Transparency

When I was a kid, I watched Veggie Tales. There’s something oddly entertaining about talking vegetables with too-large eyes and telekinetic powers (at least, I assume that’s how they moved things without arms). At the end of each episode the series’ mantra was repeated– Bob:”God made you special,” Larry:”And He loves you very much.”

My youngest sister is 9 years younger than I am, so I was still watching Veggie Tales in high school (don’t judge). Sometimes when I was feeling down because I was too short, or weighed too much, or my voice was too low, or one of a myriad other reasons I had to be dissatisfied with myself, I could hear Bob and Larry telling “God made you special and He loves you very much.” And even though I didn’t feel very special, that simple sentence brought much comfort.

Then I realized I was gay, and I felt even less special. They said people like me weren’t made by God and that we were all the same: perverted sexual deviants with major mommy/daddy issues. They said that God abhorred us and that we were abominations. Basically, “God didn’t make you special and He doesn’t love you very much.” And I believed them.

So, I began trying to change; to be someone God could love as much as He loves everyone else. I prayed begging God to take it from me and I pored over my Bible looking for the way to be delivered. I read every scrap of ex-gay material I could find desperately searching for the cure to my ailment. After four years of striving, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally drained; I was frustrated; and I was still gay. I felt like a disappointment to everyone important in my life. I was a waste of potential; a forever failure. My very existence was taxing me and I wanted it to end.

One night while doing yet another Google search looking for something, anything that would help me, I came across something I never expected to find. I encountered a woman whose committment to Christ I couldn’t reject. And she was gay. Her message also sounded vaguely familiar: “God made you special, and He loves you very much. Regardless of what ‘they’ say.” But I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t. I didn’t dare believe that God would be audacious enough to love and accept me, and, in turn, allow me to love and accept myself and my place in Him when so many said it was impossible. I was too afraid, but in the back of my mind I felt that nothing was more true. I was also brought face to face with a problem I’d been trying to ignore all along: the ex-gay testimonies, theories, and condemning passages weren’t me; they didn’t reflect my life. I’d never been raped or experienced any type of traumatic event. I had a pretty average relationship with my parents and I knew they cared about me. I grew up in the suburbs and went to church every time it was held. I was an A-student in a Christian school going to a Christian college. I was a good kid who loved God and tried to learn about Him and please Him. I wasn’t supposed to be gay. Anita’s testimony was more reflective of my life than that of any of the ex-gays whose were so foreign.

Eventually I came to realize this gay thing wasn’t going away (I can be quite slow, or stubborn, sometimes). I was convinced God didn’t and couldn’t love me and I didn’t love myself. In fact, I hated myself. My relationships and ability to relate to others suffered terribly as I didn’t feel I could be honest and didn’t was to become too close to anyone so the inevitable rejection wouldn’t be as painful. I didn’t want to be who I thought I’d have to be; and I couldn’t be what I thought I needed to be. I was horribly depressed with no respite, and it grew darker and darker until all I wanted was to die. Thoughts of suicide consumed me, and, for a long time, it genuinely seemed like the best option. I’m going to skip any more details of this period, but, suffice to say, the only way it could’ve been darker is for me to be buried six feet under.

But I didn’t forget about Anita, and, since I had nothing else, I decided to spend some time perusing her blog. As I read through, I became more and more convinced of the genuineness of her testimony and commitment to Christ. I read of more women of faith who had endured my same struggle and came through it with their faith intact and still gay. They were exactly what I had always believed to be impossible: gay Christians. And they had one message they insisted was true: God made you special, and He loves you very much. I wept. I wept because I wanted so desperately to believe that but I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

That night I decided to fight for my faith (and my life). I opened my Bible and instead of searching for more condemnation to add to that I’d already internalized, I wanted to see God and how He saw me. I saw that He fashioned me in my mother’s womb and that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. I saw that He had plans to prosper me and give me hope and a future. I saw that He gave life more abundantly and that He wasn’t the author of confusion. I saw a God who loved diversity and delighted in His creation. I realized that He looked on me with compassion not willing that I should perish but that I should have life. It slowly dawned on me that to God there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, gay nor straight; that I am accepted into the beloved and that when He looks at me, He knows me and loves me and longs for me to see Him as He is. I found that what He wanted from my life was for me to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him. I looked for God and eventually I found mercy, love, and peace. I don’t know why He chose this life for me when I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself. But now I know beyond doubt that God made me special and He loves me very much.