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[devsavesdaworld-blog]

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[devsavesdaworld-blog]

So. I’m gay. That’s pretty neat.

Some people might be surprised by this, some others maybe not. It doesn’t really matter anyhow, because the way I am is really the way I am and there’s no changing that.

But even just a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to talk about this so freely and candidly. A year ago, my life was entirely different. Two years ago, three, five, 10. So much has changed from that dorky kid who grew up in a small farming town where the cows outnumbered the people.

It was in this small farming town where I learned that “gay” was synonymous with “wrong” or “weird” or “broken.” Kids would throw gay around as an insult, and some of those insults were thrown at me for being a sensitive kid who would rather lend someone a pencil to make them like me than actually stand up for myself, even though I knew I was never going to get that pencil to come. I cried when the dogs in Where the Redfern Grows ended up dying. I didn’t want to be mean, and I loved hugs. I was skinny and not that athletic, but smart, and felt more comfortable around girls even though they made me feel like shit most of the time because most of my cousins were girls. But really, I was just always myself. I didn’t even know what “gay” was at the time, let alone sex or any of those R-rated concepts that were thrown around.

High school wasn’t much better, but I started learning. My friend groups shifted a few times, but I always more of an innocent kid. Still smart, but long and gangly after a growth spurt that left me a bean pole. My mom even thought I was going to die one day from being so skinny. Awkward, gangly, etc. But innocent and unaware of much outside of small farming town.

Then high school continued, and I started growing and maturing, and I started noticing more of these impulses and intrigues I had towards guys instead of girls, though I was so confused at the time because, well, guys were supposed to be in relationships with girls, right? I didn’t even know how that all worked, but I tried my best to do the typical teenage stuff. Tried going after a few girls, tried kissing a few, ended up kissing one. But it was never really exactly the most comfortable of experiences.

Still gangly. Still a dork.

Then I hit a major depression, and that sucked, but at least during that time I grew a lot and I learned more about myself. But I still never really understood the whole gay thing.

And then I became a Christian. I felt like God brought me into his arms, and I fell in love with Christianity and the Church and everything that came with having Jesus in my life. But there was one thing that was always off, and that was that I started understanding my sexual attraction toward boys instead of girls. When it finally hit me that I had the oh-so-sinful “same-sex attraction,” I was scared in a way because everything so far had reinforced this tainted image of what being gay meant. In college, I came out to a few people in the first couple of years, but I was so cared.

I even came out to the pastor of the church I was going to at the time. His first questions for me was “Were you ever sexually molested as a child?”

No, pastor.

“Have you ever heard of the Exodus program?”

Again, no. Looked into it. It was a “reparative therapy” program that attempted to make gay people become straight.

What it really did was make people want to kill themselves, which they did time and time again. It was shutdown for being inhumane, and I’m glad I never followed that pastor’s advice.

But I was stuck in a place of pain, of struggle, or having to put on a façade and lie constantly and not be open with myself and with others because I was afraid of how the world would react, especially the world of American Christianity. I heard the horror stories, and the pastor I came out to really didn’t help me feel comfortable with it either.

I was constantly praying for change, while at the same time feeling guilty for how I felt, and seeing and hearing Christians condemn homosexuality. I was confused, I was struggling, and I tried to repress so much but ended up just getting hurt more and more.

In my college Christian group, I had better support. People who were “praying for me.” Praying for me to change, for me to be delivered from this “sin,” etc. Proud of me for not falling into that “lifestyle.”

But then I left that college Christian group after graduating. I loved it, and I still do, and I had lots of love come from it as well. But I still always had to hide, and had to be ashamed of who I was. I had some hard, difficult things happen.

After the group, I found some friends who started showing me even more support, and a different kind of love. Not a love that asked me to change, but accepted me for where I was and who I was. These people I started hanging around – Christians and non-christians – helped me to understand that I shouldn’t be ashamed of who I was. But it still wasn’t enough for me to accept myself, to feel that freedom.

And then a group of pastors and other people came together to create the “Nashville Statement,” where 14 articles (without any scripture referenced) were thrown together to condemn not only gays, but gay Christians, transgendered individuals, and anyone who supported them, saying that they were all barred from heaven. But they said it nice. But it was still damaging, and completely tone deaf in the midst of Hurricane Harvey, as well as a complete blindness to all of the harm and damage that the church has done to people and to the mission of Christ, all of the people the lost their lives because of hatred and bigotry and ignorance from the church. All of the people they’ve pushed away, or made feel wrong, or drove to killing themselves.

I was close a few times myself.

But these articles were so bad, so dumb, so atrocious and ignorant that it motivated me to dig more into the Open and Affirming side of Christianity. Side A, they call it. Accepting of anyone, no matter the gender or sexuality. An open church, with open doors and open arms. Rachel Held Evans, in her book Searching for Sunday, wrote about it a lot as well, which honestly made me cry more than once because of how close to home they hit.

That’s when I decided to accept my sexuality, accept that I was gay, and own it. Nothing about who I was changed from that decision, though. I just became more confident, more comfortable, more in tune with myself. I’ve felt freer than I ever have before, and honestly more in touch with God than ever before as well. Because that’s the thing. I can be a Christian, and I can be gay, and it’s amazing and comforting.

“But the scriptures!” people will say.

But that’s for people who think that the bible is an inerrant, magical book without flaw, which is not how I see it. Sacrilegious, I know, but this “inerrant” bible hasn’t really been used in the best ways when interpreting it literally, without sense of context, translation errors, man’s influence, etc.

The truths still stand to me. God as creator, Jesus as savior. If we agree on that, then there may as well not be more conversation unless we come at it on the same basic assumptions about the bible and its nature.

Anyways, now that I’ve finally accepted this huge aspect of my life, I feel great. I came out to friends, parents, siblings, and I have a loving, supportive circle of friends who love me a lot, and I love them a lot as well. It’s helping me to be a better friend and family member as well because, well, now I don’t have to continue to hide, or be someone I’m not.

So the reason I’m writing this is…well, there are a few reasons.

1. I wanted to come out publicly so that people know where I stand and where I’m at, which will hopefully challenge a few people’s perceptions on the whole topic, and so I don’t have to be in the dark anymore.

2. Because maybe someone, somewhere, will see this and understand that there are people here for them, and that if there is something weighing on you like this, that me and a lot of other people are out there who will love and support you no matter what.

3. So I don’t have to be afraid anymore.

Anyway, if you made it to the end. Thank you for hearing my story. If you have any questions, feel free to ask over messenger, as long as you’re not some religious idiot who’s going to tell me I’m going to hell, or tell me I’m living in sin, or encourage me to turn from my sinful ways or whatever.

Those people are literally the absolute worst, and Jesus cries whenever they do shit like that.

But for everyone else, thank you. Nobody should have to live in fear or in the dark just for being themselves.