Looking Back, Moving Ahead

July 31, 2009

You’ll notice the comment section on this blog post is closed. I’ve done so intentionally because I don’t want you to comment on what I’m going to write in this post. You’ve been more than generous in the past in offering encouraging and grateful words of SisterFriends Together and I don’t want you to think I’m trying to weasel more of the same out of you. I just want to write from my heart for a few minutes.

Here’s the thing. I’m in one of those reflective contemplate my belly button moods. Where have I come from? What am I doing? Where am I going? At the end of my life what will have most mattered? What have I done today to live into my greatest passions?

Those questions, and a thousand and one others at last count, color the most private corners of my life lived alone in my heart with only the presence of God for company, in my relationship with my beautiful bride who never fails to woo me all over again every day, and in the life of ministry I could never escape even if I wanted to which I never will as long as God remains God and I remain me.

One of the things I’m thinking a lot these is this place and by this place I mean right here. SisterFriends Together. I don’t think anyone knows how much I care about SisterFriends and what a big a part it is of my every day life. Even when I’m not blogging or replying to emails or participating in the forum my heart is here, and the more of you I come to know and the more of your stories I hear, the more I love this place because you make this place real and you make this place matter. One of the things in life I’m most passionate about is this online community because I understand it as nothing less than something created and woven together by the heart of God. I have a personal blog and this is not it. This is a place of ministry and a jumping off place for a very unique Christian community and I’m just privileged enough to be part of what God is doing here.

Having said all that I struggle at times with feelings that I let those of you down who spend much time here. I worry that I don’t blog enough. I worry that I don’t address gay issues enough. I worry that the focus is too often about me and too little about the concerns and cares of your life and the outrageous love and grace of our incredible God. I struggle with my humanity and the attached ego enough that I compare what I’m doing here with other blogs I personally follow and struggle with waves of paralyzing inadequacy. Not often but often enough to annoy me.

And so it’s in times like this I have to come back to center and ask myself what it is that really matters in my life and in what I’m trying to do here and in both areas the answer is the same. What matters most in my life is the love of God and what matters most here is that everyone of you who wanders by this place takes away the one message that God loves you. In your bones. Way deep. So deep you never need to wonder again. Never question. Never doubt. So deep you can move forward every day of your life with the absolute assurance that you are God’s beloved. No matter what others say. No matter how harshly others judge. No matter what you’ve done or how far you are from who you think you’re suppose to be. I hope you can take God’s love in so completely that it transforms your entire life and gives you a new vision of the world, of yourself, and of your enemies who God loves just as equally as God loves you. I want you to know what matters more to God than anything else in this world is you, that there is nothing more beautiful in all of creation to God than you, and that the very angels who stand before God’s presence have only one unfulfilled longing of their hearts; to experience the same intimacy in relationship with God that God has right now with you.

I want you to know the love of God because I know what it’s like to question whether it can really be true and I know what it’s like to have it written in indelible ink across my heart. Though I’ve heard about the love of God since I was a child and though I’ve felt that love embrace me on and off throughout the years I’m coming to a new season in my life where the love of God has been steadily sinking into the marrow of my bones. I’m in awe of the depth of such love; so much so that sometimes it leaves me speechless and yes, even blog-less at times.

So here I am, a Christian and a lesbian, living my life awed by the love and grace of God and the more I come to know that love in bits and pieces, the greater my desire and burden and joy it is to share it with you. So that’s what I’m doing here and that’s what matters. Does God love you as a gay, bisexual, transgendered or queer man or woman? Yes. Does God love you with a past filled with mistakes and a today filled with human failings and imperfections? Yes.

How can I be so sure the answer is yes when I don’t even know who you are or what you’ve done? I know without reservation the answer is Yes, God loves you because I know the answer is Yes, God loves me.

Spread the Word!