WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE
the following is taken from chapter 1. note: all the 'butterfield' blogs to follow are taken from this book.
..even though i felt like a freak in that church, i was drawn to keep going back.
..i came home and my lesbian partner told me that i was changing and that she was concerned.
what did i need?
some time away from my work?
maybe we needed to take that long vacation...
my trangendered friend's words
(rosaria, i know that Jesus is a risen and living lord.
i was a presbyterian minister for 15 years,
and during that time, i prayed that the Lord would heal me.
He didn't, but maybe He'll heal you.
i'll pray for you.)
were still weighing heavily upon my heart.
who is this Jesus that He heals some but not others?
is it right to pray for healing when,
from the bible's perspective, i was to repent from my sin?
does God hear prayers that are not construed
in the terms he lays out in the bible?
if Jesus is the living word,
can we pray 'through' Him
if we do not follow Him as our savior and Lord?
these questions weighed hard on me.
that night, i prayed and asked God if the gospel message was for
someone like me, too.
i viscerally felt the living presence of God as i prayed.
Jesus seemed present and alive.
i knew that i was not alone in my room.
i prayed that if Jesus was truly a real and risen God,
that He would change my heart.
and if He was real and if i was His,
i prayed that He would give me the strength of mind
to follow Him and the character to become a godly woman.
i prayed for the strength of character to repent for a sin that
at that time didn't feel like sin at all
-it felt like life, plain and simple.
i prayed that if my life was actually His life,
that He would take it back
and make it what He wanted it to be.
i asked Him to take it all:
my sexuality, my profession, my community,
my tastes, my books and my tomorrows.
two incommensurable worldviews clashed together:
the reality of my lived experience
and the truth of the word of God.
in continental philosophy,
we talk about the difference between the true and the real.
had my life become real, but not true?
the bible told me to repent,
but i didn't feel like repenting.
do you have to feel like repenting in order to repent?
was i a sinner, or was i,
in my drag queen friend's words, sick?
how do you repent for a sin that doesn't feel like a sin?
how could the thing that i had studied and become be sinful?
how could i be tenured in a field that is sin?
how could i and everone that i knew and loved be in sin?
in this crucible of confusion, i learned something important.
i learned the first rule of repentance:
that REPENTENCE REQUIRES GREATER INTIMACY WITH GOD
THAN WITH OUR SIN.
how much greater?
about the size of a mustard seed.
repentance requires that we draw near to Jesus,
no matter what.
and sometimes we all have to crawl there on our hands and knees.
repentance is an intimate affair.
and for many of us, intimacy with anthing
is a terrifying prospect.
when Christ gave me the strength to follow Him,
i didn't stop feeling like a lesbian.
i've discovered that the Lord doesn't change my feelings until i obey Him.
during one sermon, ken pointed to john 7.17,
and called this 'the hermeneutics of obedience'.
Jesus is speaking in this passage and He says:
'if anyone is willing to do God's will,
he will know of the teaching,whether it is of God or whether i speak from myself.'
ah ha! here it was !
obedience comes before understanding.
i wanted to understand.
but did i actually will to do His will?
God promised to reveal this understanding to me if i 'willed to do His will'
the bible doesn't just say DO His will, but 'will to do His will'.
wanting to understand is a theoretical statement;
willing to do His will takes action.
i knew i didn't have that!
i prayed that the Lord would give me that whole hearted will.
i learned that the Lord wants all of our loyalties
under submission to Him.
He wants us to identify ourselves,
to call ourselves by name, in His name for us.
in my case,
my feelings of lesbianism were
familiar, comfortable and recognizable,
and i was reluctant to give them up.
i clung to matthew 16.24,
remembering that every believer had to at some point in life
take the step that i was taking:
giving up the right to myself,
taking up His cross..
and following Jesus.
the Lord made it clear to me that i had to make some serious life changes.
i started to obey God in my heart one step at a time.
i broke up with my girlfriend.
my heart really wasn't in the break up,
but i hoped that God would regard my obedience even in
its doublemindedness.
i started to go to the rp (reformed presbyterian) church fully,
in my heart, for the ..purpose of worshiping God.
i stopped caring if i looked like a freak there.
i started to receive the friendship that the church members offered to me.
i learned that we must obey in faith before we feel better or different.
at this time, though, obeying in faith, to me,
felt like throwing myself off a cliff.
faith that endures is heroic, not sentimental.
and then came the night terrors.
night after night, dreams so vivid and real that i could taste and feel them.
dreams so commanding that when i finally awoke,
i felt filthy and delirious.
my journey out of lesbianism
i spent a lot of time in prayer-and still do.
i leaned heavily on the counsel of the women of the syracuse church:
fly smith vivian rice, NM, becky smith, robyn zorn,
corrine thompson, marty wright, kathy donath.
i asked them vulverable and real questions
and they answered me and loved me anyway.
the journey out of lesbianism had many dimensions,
and the Lrod was gracious in leading me a small step,
and then burning the bridge i crossed
to keep me safely closer to Him.
from the first night, there was no going back.
slowly but steadily, by feelings did start to change
-feelings about myself as a woman and
feelings about what sexuality really is and what it really isn't.
i-like most everyone who identified as gay or lesbian
-felt very comfortable,
very at home in my body, in my lesianism.
one doesn
to repent from a sin of identity in one session.
sins of identity have multiple dimensions,
and throughout this journey,
i have come to my pastor and his wife, friends in the Lord,
and always to the Lord Himself
with different facets of my sin.
i don't mean differnet incidents or examples of the same sin,
but different facets of sin
-how pride, for example, informed my decision makeing
or how my unwillingness to forgive others hadd landlocked my heart in bitterness.
i have walked this journey with help.
ther is no other way to do it.
i still walk this journey with help.
(note: oh Lord bring back true spiritual fellowship into Your church,
which now feels like a howling spiritual wasteland. make me an answer to this prayer.)
the teaching, the prayers and the friendships
the Lord has given to me through the body of Christ have blessed me righly.
i'm grateful that the Lord brough me to a church that was as strong on teaching
as it is on compassion.
did i find the perfect church?
no.
i almost left when things got hard and they got hard fast.
the time that i brought my drag queen friend to church
pushed alot of folks out of their comfort zone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment