Lesbian Relationships: Postscript to Preparing for Love
March 4, 2009
Indulge me this post to back up and do some fundamental re-framing of my recent post on Lesbian Relationships: Preparing for Love where I encouraged caring for our spiritual, relational, and emotional growth; taking time to heal the broken places in our lives; deepening our self-awareness; and fully participating in life now rather than waiting on the sidelines until she appears in all her glorious womanly wonderfulness. I stand by all that but at the same time I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression I’m suggesting we do it all for the purpose of getting a relationship. Personal growth, and that’s what we’re talking about here, is never about the one you hope will one day arrive on the scene but for the one who has already arrived and yes, that would be you.
In the four years between the demise of one relationship and the beginning of my life with my beloved the biggest project in life was spent working on me. Here’s what the Anita Project entailed:
- During those years I all but single-handedly financed a college education for my therapist’s daughter as I explored and dissected every personal issue I could possibly dredge up.
- I tended to my spiritual life by committing myself to prayer, mediation, and study of the Word with a rigorness and consistency I’d never known prior and which often escapes me now.
- After a life time of being miserable in a body that was far too big for me, I lost more than a 100 pounds.
- I became actively involved a new church and in the local community by volunteering monthly at a food kitchen and in an afterschool program for at-risk kids.
- I attended my first national GLBTQ Christian conferences and wanting to connect with other Christian lesbians in my town I started a local Christian lesbian group that involved placing an ad in the newspaper and setting up a circle of chairs on a Saturday morning in my churches fellowship hall. Nineteen women showed up. Just so you know, they are out here.
At the end of those four years when I headed off to attend seminary I was as happy and content as I’d ever been in my life. I was single and involved in life and a future relationship was the last thing on my mind. I had no idea that D and a more than spectacular life with her at my side was waiting around the corner. All that I had known four years earlier was that since coming out the previous year nearly every anchor in my life had been knocked out from under my feet. In coming out I’d lost my immediate circle of friends. Relationships in my immediate family had grown distant and strained. I left my church of 15 years and the only denomination I’d ever known. I’d lost my identity and career in pastoral ministry. I’d moved to another city, was in another church of another denomination, was working a 9 to 5 desk job, and my only significant intimate relationship had just ended disastrously. Conservative Christianity in the church and in my childhood home had created my identity, had instructed me in how to live, and had shaped my understanding and relationship with God. Coming out I lost that identity and the boundaries that had constrained me and while I remained certain of God’s love and presence I was unsteady and in doubt of much of the fundamental teaching that had bracketed my conservative faith. In a very real way I was beginning life all over again and I didn’t have the maturity, knowledge or even the basic skills to know how to find my place in the world. More than anything I needed help to learn how to live in the world as the best version of myself I could be; the fullness of me created within the heart of God.
I know I’ve just yammered about me but I can’t help but believe there are others reading who are nodding because some part of this is their story too. Am I right or am I right? If not boy, do I feel silly.
So sure. There’s little doubt we’ll be in a far better position to participate in a lasting, loving relationship if we don’t enter it spiritually broken, emotionally needy, and clueless as to who we are in this world, but the point of personal growth is never about another woman or getting another woman but it’s about you and becoming you. We slog through all the laborious work of self-discovery, healing, and personal growth so that we can live in to and out of God’s great plan for our lives, and God has no greater plan for your life than that you would grow fully into who you are. You do realize don’t you, that you’re the only person God created who possesses the ability to live out life fully as you? No one else can bring who you are to the world but you and all God desires is that you live out your life in wholeness, health, and love…as the most complete and quintessential you.
That’s the most important task before you. Being you. Not finding her.
And as it so happens, sometimes when we tend to the one, the other takes care of itself.
Posted in Christian Lesbian Identity, Relationships
Sweet Hope Cookies
March 4th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I think that some of what you are saying is what I feel I have come to on my own (part of the time?!?!). The looking and the trying to find the one is tiring. And I feel better being involved and happy with me. That is my hope to try not looking and find what I need, if not what I want.
The searching also seems so self focused….and I am still a work in progress…that I know.
deb
March 4th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Isn’t that the truth…it’s in finding ourselves first that we find someone to share our life with. I had come from a place of brokenness after a disastrous long-term affair and the healing was taking place as I gingerly stepped forward and ever so slightly, tapped on the church door.
The healing continues as wholeness has begun to take the place of brokenness but it’s a long process. It’s wonderful to have sisters in Christ to walk the journey with and lean on in times of needing support.
I so appreciate your ministry and what you share from your heart and your life. It always hits home and speaks peace into my life so once again thank you Anita.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Deb (the other one) –> Which by the way, cracks me up…the other one. Anyway, here’s a little secret I’ve learned that I share now with only you. Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you get the thing you need rather than the thing you want what you needed was really what you wanted but you just didn’t know it before you got it? Say what?
Jones–> You’re welcome Jones. Really. I continue to be amazed that what feels so personal to me can connect with others and in the same way how others personal journey’s can touch me at the deepest part of myself. The whole human connection is fairly awesome that way. So glad you’re finding healing from brokenness and yes, it’s a long process but once you get through it you really find yourself standing in awe of God’s grace at a whole other level. At least that’s how it was for me and I pray for you too.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Anita, I completely agree with all you have said on the topic. However, I will add a twist. It is while being in the midst of a relationship and “struggling” with her that I finally found the courage to explore a part of me that I have tried to squelch for so long. Being in this relationship has pushed me to explore more of who I am and I have been fortunate to have someone walk with me in this. In a sense we are navigating this together. Instead of going through healing separate from this kind of intimacy, it is the intimacy (along with the therapy) that is bringing about the healing I have needed. The journey is still in the early stages, but I am so incredibly thankful to have a wonderful woman to walk with.
Thanks for sharing all of your wisdom and insight. Always an encouragement!
March 4th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
GW–>Thank you for adding your twist! Your story offers an entirely different perspective on the topic and I really appreciate that because I would imagine your experience echoes that of others as well. I wouldn’t want anyone to think there’s only one way to look at this and your example witnesses powerfully to a journey that’s been really wonderful for the two of you to travel together. How inspiring!
March 5th, 2009 at 8:28 am
I agree with you Anita! I have one beef though! Why is it that people meet their spouses when they are not expecting it?
I sometimes reach this ‘nirvana’ point, but to be honest, sometimes I feel like I’m pretending that I’m happily single.
I keep chanting ‘I am happy single’ like a mantra to myself and my friends to try and convince myself that this is true. I list out all the advantages – freedom to do this, that etc
Also I’ve avoided influences that may stir up these desires- so no love stories at all – romantic books, magazines, films (which kind of drastically narrows the field for a film ‘buff’ like me)
But even this doesn’t work as I can’t isolate myself completely from seeing and interracting with couples who hold hands, kiss, praise and affirm each other!
I just find it really hard!
March 9th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Kim–>I hear you. I don’t think we ever fully arrive at some perfect state of singleness without still having waves of desire and loneliness to share our lives with another. It seems as humans we’re built for that. To your question, I don’t know why we meet our spouses when we least expect it unless maybe in our looking, we miss seeing what’s really there for us. I dunno. That’s my best guess for a Monday afternoon.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Hey Anita – I believe that through this recent series that I am beginning to understand/calm down.
“We slog through all the laborious work of self-discovery, healing, and personal growth so that we can live in to and out of God’s great plan for our lives, and God has no greater plan for your life than that you would grow fully into who you are. You do realize don’t you, that you’re the only person God created who possesses the ability to live out life fully as you? No one else can bring who you are to the world but you and all God desires is that you live out your life in wholeness, health, and love…as the most complete and quintessential you.
That’s the most important task before you. Being you. Not finding her.”
Yes, with God’s help, I am working through some things in my life. God will guide me on what I need to do and where I need to be.
Even though I believe that God will give me a soulmate, I am not worried or overly anxious about it.
He is leading me in what I need to do and who I need to be for Him and that is all that matters.
Peace.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:02 pm
i am a pastor who will probably be going through the same as you – rejection by friends, family, and my church which will mean i’ll lose my calling, my home, and my ordination. i do have a woman i’m attracted to but we are going slow. what advice do you have?
October 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Bethann – I am a pastor too and have only learned this about myself in the past year but itis truly the only peace I have ever had – the problem is I am married too. Its comforting to know there is another pastor, i thought I was alone.
February 8th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Wow, I love reading this wisdom! It is definitely coming at the right time for me. Thank you