Welcome to my blog! I’m here anonymously for now to share my story, along with some of my observations, feelings, and music. My anonymity is no longer from fear, but out of respect for those who share in my story. I will probably ramble in my quest to get it all out and my grammar may not come across as scholarly for now. For my own healing, I am more interested in speaking my truth.
Recently out as gay, I am feeling the need to tell my story boldly and often. Though mostly for my own “working it out,” maybe someone who needs to hear that they are not alone will stumble upon this blog, finding some connection and comfort. When I began the process of awakening to the real me articles, blogs, songs, books, whatever I could get my hands on literally saved my life. So, straight away, if you have stumbled upon this blog in turmoil, anxiety and/or confusion regarding your sexuality, know that you are not alone, you are not flawed, you are not a mistake. Quite the opposite is true. You are loved, you have value, and you are accepted. Maybe you can find some comfort and hope from my unfolding story.
I come from a very conservative evangelical background with twenty years of church leadership, primarily worship/music ministry. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, I had resigned myself to celibacy because I thought that was the only solution to my perceived same sex attraction “problem.” It was a very lonely solution. Finally, a woman came along who I thought I could make a “normal” life with and I married at age 37. It took awhile for me to pursue that relationship. She had been married before, putting me a little at odds with my evangelical upbringing…well, then there was the fact that I was pretty much exclusively attracted to men. Nonetheless, a family did leave the church where I was serving because I married a divorced woman. Yes, really that conservative.
After six months of agonizing prayer, I felt that God had healed me of my same sex attractions and began pursuing my very first serious relationship with a woman (or any human for that matter). I had had two emotional relationships with men prior to that, but they were very calculated and safe, not sexual. I did not head into marriage lightly, just deceived into thinking that the real me was flawed and broken, needing “healing.” She was and is an amazing human being. I still care for her, though I can never give her the romantic and intimate connection that she needs, wants and deserves. Nor can she give me those things. Divorce is not easy, but being mismarried and fraudulent is much more difficult; at least, it was for me. As a disclaimer, some couples are able to work things out and stay married with a variety of arrangements. This is my story and I cannot do that, nor could my former wife.
In the evangelical circle where I hung my hat, it was easier to numb, hide and bury than to admit to anyone that I was attracted to men. My mantra used to be “Submit and Resist” from James 4:7, “Submit yourselves then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I thought that same sex attractions were my “thorn in the flesh.” I spiritualized my attractions and in my resignation to celibacy found myself needing to feel intimately connected to God almost to an extreme and to the exclusion of much of the world around me. A friend recently used the phrase “Jesus is my boyfriend” to describe some Christian and worship music. Guilty here. For me, though, it was part of my survival. My own mother, a very dedicated Jesus follower, told me once that I might love God too much. Slightly offended, I thought that was ridiculous at the time, but now I think I understand more fully what she was trying to say. When I was in hiding, trying to be the best little boy in the world, extremes and super-achievement were part of how I built my cocoon.
Many of my worship songs from that time were expressions of how I thought I was “working out my salvation” through celibacy and intimacy with God. They are filled with passionate prayers for healing and sometimes hidden in the text, a cry for help can be heard. Though I cannot unpack all of these boxes in one article, my entries will basically be my ongoing coming out process, the internal reconciliation with my past, and the reclaiming of things that I gave up in order to be “pure” or at least, to seem “pure” to the outside world. After all, back then I had not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in my striving against sin (Hebrews 12:4). Yes, I treated myself that harshly, but this side of my awakening, I think I understand more fully God’s unconditional love for me, as well as the peace and security that come with it.
Speaking of the Book of Hebrews…During those dark years of celibacy and feeling that I was constantly failing God, I convinced myself that if I could just get close enough to God, that this burden of same sex attraction would be healed or at least, diminished and under control. In another entry, I will talk about my thoughts on original sin. For right now, let’s just say that maybe my real sin, the thing that kept me slightly distant from God, was not my same sex attractions, but my inability to fully embrace the me that God created. Letting religion and society make me feel that I was a mistake, that I chose this, or that some significant trauma had caused these “perversions” kept me in a prison for decades. Hebrews 10 became the basis for one of my worship songs in early 1997.
Earlier I mentioned that I had two emotional attachments with men prior to marriage. I actually lived for a year with the second attachment and his family. Somehow I thought it was normal, but we did cuddle and exchange non-sexual affection that probably took us a little beyond “normal.” Right after the new year of 1997, I remember sitting in his front room, guilt-ridden, watching the snow fall as I penned the chorus of a song to convince myself that I was good with God. “I stand justified, completely forgiven. I stand sanctified, covered in the blood of Jesus. I stand complete in Christ. There’s no more condemnation. I am free in Jesus Christ. I am justified.” At that time, however, I was not complete in Christ. I was rejecting who I was intended to be. Compartmentalizing and suppressing my true feelings did not make me complete and whole. It made me hollow, empty and fractured. And it was actually the feelings of shame and condemnation that caused me to write the chorus. Freedom at that time in my life was an elusive concept. I talked about it, wanted it, pretended to have it and knew it was available in Christ…just out of my reach. Instead, the constant rejection of who I was fearfully and wonderfully created to be, bound me up tightly. The words talk about being near to God and being free, but that was far from my reality. People thought that I was close to God and I think I was. The lenses that I saw God through, though, were distorted by fear, dogma, and the stark absence of self-compassion.
I said I was going to reclaim some of me along the way. This recording of I Stand Justified is from 1998 and not of great quality (that story might be the next entry). Today I know that God loves me unconditionally as a gay man. Back then I subscribed to the kingdom theology of George Eldon Ladd; the already and the not yet. When I sing these words today, it is with a much more enlightened understanding of God and who I am created to be. Though these words speak of present reality, they are also a continuous process in my life. I chuckle every time Google maps tells me, “You’ve arrived.” My journey with Christ is lifelong and always unfolding. I’m pretty sure that I have not arrived. Knowing that Jesus made a way for me, as a gay man, to experience and know God more fully is liberating me from the bondage and pretense of my past. Freedom is now on the horizon as I speak my truth and get painfully honest with myself. I’m not sure I would write this song today, though now I do have much more confidence in a loving God Who wants me just as I am. When I was in the battle to look myself in the mirror and acknowledge that I was gay, I thought that I would have to walk away from faith, then I found Mel White’s book, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America. I’m so thankful that a loving God reached out to pull me back in and connected me with other Jesus followers on similar journeys. Condemnation and shame did not magically go away in a show stopping burst of rainbows and unicorns, but I know now to face them head on with light, love, and compassion for myself. If you have stumbled upon my blog, I hope you hear the truth in this song beyond the lyric. God loves and accepts you just as you are. Right now. In this moment.
Banner photo credit: Simon Berger, Altmünster am Traunsee, Neukirchen bei Altmünster, Oberösterreich, Österreich, https://unsplash.com/photos/twukN12EN7c
