I was blessed to be in a room of leaders this week. A room of trailblazers and of extremely brave people. These people caused me to reflect, to take a look at my own life, to emote, to grieve, and to hope and pray that I can be a little more like Christ as a result.
My church hosted a seminar this week called "Grace, Truth, and Homosexuality." During this seminar there were a panel of people from my church who talked about their journey dealing with homosexuality. The people on the panel were people who are friends of mine, people that I know very little, and people that I don't know at all.
I must say that I am extremely proud of my church. One, for have the decency, the forethought and the faith to open up a dialogue about this issue. Two (the leaders) for having the humility to say that they don't have the answers, they understand that this is a messy issue, and that the larger and more important issue is about loving Christ, not about pointing about faults in one another.
The panelists told their stories and I was absolutely riveted. There is just so much that, uneducated, we are left to assume. I feel like the blessing that the panelists bestowed on us was telling us the truth about homosexuality. They told us the truth about their stories, their backgrounds, their issues. They were transparent and vulnerable and that is what made it so powerful.
Something that grieved me incredibly is that they all expressed how terrified they were to talk about homosexuality in the context of church and small group relationship among their Christian friends - which in theory is the last place that they should be rejected. This only reinforces the idea that we should be lovers and accepting of the broken because that is what we all are and we all deal with something or another. How is one struggle so different or merit some sort of different type of treatment? It doesn't. The church has for so long failed at accepting things with which it is uncomfortable but I believe the tide is changing and a precedent has been set.
I found myself touched and grieved looking at my own life not just because what the panelists said was so incredibly relevant to us as a culture, but because it is so incredibly relevant to me as a person. As a person who has experienced relational and sexual brokenness as a result of abuse and gone through the same types of identity and connectedness struggles expressed by members of the panel, I was really struck by how these types of brokenness tend to stem from the same types of issues. Identity or lack thereof. A desperate need to be recognized by a parent or both parents. A desperate need for connection. Growing into adulthood and sexualizing those needs. I have been there. How many others have been there? How many others are there now?
I don't know what comes next, but I do know that this is only the beginning. There are other issues on the 'do not read' list that need to be open to dialogue. For example - when I was going through my journey of recovery I would have loved to have somebody be open and vulnerable about their journey with sexual abuse. What other issues can we strip of fear and shame and allow God to set people free?
Today is a new day, eh?
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