God’s Love and Her Love

March 16, 2009

This personal story was submitted by Andrea and is the winning entry among the twenty submissions received in the First Annual SisterFriends Writing Contest. It’s an honor to share Andrea’s story with you along with the other stories that will be posted in the coming weeks.

In thinking about writing this story my mind has gone so many directions with it. Where do I start?  Is it a “coming out” story?  Have I even really come out yet?  Am I really a lesbian????

I will begin by telling you that my whole story has happened in a whirlwind over the last 15 months. Enter my life in October of 2007. I went to a party at a friend’s house and noticed a girl there that I was just getting to know.  She worked across the street from me and was in my aerobics class.  We’d had some dealings with each other up to that time and I knew she was a lot of fun.  I also knew she was a lesbian.  We had so much fun at my friend’s party that night!  I made every excuse I could to sit next to her, to accidentally touch her and we laughed until our cheeks and our stomachs hurt. From that night on I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Certainly throughout the years I’ve had thoughts of  being with a woman but I always thought it was curiosity.  I knew men didn’t make me happy but I really thought my purpose in life was to make them happy. That was the idea of  “love” I knew; that I was to please a man. I was married for almost 10 years and I’ve been divorced now for 5 years.  I have a son who is 10 and a daughter who is 8.  How could I possibly be a lesbian?  But I felt something changing in my mindset.  All I wanted to do was talk to her and spend time with her.  I felt different when I was with her.  I felt respected and safe. I felt like I could really be me and not have to try to impress or please.  For the first time in my life I felt comfortable.  I had searched in so many different areas of my life for this feeling – and this was where I was finally finding it.

It was so scary and confusing.  It was so against my Baptist teaching.  But it felt so right.  Nothing had ever felt so right in my life.  How could it possibly be?   All those Sundays listening to the sermons telling me that homosexuality is a sin.  If that’s the case, how could I possibly feel so much peace when I was with her?  Well, God was putting me there for a reason, so I just had to let Him work it out, right?  Maybe He was bringing me close to her to make her see the error of her ways.  What are we told to do? Trust God.  So that’s what I did.

We continued seeing each other and talking on a daily basis.  She even started coming to church with me.  We would both kind of wiggle around in our seats when the pastor would say that we needed to do what we could to stop sin from happening in the world and then use homosexuality as an example, but even through that we continued to grow closer to each other.  I knew I wanted to be with her.

She eventually moved in with me. We were still going to the Baptist church but it was quickly becoming more strained. I had been attending this church for 7 years and was very involved.  All of my friends were there and all of my social events revolved around the church. Steph and I began feeling like maybe we should find a church of our own, one that more closely matched our beliefs together.  I just wasn’t quite ready yet. This was the only life I had known for a long time and definitely the only life my children had known.  Steph was so loving in the process and so patient. I kept thinking “when they get to know her better it will be okay.”

Then one Sunday after a good Baptist church dinner, Beth, a friend of mine, pulled me aside and asked me if Steph was gay.  Well, I might as well have been back in the times of the Bible and told her that I was a leper, because that was the same horrified reaction I got from my ‘friend’ when I said yes.   Beth then followed that up with having me over to her house to “talk about things.”  At that point she told me all the things a “Christian friend” should tell someone who’s involved in a “sinful lifestyle.”  “You have to stop!” she said. “She’s only going to bring you trouble! You’re just going through a phase! Wait for God to bring you the right man, he’s out there!” She finished by telling me that she’d talk to me in a week or so to see what I’d decided.  And, of course, she’d be praying for me.

A couple of weeks passed and Beth invited me over to her house again to “talk”.  Reluctantly I agreed to go.  Looking back now I wonder why I didn’t just say no, but she truly was my friend. I’m also a people pleaser, but that’s beside the point!  I agreed to meet her at a certain time but unbeknown to me,  Beth had decided to rally the troops and have a surprise ‘intervention’ with some of the women of the church.   The pastor’s wife and a deacon’s wife were there along with Beth and she had “filled them in on my situation.”  This led to a 3-hour attack from the very women who were my good friends.  They used every method possible to try to get me to see the mistake I was making by being in a relationship with a lesbian, because of course, there was no way I was actually a lesbian.

When the guilt from “How can you do this to God?” didn’t work  they moved on to the friend aspect of it.  How could I ever consider going on with this relationship when it might jeopardize so many real friendships that I had in the church?  Next they turned to bribery by saying  “You can still be her friend, just tell her to move out of the house.  We will pay for her to find someplace else to live until she can get on her own feet.”

Seeing that none of that worked they decided to pull out the big guns and use my kids as weapons.   It’s okay that my kids are loving, accepting, and love having Steph around but “How are you going to feel when your son gets in a fight at school because he’s defending his momma’s sin?” They finally put the icing on the cake when they  told me I had a week to have her move out or they were taking the matter to the entire church and the pastor would have to decide how the situation would be handled, and “hypocrite” was thrown into the mix as well.  That was the point when the decision to find a new church became clear to me.  I was not going back to the Baptist Church and the congregation that had become my family.

The next few months were extremely difficult for me.  My whole life was literally turned upside down.  How could I be so happy and sad at the same time?  I knew I belonged with Steph.  I had no doubt in my mind about that.  I started seeing people in a whole new light.  My very best friend told me that she could no longer associate with me and Steph together. She was still ‘my friend’, but she couldn’t pretend like she was okay with my relationship, and she couldn’t let her own children who had become part of my family, spend time at my house with my kids anymore.  All of our lives changed instantly and dramatically. Yet through all of the pain and the tears during that time, I still felt so much comfort and peace in my relationship.  I thank God for that.

At that point I just desperately wanted to find someone who could tell me that it was possible to be a lesbian and a Christian.  I knew it had to be true.  I was needing that fellowship so badly that I was missing from my Christian friends. That’s when I started looking for resources on the internet and found the Sisterfriends website.  I remember the day vividly in my mind.  I was sitting in my office and I started reading and I just couldn’t read fast enough.  A wave of emotion came over me and it was like a whole new world opened up.  I would read a verse that was quoted in the Bible & Homosexuality section and then look it up in my King James Bible….the only ‘true’ Bible according to the Baptist church.  It was like reading it for the first time!  It affirmed everything I was reading. I had truly, finally seen the light! I finally understood what God’s unconditional love was about. I finally felt LOVED.

During this time we had also been trying out new churches. Everything we tried was “okay” but nothing felt just right.  Then one day Steph and I were talking about a website that we had both found for a church in the city near our little town.  We decided to try that church the following weekend and for the first time in a long time I felt at home. I couldn’t stop the flood of tears that were streaming down my face as the music began at the end of the sermon.  We finally found our church.

It’s been almost a year since that time in my life.  I  still bump into “the Baptists” on occasion and feel a little twinge of sadness when I think about the friendships that used to be.  But I don’t have a single regret for the decisions I’ve made. I am happier than I have ever been. I feel like I’m finally who God wants me to be.  And for the first time in 36 years, I am content.

What a great place to be.

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