Roadkill

Roadkill – the remains of an animal that has been killed on a road. Dead, done, flat out gone, expired, Elvis has left the building. The longer the animal lies dead in the roadway the flatter, deader and less identifiable the animal becomes due to repeatedly being run over. You’ve seen them and may have even run over the remains of one a time or two.

Poor little animal. All it was doing was crossing the road on its journey when Wham! before it could even react it was all over but the crying. And now there it lies lifeless and alone. There are people whose job it is to drive around our highways and byways and do nothing but pick up roadkill. Can you imagine such a job? (I guess you really have to be the outdoorsy type).

I can’t imagine being in the roadkill-cleanup business but I can tell you it is a nasty job. And it is not for the faint of heart. In fact, I recently met someone who has this job. And I can tell you they are indeed very special and have been endowed with skills just for this type of job. You should see him cleanup roadkill; it’s an experience like no other.

While animals are the most visible and easily identifiable, animals are not the only creatures to become roadkill victims. I know because I am roadkill.

I am roadkill in every sense of the word. I am done, expired, laid out flat, completely run over - dead. The only thing alive about me at all, literally, is the beating muscle of my heart. That is all that has been left for the buzzards to pick over.

There is simply nothing left of me. Life has been beat out of me and I do not have the strength to get it back. I cannot pull oxygen into my lungs – that would require use of muscles that I do not have strength to work. I cannot smile or laugh – that would require joy that is too heavy to carry.

I try to think and focus on what to do next but there is no wisdom or discernment left to help me figure out my way and get up off the road. The only thing I have an over abundance of are tears – those I have in never-ending supply.

Sometimes death comes quickly to roadkill, sometimes the creature lingers, hanging on to life, struggling to live only to be hit repeatedly before dyeing. My death was like that. I didn’t know I had been hit at first, I only knew I was wounded. It was only after repeated trouncings did my body, soul and spirit expire. I have been down so long I no longer recognize myself.

How did I get like this? I always look both ways before crossing the street. As I lay here prostrate to the world I told God it was over. I told Him I was done. I was roadkill on the road of life and I, most seriously and literally, had no strength or way of going on.

I told God that if He had a plan for my life, if He had somewhere He wanted me to go or wanted me to see then He was going to have to get inside my body and be me and take me there. I surrender.

I told God He was/is going to have to be my muscles and my strength, He will have to be my wisdom, my joy, my love, my creativity, my energy, my will, my grace, my discernment. He will have to be all these things in me, with me, for me. He cannot just give these things to me because I no longer have the strength to hold them or receive them myself. His are much better than mine ever were anyway.

And that’s when I met the roadkill-cleanup specialist. God sent His Specialist to clean me up, restore me and bring me back to life. I am still by the roadside but I am able to sit up and breathe.

I am only able to write these words – tear free! – because I believe God is rebuilding me through His Holy Spirit. No other way to explain the difference in the last few days, not one thing has changed in my outward life. But really, I don’t need a worldly explanation, God already gave me His - He said He will always be with me in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. (Ps. 23) "Shadow of Death" - never really paid attention to that part of the Psalm before. I have now. (I sure am ready for those Still Waters).

Please remember to look both ways before crossing the street but if you happen to become a roadkill victim, don’t worry I know a great cleanup guy.

Sometimes death comes as a hit and run but sometimes death comes as a hit and restore.

~

Thought for the Day

The greatest hitters in the baseball Hall of Fame failed 7 out of every 10 times they batted.

"The Favor of Your Reply is Requested..."

What if one day you accomplished something really cool you had always wanted to do? And what if you decided to throw a party to celebrate? What if you threw the party in your parents' house because it could hold more people than your own?

What if you sat down and wrote out your guest list? What if you personally selected each person on the invitation list? What if you made sure your dearest, closest, oldest friends were included in your celebration?

What if you went out and bought decorations, food, and beverages for your fabulous celebration? What if you prepared the home so that your friends would have a marvelous time and feel warm and welcome?

What if all your friends called and said “Yes” they would love to come celebrate your big accomplishment with you? What if they said they could not wait; the party was going to be such fun?

What if on the day of the party you looked great, the house looked great and the food looked great? What if all that was needed was your friends to make your celebration really great?

What if at the time the party was to start the door bell didn’t ring? What if an hour after that there was still no knock on the door? What if an hour after that the phone rang and one friend was running late but soon would be there? What if that friend never would actually be there? What if the house stood empty and silent?

What if you threw a party and nobody came?

You might think back on it some twenty years later and though you laugh it off when you tell the story, somewhere deep in your solar-plexus it still smarts. You still love your friends all the same but the memory of THE party is still there. But, I tell you what, you learned a mighty big lesson that night.

You learned that invitations are important. Very important. They may not be all that important to you; in fact from time to time you might even seem a little burdened or weary of getting them. You learned they are important to the one who sent them.

You learned how rude it is to just brush off an invitation after someone went to all the trouble to include you in their party. For all you know they had to exclude someone else to include you. No, invitations should not be taken for granted.

That is not to say that you have to accept all invitations. For the sociable types they would never get a day’s rest, poor dears. But you learned if you do accept an invitation to a party then good manners dictates that you go.

What you want to know now is how well have you been putting these lessons to actual use in the intervening twenty years. So you apply it to any current invitations:

In fact, you have been invited to a party – a daily party. Well, a lifetime party actually. And you for one admit that you have been most inconsistent in your RSVPing. Some days you say “Yes” and show up, some days you say “Yes” and don’t show up. And then there are the days when you flat out RSVP with a big fat “No Thank You.” Turns out you're human.

You know what I’ve learned from your little no-one-came-to-my-party debacle? You are not the only one who is hurt by your not showing up to God’s party. Sure, you hurt yourself. You miss out on all the blessings God had in store for you that day. But God is just as hurt – if not more so – by your refusal to honor Him and your relationship. Just like you were, the host, when no one came to your party.

Everyday God offers us a richness of Himself that includes (but is not limited to) His love, mercy, protection, blessings and life everlasting. When that is turned down, even for a brief moment, He is hurt so deeply. When we don't show up and receive Him He is hurt.

We feel because God feels. He is not some mystical being that exists in the ether that has no tactile connection to us. We are created in His likeness, His image. We are creative because He is creative. We are joyous because He is joyous. And we get our feelings hurt because He gets His feelings hurt. Whatever happens to us - happens to our Heavenly Father first.

And that includes getting bummed out 'cuz no one came to the party.

The thing about parties is there’re easy. All a guest has to do is show up. Nothing else is required but mere attendance.

What if even one friend would have come to your party? What if just one person had shown up? My guess is you would not be reliving this nightmare scenario right now. Your feelings would not have been hurt. You would have had twenty years of joyous memories instead of twenty years of hurt.

What a difference showing up makes. Just showing up. How easy is that? There’s an invitation in the mailbox, will you be showing up to the party?

Hope to see you there. (I'll be the one near the queso dip, with the smarting solar-plexus.)

~

Halfway There

I am weary. Dead-dog, bone-weary tired. Putting that thought on paper and articulating it “out loud” seems only to increase my weariness.

I have been so busy lately focusing on the lives of others that it has been conveniently easy to overlook that I have been overlooking myself. But my world of duties has quieted overnight. That months’ long do-to list is done. And now I am left with me.

I have been looking so forward to this day; to the time when I could focus on my creative pursuits and my future. Engines revved and ready to go. What I didn’t plan on was the silence, the emptiness, the stillness. I stand at the door and look around and see a vast vastness.

Is the direction I’m heading the correct course? I think so but I keep travelling it and seem to be getting nowhere fast. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know which way to turn. But I know I can’t stop. This is exhausting. And I don’t have the energy to do whatever it is I am supposed to do. I need some help here.

One of my favorite movies is Where the Red Fern Grows from 1974. In it a young boy Billy saves up his money for two years and buys 2 coon-hounds. He loves these hounds. And these hounds love him and each other. He trains them from pups to track and “tree” raccoons.

One night Billy goes out hunting with his dogs – Old Dan and Little Ann. The dogs pick up the scent of a ‘coon and track it all throughout the woods until they “tree” it in the tallest sycamore tree in the woods. The only way for Billy to get the ‘coon is to chop the giant tree down.

It takes young Billy two days to chop down the tree with his ax. His family comes looking for him in the woods thinking something has happened to him. The family tries to get him to give-up, to find a smaller tree to cut down. He says “no.” His father offers to help him chop but he says “no.” He made a promise to his dogs that if they tree’d a ‘coon he would chop the tree down and that is exactly what he is going to do even if it takes him a year.

Billy is exhausted. Two days of chopping have him worn-out and bone-dead tired. The tree has a big chunk missing and it will eventually die and fall from the wound but it is clear that the tree is far from falling anytime soon. The ‘coon is safe.

Then Billy has a chat with God. He recalls something his Grandpa told him when he was working hard to save his money for two years to buy the dogs. That if Billy did what he could do, God would meet him halfway and do the rest.

Billy tells God that he has done his best. He has chopped as much as he can. He has kept his promise to his dogs. He has met God halfway. But he needs God’s help to bring the tree down; he cannot do it on his own. Billy needs God to meet him halfway.

Then suddenly a big wind stirs up. The tall sycamore starts waving in the wind and finally falls down, killing the ‘coon. The first thing Billy did when he got home with his prize and was asked how he did it was tell his Grandpa that he met God halfway.

Am I there? Have I tree’d my ‘coon? Have I chopped my tree halfway? I don’t know. I surely feel as though I have. I’m tired enough to have chopped a forest of trees. But as I stand here waiting to find out I will continue to chop. Like Billy, I will keep chopping even if it takes me a year. Through the weariness, through the tiredness and vast stillness I will chop.

Because one day God will meet me halfway and His wind will blow for me.

~

Awakening

I’m not much of a gardener. Plants do not last long in my care. My yard, small as it is, is a hodge-podge of errant weeds, patchy grass and hearty greenery that thrives on in spite of my best efforts to ignore it into oblivion.

Every so often I forget to remember my lack of Mr. Green Jeans’s talent and take a field trip to the local nursery. I always buy way too much more than I have the ability, strength or knowledge how to plant and care for. It’s like what happens when I go the cafeteria; I see all that delicious food. It looks so pretty I order a little bit of each dish. I’ll never eat it all – what was my stomach thinking?

Same deal at the nursery. My eyes glaze at the sight of all those lustrous flowers and bedding plants. The thought of my yard as only Martha Stewart could do it is too over powering. Soon I’m up to my arm pits in soil, flowers and fresh shrubbery – which will all die a slow and unceremonious death in the weeks to come despite my best efforts to keep it all alive.

This is back breaking work – no wonder I only do it during leap years, and happily 2009 is not a leap year. I love all that beauty but I want instant gratification. Patience is required for a gardener and that I have on short supply most days.

My paternal grandmother, from whom I received my middle name, was a fierce gardener. My grandparents lived on seven wooded acres in the heart of the city and she diligently maintained the gardens of about half of them - herself, with just one wonderful helper. I cannot begin to tell you the work that was.

Every fall she planted thousands of tulip bulbs all over the property. Tulips are my favorite. They are so delicate and so beautiful. And they require the utmost skill and dedication to grow.

My grandmother would gather her bulbs months in advance of planting and store them in a refrigerator. At just the right day and time in autumn before the first frost she would plant them. And planting the little brown rock like thing is not easy. The hole has to be dug just so deep, add at little fertilizer, cover with good soil, water and wait for spring. This is back-breaking work when you are planting thousands.

But the result was amazing. Each spring my grandparents’ backyard was a showplace. Tulips of all colors and variety bursting from everywhere. Acres of them – around trees, down in ravines, in every bed and along every walkway. I can’t see one today without thinking of her – and smiling.

I tried it once – planting tulip bulbs. Disaster. About 17 years ago (the shame has prevented me from trying again) I wanted that same look and feel in the spring at my home so I asked her advice and set about my task. I bought the bulbs early – 100 bulbs to be exact. I stored them in the fridge for the requisite amount of time. I prepared my bed and soil. I dug my holes and put in nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Covered them and watered them well and cared for them all autumn and winter long.

I could not wait for Spring and the first signs of the tell-tale green shoots sprouting forth from the bed signaling the tulips were awakening. But something was wrong. Spring arrived with no tell-tale green shoots. Weeks went by and still no signs of life from the bed. Neighbor’s tulips were blooming but mine were still in hibernation.

Finally, life! One yellow tulip sprouted in the dead-center of the bed. One. Out of 100 bulbs planted, one awakened and became a tulip. Crest-fallen I dug up its sister bulbs to see the problem. It appears that I had planted the other 99 upside down. Several showed signs of life – little green shoots came out but could not make the 180-degree turn north towards the sky. Tulip bulbs are indeed expert territory.

That’s the thing I find so amazing about them. Hold one in your hands. It looks like nothing special. Just this little brown lump. It looks dead. And in fact, it is dead or rather it is dormant with its life waiting to be released. Who would ever think by looking at it that if given just the right amount of preparation, care, attention, patience and love by an expert gardener that an odd looking little nothing could grow into the most beautiful thing in the world in a matter of months?

We can learn a lot from a tulip bulb, especially at Easter. The Master Gardener has taken what was dead and made it alive again. And I think it is not coincidence that we celebrate Jesus awakening and re-birth in Spring.

What God does for the tulip bulb and what He did for His son Jesus He does for each and every one of us. We may look like a little brown lump on the outside but God sees the beautiful tulip we are on the inside.

He makes us alive again. He makes us beautiful.

Happy Easter and may God Bless you and your family.

~

The Postcard

It all began so innocuously. I was just going through the mail. I almost didn’t read it, it looked like junk mail. It was a little white postcard no bigger than a 3x5 card. No fancy writing. No four-color graphics. But read it I did and things have never been the same.

We all have dreams and desires for our lives. We make plans when we are young and pursue certain paths that we think will get us to where our passion tells us we have to be. But like life does for most the path diverges, distractions come, reality sets in and passion gets put in a box, on top of a shelf, in the back of a closet.

I was blessed enough to pursue my passion in college and then continue the exploration of my dream after graduation. My path even took me out of my home town and to Tinseltown where I was going to set the world on fire. My life on the dream scale was squarely a 7-8.

Soon enough reality, distractions and diverges beset me. I still wanted my dreams to come true but they were not as visible as they once were. There was too much noise, too much confusion, chaos, and fear. Always that dreaded fear was tapping on my shoulder.

The thing about walking on our passionate path as opposed to the average, everyday path is that the passionate path cannot be walked alone. It is too fraught with danger. There are those who do not want us to live passionate lives and will throw all the fear, insecurity, guilt, shame, anxiety, you name it at us to stop us. Because with passion comes joy.

I was trying to live passionately but I was alone. And it was not working. So after a couple of years I decided I had a new dream and passion and I moved home. I packed up the old dreams and put them in that box, on the shelf, in the back of my closet. I never thought of them again. And I was fine with that - for the next 12 years. Really I was.

Or so I thought.

Here’s the thing about our dreams. We don’t put them in our hearts. They do not originate in us. They are created by God. And because that is so, dreams will not die no matter how much we try to ignore them, bury them, replace them, drown them or do any other of the myriad things we conjure up to kill them.

In the intervening 12 years God got a hold of me in a deeper way than He ever had before. It started slowly. He slipped in when I was looking the other way but once He was in my heart He was not giving up His ground and He was staking claim to more. I was no longer alone. Whatever path I walk for the rest of my life God will be with me. And that makes all the difference.

Apparently, during the summer of 2007 God decided that I had forgotten about that box in my closet long enough. It was time for a nudge. The postcard went to my parents’ house. It didn’t even come to mine. They were out of town I and was sorting their mail, otherwise they would have thrown it out with the junk mail. God is clever.

The card was an invitation to a meeting from an actor’s union I belong to but had long since put my membership on hold. I no longer received correspondence from them. Why this? Why now? God says my heart was strong enough now.

In the past, I would never have gone to the meeting - too insecure to walk into a meeting where everyone knew everyone and I knew no one. So, I put the postcard aside and went about my day. But I couldn’t. That card kept nudging me from my purse. That’s the thing about God; He’s rather relentless when He wants to be. The meeting did sound interesting. It was during my lunch hour. Why not just check it out? What could it hurt? I might meet some interesting people.

Boom. Box off shelf, out of closet, lid blown off and passion all over my heart. I had forgotten what true passion feels like. No matter where my life takes me I will never be able to get this back into a box again.

I walked into that meeting in the summer of 2007 and I have not missed one since. They embraced me, I embraced them and my path has changed forever. I made more money in 2008 following my first passion than I did my replacement passion. (I hope to write that sentence every year for the rest of my life.)

What’s the difference this time? I did not walk into that meeting alone. Now make no mistake, attempts to thwart me are being made. There are evil-doers (sorry about the Bush reference) at every turn trying to fill me with fear, insecurity, etc. But things are different as I pursue my dream this time. I am not walking my passionate path alone.

We are built to live with passion and pursue our dreams. God does not gives us dreams to have us ignore them. They are given to us for His glory. He wants us to live with a passionate heart for Him. The heart is a muscle for a reason and it needs to be vigorously exercised. What is God nudging you about?

Check your mail carefully. You never know what your heart might find.

~

Thought For The Day

"You haven't seen the last part of the best of me."
~ Serena Ryder

I'm riding these words all around my world today, and probably for some time to come.

How about you?

~

Cause Something to Happen

- I did not write the following words, but they I think they are some of the best words I’ve read lately. Maybe you will too.

You come out
of a meeting
and someone asks,
“What happened?”
And you answer,
“Nothing.”
You sit in a
legislative gallery
and someone sits
down beside you
and asks,
“What’s happening?”
And you say,
“Nothing.”

Maybe that
meeting room and
that gallery
should have had
the same sign
hanging on their
walls that –
so the story goes –
a college football
coach pasted in
his teams’ lockers:
“Cause something
to happen.”

He believed that
if you didn’t make
something happen
with a good block,
your runner would go
nowhere – and if
you didn’t tackle,
the other team would
run all over you.

He sure caused something
to happen. Bear Bryant
won more than 300 games.

- I hope you cause something fabulous to happen today.

~

The Survey

On the counsel of someone wiser and more possessed with awareness in these areas than me I recently took a test or survey, if you will, to determine my spiritual gifts. According to Romans 12 we all have them. We all have different ones and we all use the ones we have in different ways.

This survey consisted of 84 questions that I answered on a scale of 1 – 5; 1 being “almost never” and 5 being “almost always.” I have to say I was quite pleased with myself as I began to answer and I was able to answer with lots of 4s and 5s. Then inevitably the 2s and 1s began to creep in.

I won’t tell you the results of the survey – I am still deciphering what it all means and what exactly I am to do with my new found knowledge of myself. But I will tell you that I scored rather high in a couple of areas, err “giftings,” and much lower in other gift areas. (There are lots of spiritual gifts but this survey was geared towards identifying the strengths of Perceiving/Prophecy, Teaching, Encouraging, Showing Mercy, Serving, Giving, Admin./Ruling/Leading).

The thing that surprised me the most is not finding out what my gifts are but instead the freedom in finding out what they are not. I cannot tell you what a joy and a relief it is to know that I do not have a God-given gift for certain things. It so explains why I do not enjoy certain tasks. It explains why certain things are not on my radar. It explains why I get bored so easily when I do particular things.

God taught me about one of my non-gifts early in my working career. I learned a long time ago working in sales was not a talent I possessed. But, Lord love me I kept trying, I waited tables several different times, I worked in wholesale sales and retail sales. I just cannot make people buy something they do not need/want or sell something that I do not believe in or work for a company I know is not giving a fair deal to the customer.

Well, that pretty much rules out sales of all kinds – even waiting tables – as I was always selling the “daily special” or pushing dessert or the wine list. Just thinking about it now is creating all sorts of anxiety in me!

And that’s how we know we are not working in our gift. We get easily frustrated. We become bored with our task. Doing a particular thing causes us to become anxious or fearful. Now, there will be times that we feel these things even though we are working in our gifts and talents – life is what it is and frustration and anxiety come with the territory. But we can be aware enough to know the difference.

When we are in a close relationship with God, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we become Spirit-aware enough to discern the difference between our area of talent and our area of “God-gave-this-gift-to-somebody-else.” And boy, we and God are happy when that day arrives.

Knowing what God has called us to do is vitally important. He has possessed us with certain abilities, talents and gifts so that we may live our lives to benefit others to His glory. If we do not know what those gifts and talents are we cannot do that to the fullest.

But at the same time it is just as important that we identify what we are not called to do. God does not want us wasting time serving Him in some capacity that does not suit us because that would not bring Him glory. Living our lives in frustration and boredom does no one any good – especially God.

So the next time I am buying shoes at Nordstrom I am giving my salesperson a big ‘ol hug – because I know that person has been called from a mighty high source to be putting that shoe on my foot.

And is there anything more glorious than a new pair of shoes?

~

Standing Up

It has been several weeks since I have written on this site. I have had a great deal on my heart and God and I have been working it out. He tells me that if I’m going to have a site in which I talk about my love for Him and His love for me then I have to tell my whole story; our whole story actually – His and mine together.

This is not easy. Telling my story is risky. It opens me up and exposes me and creates an opportunity for others to judge. I don’t like being vulnerable. But He has asked me to trust Him in this. If I stand up, He will stand beside me. So, I am standing up – for Him, for me and for His beautiful sons and daughters.

My name is Dee and I am gay and God says I am okay.

I have loved God ever since I can remember. My earliest childhood memories are of playing inside the sanctuary and on the grounds at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church. I grew up in that church. I continue to grow in that church. It’s where God first grabbed hold of my heart. God’s had a hold of me for so long I cannot remember a time when He and I were not holding hands.

While I hated getting up at eight A.M. on Sundays (the crack of dawn for a child) to make it to nine o’clock church, I really liked Sunday school, my church friends, my teachers, going on youth retreats and E.Y.C. as a teen. As a high-schooler we put on Godspell each year in the sanctuary for the congregation – what a blast to sing and dance all over God’s house.

I remember in the nave there used to hang the most glorious portrait of Jesus I had ever seen. It was huge, or maybe I was just small. The painting depicted Jesus surrounded by little children, like me at the time. He was smiling and His love was radiant. I just knew He loved me like that too.

I felt so safe in that church. So secure. So loved by God. That feeling has never left me.

I have also been a lesbian ever since I can remember. I have always felt a certain compulsion towards females. A closeness and bonding that is difficult to explain. I never told anyone about it until I was an adult, after college. But my homosexuality was there, always, and I knew it.

I have never been molested. I have never been sexually assaulted or abused. I grew up in a loving family with two devoted parents. My parents recently celebrated 48 years of marriage. My childhood was about as close to Leave it to Beaver as you could get. I had normal relationships with boys growing up. I always had boyfriends and I like guys – I find the male form beautiful and desirable. I don’t have the typical “societal-markers” for being gay – I just am because that is who God created me to be.

At no time in my life have I ever felt that these two constants – God’s love for me and my homosexuality were mutually exclusive. They are not. And society and the Church cannot make them so.

Let’s be clear on one point – being homosexual is not all about sex. It goes far beyond the merely sexual; that fact is something that is paramount for people to understand but many don’t try to or care to. Homosexuality does not begin and end in the bedroom. But it is that 1% of our lives that the world focuses on. What about the other 99%? Why does the world so easily try to throw us away?

Too many of us, my beautiful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have had terrible and sad experiences with family members and/or with the Church. Some believe we can be loved by God or we can be gay but we cannot be both. (I use “gay” in a unified way from time to time referring to both gay men and lesbian women). Many believe that God does not love us for who we are, as we are. God has asked me to stand up and tell my story so that everyone will know the truth. So that the lies can be broken and the healing can begin.

Here is the truth as it has been taught to me and I have the God-given authority to pass it to you – God loves you just as you are, right where you are, just as gay as you are.

That is a truth many in society do not want us to believe. Make no mistake; there is a battle raging that means to stop us from knowing God and knowing who we are in God. However, our battle lies neither with misguided legislators nor with the far religious-right or others like them for they are but flesh and blood and know not what they do. No, our battle is with the Enemy which uses them and their weaknesses to do his dirty work. The Enemy is cunning and relentless. He knows how to hurt and how to inflict the most damage. His attacks are effective no matter how brave we try to be on our own.

I know the attacks had an effect on me. I took on a healthy, or I should say unhealthy, sense of shame for being a lesbian. Now don’t misunderstand, I didn’t intrinsically feel this shame or feel that there was one thing wrong with me. But I took in the shame that society laid upon my doorstep.

Tell someone they don’t measure up, that they don’t matter, that they are an embarrassment, that God hates them and won’t love them unless they are different from who God made them to be – they will eventually believe those lies. And those lies do so much destruction.

I have news for society, I am not an abomination. I am not the “greatest threat to America.” God does not punish the world because I exist. God does not punish what He created for He would be punishing Himself. God is a part of all creation.

I am not a trained theologian; I’m not a minister, priest or pastor. I don’t need to be. My religious and spiritual training comes from my life experiences. From growing up in the Church, being educated in religious schools, attending bible studies, and spending time in God’s word and in His presence. Which means I’m nobody special, I’m like everybody else; just a girl crazy in love with God who God is crazy in love with in return.

God has never withheld His love from me because I’m gay. God has never withheld His blessings from me because I’m gay. God has never turned His back on me because I’m gay. I cannot say the same things about people.

Because of the sense of shame I carried inside me for who I was, I prayed to God more times than I know to please “heal” me and make me different, make me straight. I prayed for this because I believed it would please my parents and family, it would please society and it would make my life so much easier. (I didn’t make that prayer because it would please me.)

God did answer that prayer and He did heal me but not in the way I expected. And God did make me different. He healed me from the shame I had accepted for being gay. He healed me from the guilt I carried for not measuring up to someone else’s ideal of who I was supposed to be. He healed me from the fear of living my life as He created me to be. He taught me who I am in His eyes. And what a difference that has made.

God has told me in no uncertain terms that He is not ashamed of me and I am not an abomination in His eyes but that I am His beautiful beloved. He told me loud and clear in a way I was sure to understand, “I am proud of you, Dee.”

Those are some of the greatest words a girl could ever hear from her Father. But they are words that so few of my brothers and sisters get to hear. The safe and loving feeling I felt as a child and continue to feel today is the feeling everyone (whether gay or not) should feel when they enter a church or approaching God. But they don’t and God is grieved by that.

Not all, but the majority of our churches are not safe and loving places for homosexuals. (Even right now my Episcopal denomination is in a life and death struggle within itself over how to deal with us.) In most churches we are welcome but only if we try to “change.” They say God wants and demands that we change. This prevents some of us from even entering the door of God’s house. Or others of us stopped seeking God long ago believing the lies that God does not love us because we are gay. These lies are heavy and can make a person question God’s very existence. These things stop so many of us right in our tracks from ever seeking our Heavenly Father.

Society and the Church have it all wrong. The reason they have it wrong is because they cannot know what I (and we) know. A straight person cannot tell me that God hates me because I am gay and that He demands that I change. First, God cannot hate – anything or anyone. Second, they don’t have the authority. I am the one who is gay. I am the one in my relationship with God and God has told me personally that He loves me “with all His heart and all His soul.” He has also told me that I am no surprise to Him, who created me. He has told me that “I know you are gay, and it’s okay.”

And He wants you to know that if you are gay, God says you’re okay, too.

That is not a message the world wants you to hear – but it is one God wants you to hear. Like every human, I am not perfect, far from it. I am a sinner and God leads me through my sins and from them everyday. But I have something no human can ever take from me and that is the never ending love and approval of my Heavenly Father.

God wants every one of His beautiful gay and lesbian sons and daughters to know that love and approval too. So many feel unworthy, so many are thirsty, so many are wandering. That has got to change. God wants that to change. He so desires a deep and abiding relationship with each of us.

When our heads and hearts are filled with lies, when we are kept from knowing and having a relationship with our Heavenly Father we are kept in a world of darkness, of shame, of guilt, of brokenness, of fear. Then we are weak, we will not put up a worthy fight – and the enemy knows that.

Luckily, we will not be denied by the God who loves us. Society can try and bar the doors and crowd the windows but they will not keep us out. Just as the four men carrying their paralytic friend had to go through the roof to get past the crowds to reach Jesus (Mark 2:1-5); so too God’s love will let nothing stand between us and our Heavenly Father and the life He died to give us.

Love will no longer allow me to sit down – my love of God, His for me, my love for my beautiful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. My story is not a special story. It can be your story. God is waiting to sweep you off your feet and have an eternal love affair with you. You only have to ask Him into your heart – and you can do that right this second, sitting right where you are reading this. No fancy words required.

When you do your life will never be the same. That is one thing the world does have right. When you enter into a relationship with God you will be forever changed, but not in the way they think. You will be cleansed and freed from all the hurt, anger, bitterness, shame, fear and bad things that ever happened to you. You will be restored to the complete person God created you to be and you know you are.

When we are complete in Him and know who we are in Him we are strong. And we are filled with His abiding love – forever. That love is the most formidable force in the universe.

And love does not sit down.

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