Come Out

Come Out

*In my Sophia Petrillo voice* Picture it, Grand Rapids, 2018...I am sitting nervously across the room from my mother with more butterflies in my stomach than Frederik Meijer Gardens in the spring. I am trying to hype myself up to tell her that I'm bisexual. I hadn't rehearsed this, as I had absolutely no intentions on EVER telling her...or anyone else really for that matter. Although, I had known since I was a child that I was attracted to both sexes, I never planned on anyone knowing that tidbit of information about me. That was going to be between Jesus and I until the day I died. Well, fast forward through a 13 year relationship with my (male) high school sweetheart, a breakup with said sweetheart, and a one night stand (with a female) that turned out to be a whole ass relationship *facepalm* and found myself so completely in love that I wanted to shout it from the rooftops...but I couldn't really do that until I filled my sweet, saved, sanctified, Christian mother in on my little secret. Now that you are up to speed, you understand the monarch activity of my GI system.
As I mentioned earlier, there was no rehearsal-no scripts, no cue cards, no prompters to read from, nada. I just took a deep breath and very eloquently led off with, "Sooooo..." I was already failing, but I continued. "I know it's not your thing, and we won't agree on it but if I was dating a woman, you wouldn't like, just disown me, right?" Said very nonchalantly. She looked at me a little stunned and slightly confused, and responded with, "You are my child, there is no reason I would ever disown you or stop loving you." We had a very short conversation about it, and that was that.

Because of a lot of the twisted teachings I have heard over the years, I was expecting God to crack the sky at that very moment, pick me up, and throw me as far away from Him as He possibly could. At that moment, I expected to feel exiled or like I should be wearing some sort of scarlet letter. I was expecting to feel disdain and disgust from God. Shockingly, I felt the exact opposite. It was like He said, "FINALLY, stop running from who you are!" That is exactly what I was doing, and regretfully the only time I ever ran.
When I had my first same sex attraction, I immediately said, "nope!" and tried my absolute hardest to "pray the gay away." I knew those feelings were wrong, I knew I would go to hell, and I knew God would not claim me if I had these awful feelings. After years of praying and fasting and tormenting myself, the feelings were still there...shocker. I continued to ask God to take away these emotions, as I know He is able. Still a no go. It then dawned on me that He created me. Every single part of me. He knew my feelings even before I knew what feelings were. Why was I trying to pray away something that was so deeply rooted in me? That's like asking water to stop being wet, it doesn't try to be or not be, it just is. I didn't choose to be bisexual; it just is what it is. (Side note: bisexual people aren't confused; we just choose to focus on loving people as opposed to genders. *Hard eye roll*)

Each person's relationship (or lack thereof) with God is personal. PERSONAL. PERSONAL! That means that you won't tell me how I am wrong for loving a woman, and I won't tell you how you are wrong by eating your Popeye's tackle box. We can go back and forth all day and try to twist the word of God all we want to fit our agendas, but one thing that cannot be denied is that God is love! Loving someone is not wrong. The reason that He didn't "take those feelings away from me" was because they are feelings of love. Why would He ever not want us to love? What He wants is for us to be honest with Him and honest with ourselves about who we are. He wants us to stop lying about who we really are. Honey, you are not a blouse, God did not create you to be in a closet.

Stay Positive and Spread Peace