Raindrops in the Desert

January 1, 2006

I have always been a Christian, and I was United Methodist for the first 38 years of my life. I was never very interested in guys, and I knew there was something different about me from other girls. I was always teased in high school and college about being gay because I didn’t date, and I was involved in sports. My first attraction was to my high school coach. I was like her shadow. In college I was asked out for dates by other women but never accepted. I deeply missed my high school coach. I had had a crush on her like other kids having crushes on their teachers. However, I could never tell anyone about the crush because I was a female who had had a crush on a female teacher. So, I buried myself in school work, church work, and being an RA.

Church was and still is such a big part of my life, and I always felt God calling me to some type of ministry. I wanted to do the right thing by God and my parents and so after I graduated from college and was teaching, I met my future husband. I had a lot of pressure from my parents to get married because my parents were afraid I was gay. Plus I knew very well what the Christian church felt about homosexuality. So when I met my husband, I so desperately wanted him to be the one that I think I fell in love with the idea of falling in love with him. I didn’t want to be gay. I was afraid of being ostracized from my family and the church.

We were married for almost 17 years, and we have a son. The internal conflict tore at my soul, and I lived under constant criticism. I guess I got on his nerves and didn’t satisfy him. In any event he was always angry with me. Then in 1996 I was hit with pneumonia and was very ill. I basically had to learn to walk again. I had to take nearly two years of physical therapy and I couldn’t work. It caused a huge financial strain and my husband told me that our house was more important to him than me. Well, I realized that I had to do what I had to do in order to get well. So I started seminary on a part-time basis and took counseling. Both of these actions allowed God to save my life. In these places, God had rain drops fall onto the deserts in my life. In many ways they were God’s tears of empathy for my sore and hurting heart.

Through my theological education I have been able to reconcile my faith with my sexual orientation, and through counseling I have been able to acknowledge my sexual orientation and leave a marriage that was emotionally destructive for me.

I will soon be divorced, and I will graduate from seminary in May. I am not quite financially stable yet, but I have a good job as a teacher, and I am working toward that goal. I still have health problems, but things have greatly improved. I have joint custody of my son, and I have found a loving church home that I am helping to establish in my hometown. I now belong to the United Church of Christ denomination.

The truth does set you free, and I hope that in some way I can be part of the movement of the Holy Spirit which convicts the church as a whole that homosexuality is not a sin. I now see that the sin is in not accepting who God has created you to be. Ones sexuality is a gift from God. I am glad that I have finally accepted this gift, and I pray that one day the universal Church will be able to see this truth.

If not for God, I would be a destroyed person. It has been God’s grace which has delivered me, revived my soul, renewed my thinking, set me free, and has given me a second chance at life. I know God loves me and when I do meet my future partner, I will not marry for the wrong reasons.

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

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Posted in Personal Stories