ARE THERE NO SINNERS LEFT IN THE CHURCH..OR HAVE ALL BECOME JUDGES? ...the publican smote his breast...God be merciful to me the sinner!....went down to his house justified...
healing comes through God's work , and God deals differently with us
when we deal diffeently with Him.
when we repent, He hears.
do i believe that i'm healed? yes.
my life whos the signs.
my life went from black and white to color.
at first i didn't recognize myself in the world.
today, i don't recognize myself in the pictures from my life as a lesbian.
dr. maureen vanterpool, a colleague from geneva college,
told me recently that being a lesbian was a case of mistaken identity.
this became an intriguing and important paradigm for me.
and even though i'm no longer a lesbian,
I'M STILL A SINNER.
I'M redeemed but STILL FALLEN.
and SIN IS SIN.
i believe that the Lord is more grieved by the sins of my current life
than by my past life as a lesbian. (note: when deaf, dumb and blind spiritually.)
how did the Lord help me?
the way that He always heals:
the word of God got to be bigger inside me than i.
my natural inclination was to resist, so like a reflex, i did this.
God's people surrounded me.
not to manipulate.
not to badger.
but to love and to listen and to watch and to pray.
and eventually instead of resisting, i surrendered.
shortly after becoming a christian,
i counseled a woman who was in a closeted lesbian relationship
and a member of a bible believing church.
no one in her church knw.
therefore, no one in her church was praying for her.
therfore, she sought and received no counsel.
there was no 'bearing one with the other' for her.
no confession.
no repentance.
no healing.
no joy in Christ.
JUST ISOLATION.
AND SHAME.
AND PRETENSE.
someone had sold her thae pack of lies that said that God can heal
your lying tongue or your broken heart, even cure your cancer if He choses,
but He can't transform your sexuality.
i told here that my heart breaks for her isolation and shame
and asked her why she didn't share with anyone in her church her struggle.
she said: 'rosaria if people in my church really believed
that gay people could be transformed by Christ,
they wouldn't talk about us or pray about us in the hateful way that they do. '
christian reader, is this what people say about you when they hear you talk and pray?
do your prayers rise no higher than your prejudice?
i think that churches would be places of greater intimacy and growth in Chtrist
if people stopped LYING about
what we need,
whta we fear,
where we fail,
and how we sin.
i think that many of us have a hard time believing the God we believe in,
when the going gets tough.
and i suspect that instead of seeking counsel and direction
from those stronger in the Loed,
we retreat into our isolation and shame
and let the sin wash over us... defeating us again.
or maybe we muscle through on our pride.
do we really believe that the word of God is
a double edge sword, cutting between the spirit and the soul?
or do we use the word of God as a cue card to commandeer only our external behavior?
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