The Dawn's Revelation

It's morning now and the sky is clearing up. It had been raining here over the past couple of days and I've remained in my apartment for about the same length of time. I actually like the rain though. I like to walk in it without an umbrella. I like sitting next to a window and watching it pour down. I even like riding in a car while the rain streaks down the windshield.

I know the rain can sometimes lead to a gloomy kind of a feeling. I don't think that's why I like it. It's not like I prefer sadness. Thank God that Southern California has its balance of rain and sunshine or else I'd either take the rain for granted or curse its never ending outpouring. I think it's the balance that I enjoy - because after the evening storm, the dawn's light reveals the beautiful blue sky.

These past several months have helped me to appreciate both the grey and blue skies of my life. I've experienced growth and change and stretching and wondering and even confusion about life and sexuality and relationships and faith.

The dawn's revelation is that I am not broken. I have been made whole. I am being made whole. What does it mean to be both gay and Christian? I think it is to praise God for being both . . . .

Why not? Why shouldn't I praise God for being gay? For being Christian? I make no apologies for either. I had been conditioned to think that, because I was gay, I was broken. I needed to be fixed. And since I was broken and gay, regardless of being Christian, I was subtly taught that I was less. If I were to accept my "brokenness" as God's will, then it is simply my naivity.

I disagree. My brokeness wasn't being gay. My brokeness was believing that I hadn't received reconciliation and restoration with God when I accepted Christ as my Savior and that I would only receive such wholeness when I am either straight or in His Holy Presence. The deceit isn't that I believe it's okay to be gay. The deceit was thinking that being gay was a category of sin.

I believe that the sin is in how we express being gay or straight in unloving ways through lust, violence, and unfaithfulness. These are the things that we ought to strive for holiness in - not reorientation. That has been my paradigm shift. That is what has brought the dawn's light through the clouds of repression and condemnation.

Chained and bound by the dictionary of other Christians, God had said to me through His Word, "Um, no, actually I do love you." And I am now free to love Him and others properly.

One of the most beautiful women that I know is Christine. Her smile is beautiful. Her laughter is beautiful. Her cries are beautiful. Her story is beautiful. She's got a blog formerly called "Rising Up From The Ashes" now renamed "Rising Up Whole". She comes from a place in her life of having spent years in the ex-gay ministries and being told that she was "broken". It left her in ashes and she was rising up from it. It was the ex-gay ministries that were breaking her. But the breeze came and the ashes that choked her and covered her eyes were slowly blown away. She rises up a woman, whole.

She inspires me.

I share this same resurrection Phoenix story of how God restored and reconciled me to Himself through Christ. He helped me to believe in His ability to sovereignly create me - as I am and on purpose. He empowers me - not as someone who is less but as someone who is filled by Him with more - to catalyze the journey of those wading in the ashes, to help them turn towards the wind, and to inspire them to look up for what the dawn brings.

Several months ago, a milestone post for me was "Living Life As All Of Me" and in it I said that to be both gay and Christian means to simply be me. Today, i think it means to thank God for me - without apology, without regret. Just as my Father intended, I am happy as I am.