He didn’t like who he was and because of that he suffered from anxiety and depression.  I can’t tell you how stressful it is to know that your child hates themselves and at times wants to end their life.  You are on constant alert. In my post, The Land of What If’s, I wrote about my prayer journals.  Seems like a good thing to do.  But even though I talked to God about the situation, doesn’t mean I was handling it the right way.  My thought patterns in the first few years went something like this:

What did I do wrong and how can I make things right? to…
How can we help him change? to…
Understanding this isn’t something that can change – does this mean he won’t be able to get into heaven? to…
What does God really feel about this? to…
Am I doing the right thing by supporting him? to…
On and on and on…

I felt like this was all I was thinking about….praying about. It was not only exhausting…it was wrong.  I was living in fear…focusing all my energy on the “problem”, not focusing it on the One who could carry it all for me.  This had become my idol.

2014.01.13 17.02.53.228So what did I do?  It’s been a process.  I would like to say it was a one and done type of thing, but in reality it took some time to sort things out.  One of the things that was troubling to me was that my son had stepped away from God.  He wasn’t going to Him for strength and guidance.  I decided to take some index cards and write Bible verses on them that I thought would help him and I taped them to the rails of his bed under his mattress.  He would basically be resting his head each night on the Word.  I would read these verses each week when I made his bed.  Another thing I did was prayed over each room in my house.  I also prayer walked around the outside of the house.  I gave the situation over to God.  It didn’t mean that I didn’t ever think about it, or worry about it again, but it gave me some peace.

I had a heart to heart with God one day out on my deck.  I told him how hard this was and I 100_0360wondered out loud if it would be easier if I just walked away from my faith.  What was I supposed to do?  How did He want me to handle this?  I very clearly heard Him tell me that it wasn’t up to me to figure it all out.  This is between Him and my son.  I just need to love him and support him no matter what happens. That I can do…to me that is easy.  God has not let me down…He has been with me every step of the way.  I just needed to get out of His way (smile).

So I love the best I can and I ask you to do the same…because love matters.