To try and make sense of it all, I sat down last night and typed three pages of thoughts. Back and forth, spiraling thoughts. Nothing felt more clear after three pages of trying to find clarity. So I just quit writing and decided the only thing I could do was to try and live in my heart. Try to let my heart sort out what my head certainly could not.
Today was better overall, but still questions. This morning the root of my real struggle occurred to me. I texted Kim: “I don’t feel
unconditional love from the Lord.... I feel “I love
you, but...” I feel “I want to bless you, but...”
That played in my mind and heart all day. I was amazed that
after all this time, my entire life, with so many amazing experiences with the
Spirit, that deep down, I still believed God’s love for me was based on my
performance, my attempts at obedience, etc. In thinking about praying to Him
and asking for help, in the back of my mind, I thought “He can’t/won't help you. You
aren’t living the way He wants you to.”
My entire life I’ve based my worth and other’s ability to
love me on how well I was living up to their expectations. If I felt any kind
of disappointment from them, it would wreck me inside, and I would do all I
could to fix the situation. And that idea carried over to God as well.
So all day, I pondered on that. This morning I listened to a couple of
recent conference talks. While driving around for work, I listened to Christian music on the radio. Just trying to get my heart right in order to find some
kind of peace and answers.
Later this afternoon, I watched an “I’ll Walk With You” video. In it, the
mother was talking about her interactions with a lesbian woman who was in a
relationship with a woman. And this mother was so concerned. She intended to
talk to her and exhort her to a different path. But one day she hugged this
other woman, and was immediately touched and filled with the spirit that expressed
to her that the Lord loved this lesbian woman purely, perfectly and deeply. And
that was all. No feelings of disappointment, or encouragement to this
mother to try and change her. Just pure, deep, unconditional love.
That video touched me.
When I got home, the sun was just beginning to set, so I
decided I would drive to a nice open spot to watch it. I started pulling a few weeds
first from the front rock garden, and as I did I was taught. Just as the Lord
absolutely, perfectly, and purely loved this lesbian woman, He loves me. All of the “I’ll Walk With You”videos that feature parents with gay children – all of
them, every one that turned to Lord to know what to do, received the same
message: Love them. Why? Because God loves them absolutely, and perfectly.
And He let me know, right there, pulling weeds, that He
loves me the exact same way.
As I got in my car and began driving to the causeway, other
thoughts came to my mind. The Lord has a purpose in all He does. And one of His
purposes for me is to help teach other people, other followers of Christ specifically,
how to love more deeply and more unconditionally, more Christ-like. Simply by being me, being who I
am. Gay and Mormon. He loves others as much as He love me. And He wants to help
them learn how to love as He does. It’s my job to Love as Christ does. To serve His
children. And to give them an opportunity to turn to Christ and practice
loving in return. Its my job to love those who
struggle to love me.
So when someone has a hard time with who I am, or the
choices I make, that’s just all part of the process. Rather than take that to
heart and make it about me, I realized today, it's just part of their journey.
And to love and be so glad they have the opportunity to grow and stretch, and
that I can be a part of that.
Every one of us has our own journeys. To compare mine to
someone else's is not only not helpful, but just plain wrong.
It’s my job to be who I am – confidently. And to allow
others their journey of learning to embrace the pure love of Christ.
So, truly and honestly, everything really will be okay. My
path is my own. It is unique. It is not spelled out in church doctrine. But it
is real, true, ordained of God, and mine.
I cried with joy as these realizations filled my heart. God
is so good.
Dear Lord, help me remember.
