A Long Journey that Led to Peace

January 1, 2006

I didn’t attend church growing up. When I was 9, I accepted Jesus in the Good News Club that was held down the street from where my family lived. I attended GNC for 3 years after that. The teachers (”my spiritual parents”), had to discontinue the club due to health reasons. I call them my spiritual parents because that’s what they were. They taught me about the Bible and Jesus and were, and still are, people of enormous faith.

When I was 16, I met a boy who would eventually become my fiance. His parents gave us a proposition. He could date me if I went to church. So, I started attending an “independent, fundamental Baptist church” with him and his family. I wasn’t allowed to participate in activities or ministries since I wouldn’t wear a dress. I attended only when given ultimatums from his parents. After three years of dating and one year of being engaged, he called it off. During our engagement, he constantly urged me to set a date for the wedding. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the rest of life with him and I was afraid to commit for the rest of my life. At the time, I didn’t know why I couldn’t commit to this wonderful man. He was a Christian; generous with his time and money; polite; loving; and excellent manners that would have impressed a royal family! He was my parent’s dream of a husband for me. I did not share the same dream.

I can’t say that I had an attraction for women at that point in my life. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to. “You find a good man, get married, have kids….” But I didn’t want to get married or have a family. I just wanted security and to be loved. I wasn’t surprised when he called off the engagement. A huge part of me was relieved that he did, so that I didn’t have to.

The next year, February 1991, I started attending an American Baptist church with my “spiritual parents”. What a difference between the two different churches. I became very active in this church from 1991 - 1993; Youth Leader, Musician, Teacher. My life was consumed with church and God. During that same time, I attended meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous as well. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t content with my life.

It was late in 1991 that I moved out of my parents house and in with a female friend from church. Our relationship was unhealthy from the start. We were both co-dependents and I was in recovery from alcoholism. I look back on that relationship and it was just like an unhealthy marriage without the sexual relationship. We were very close. We would tease and flirt with each other. I remember one time wrestling with her and the world just stopped. I had her pinned to her bed. I wanted to kiss her. It scared me beyond belief. I got up immediatley and left for an AA meeting. It was the closest escape that I could find. I moved out in October of 1992. We are still friends today. She is a lesbian too!

Fast forward to spring of 1993. I was doing all of my church activities as usual. Youth group meetings, Youth Ministry Team meetings, hand-bell choir, and brass choir. While attending AA meetings, I met a lesbian. She was fun to be around and there was a mutual attraction. We flirted constantly and I loved the attention. One night we saw each other at a meeting and started talking. Neither one of us was in a good place emotionally or spiritually. That night we had sex. The next day I was on such an emotional high and God was the last thing I wanted to think about. I knew he wouldn’t approve of premarital sex; especially lesbian sex. This “relationship” went on for two weeks. I abruptly ended the fling. I was ashamed of my actions and believed God was going to really punish me for messing up big!

I prayed. I didn’t know what was happening in my mind and I thought Satan really had a foothold on me. I thought to myself, ” I’m not praying enough. I’m not doing enough for God. That’s why this happened. I’m not attracted to women. I can’t be. I’m a Christian.” After I told some friends on the ministry team, I was told that I could not work with the teenagers anymore. I was allowed to attend gatherings but I was not on the Youth Ministry Team any longer. I struggled with this for a couple of months. I started not showing up for church functions. One by one I started finding myself too busy to attend.

In September of 1993, I stopped praying altogether. I started having an affair with a married man. It was not about love or attraction. It was about proving to myself that I was heterosexual. I didn’t enjoy anything about the relationship. In a short period of time my self esteem sank to its lowest. I was ashamed of my past and present behaviors and not living the life I believed would be pleasing to God.

On November 20, 1993, I tried to take my own life. I now know that I just wanted to understand what was going on in my head and my life. I remember the pain that led up to that moment. I did not want to be attracted to women. I believed it was wrong and that God must have messed up when He made me. I wanted to be heterosexual. I wanted to please God and be at peace with myself.

Since that November, I’ve had some times when I have really reached for God. Other times, I ran as hard and fast as I could. I believed God was thoroughly disappointed in me. I questioned my Christianity many times. How in the world can I be a Christian Lesbian? I didn’t see that anywhere in the Bible! I no longer have any relationship with my “spiritual parents.” They do not believe that anyone can be a Christian and Lesbian.

It was during my first visit at a Metropolitan Community Church on Easter 1995 that I saw God in gay people. There really were gay men and lesbians in a Christian church. They were singing, praying, preaching and taking communion. For the next three years, God worked through that congregation to reach me and restore my faith. I left MCC in March 1998. My partner and I have started our search for a new church home. God will show us the way.

Today I know God was in my life every minute. Even when I didn’t want Him to be there, He was. I also know God loves me the same as He loves heterosexual people. I have a wonderful partner of almost four years who is also a Christian. We celebrated a Holy Union in October, 1996. We wanted our relationship to be blessed by God and have our close friends witness our Holy Commitment to each other. Although there are no laws that support our relationship in the United States, God supports us we are accountable only to God and ourselves.

This personal story of faith and reconciliation comes from the archives of www.christianlesbians.com and was originally posted in 2004.

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