The truth is … this time of year, has always been the most difficult time of year for me because of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.  The cards, the commercials, the sales, not having anyone to call, everything about it has always been like a dagger in my heart. But this year I began thinking about it and realized I am 54 years old and as some would say a grown ass woman.  I have always believed that truth triumphs over lies and light will disperse the darkness.  So, that is exactly what I am going to do and stop generations of lies, deceit and manipulation in its tracks.

The truth is … I do not have a relationship with my parents.  Most people assume my relationship with my parents is non-existent because I am lesbian.  It is true, I am a lesbian, but that is not the reason we are estranged.  In fact, my sexual orientation was never discussed.  It is not that I was afraid or ashamed to discuss it, it was that our family was so dysfunctional there was never a sane opportunity to have an honest conversation.

The truth is … I have not had a peaceable relationship with my parents since I began living with them full time at 4 years of age and started kindergarten. Prior to that I spent most of my time “visiting” my maternal grandparents.  My parents would say this is because they both worked and my grandparents had more time to spend with me.  But I was born 9 months and 7 days after my parents were married and they were ill prepared for a child.  My mother was not ready to give up being the center of the universe and my father was not ready for his wife to be a mother.

The truth is … as hard as it is to admit this, I grew up in an abusive household.  There I said the word … abusive.  I have spent my entire life minimizing the abuse of my childhood.  Making excuses for both my parents and accepting blame and feeling guilty for their behavior.  That stops today.

The truth is … the home I grew up in was violent, controlling, demeaning, manipulative, irrational and for the most part incredibly sad.  It is not that anyone intended for it to be that way, but it is what you get when you have one adult who has a personality disorder and the other adult is extremely self-centered.

The truth is … my parents provided very well for me materially.  But there was little in the form of warmth, love, kindness or compassion.

The truth is … I am uncertain if my parents love each other.  I would like to think they do … but honestly it is so dysfunctional it is hard to tell.  Behind closed doors there was a plethora of yelling, throwing things, breaking things, choking, hitting, biting, withholding of sex and many other unhealthy, vile things.  After five decades of marriage, I think they are simply tired of the battle and are more comfortable together than apart.

The truth is … as long as I can remember, my parents told me I was their greatest disappointment.  They further told me that my friends did not love me and were using me.  I never really understood why, and I have heard they told others outside the family a very different story.  I never figured out what I could do to make things different.  What I could do to be better.  What I could do to be more lovable?

The truth is … I have made many, many mistakes in my life.  I have not always done my best.  I have not always been honest. I have not always acted or reacted in an honorable way.  I am a deeply flawed human.  I will own every bit of that and more, as long as it is the truth.

The truth is … regardless of my past, my mistakes or any other multitude of circumstances, I am finally content with where I am and who I am.  I am happily married.  My wife is not only my best friend, she is an equal partner.   I have a church home that welcomes my wife and I and allows us to worship freely.  I have a safe and peaceful home.  I have a small group of intimate friends who support me and love me unconditionally.  My life is sweeter and more fulfilling than I ever thought possible.

The truth is … I am making peace with the past.  I have accepted what is … well … just is.  So, this Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and all the ones yet to come will no longer be spent grieving what never was.  I will no longer accept feelings of unworthiness for having biological parents who rejected me.

The truth is … I have so many wonderful people in my life who genuinely and deeply love me.  Consequently, I choose not to waste any more precious time grieving two people who chose not to love me or want me in their life.  They decided to not share life with me and I am respecting that decision.

The truth is … life is full of twists and turns, up and downs.  It is full of unexplained events.  Life is entirely too short to live in the past and let the decision of others affect our perception of ourselves.  Just as I am worthy of love, consideration and kindness, so are you.

The truth is … detoxing your life is freeing.  I cannot for the life of me understand what took me so long.

After 3 months of arduous study, I spent 3 days with the most amazing, authentic, transparent and honest group of people with whom I have ever had the honor to interact.  It is difficult to put into words what my heart is aching to say.

To an outsider, we may very well have looked like a gang of ragamuffins.  As a group, we were younger, older, faddish, classic, tattooed, pierced, dress pants, flip flops, floppy hats, skinny jeans, warm-ups, shorts, straight, LGBT, Midwesterners, Eastern Coast, Western Coast, Southerners, Pacific North Westerners, Plainsmen, Australians, married, single, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, varying religious and denominational backgrounds, different skin colors and heritages and the list goes on.  But despite the richness differences can bring to any conversation, I found that foundationally, at our cores beings, as humans, we have much more in common than not.

While I dare not speak for anyone else, on any topic, a few things I found to be true include, but are not limited to, the following: It is frightening to be vulnerable.  It is daunting to expose our flaws.  Love is generally easy to give, yet it is ever so difficult to receive.  Broken hearts abound and the only difference between a shattered heart and a broken heart is the person experiencing the pain.  Family is of utmost importance, whether the relationships are intact or not.  Familial DNA often fails us.  We deeply love people who cannot, will not or do not love us in return.  Everyone has secrets and keeping those secrets hidden leads to shame.  There is a vast difference between who we are and who we pretend to be.  Outer appearances are not always an accurate reflection of inner dynamics.

Inner self talk left unaddressed, generally defaults to the negative.  Being unprepared for self-care is to be selfish and dangerous.  Organization goes beyond our closets and our lives to our relationships with others and our community.  In being open and gracious, our hearts are expanded.  Broken trust affects us in innumerable ways, for longer periods of time than we realize.  The action of “becoming” is not so much an adding to, as it is a chipping away.  Wearing masks is a tiring, abusive practice; and through intentionally abandoning those masks, it is actually possible to be loved and accepted as we are.  Not only can the older bring wisdom to the younger, but the younger can bring wisdom to the older.  Forgiveness, even though completely given, does not extinguish the pain.  The cost of success can at times be high, but the cost of failure is often times insurmountable.  The failure to launch can and often does take a toll in human life.  While some biological parents abandon their children, many do not.  And when those biological parents do abandon their children, God brings in a surrogate, whose love reigns down as manna from heaven.  It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.  Sometimes bridges need to be built, sometimes they need repairing and still others need to be burned.  As adults we have the opportunity and the permission to begin a new story for the rest of our lives, keeping what is good and letting go of what is not.  It is rare to see God’s purpose completely in the beginning of a journey, but the further along the journey one goes the more clearly we can see God.  There is a difference in being chosen and being invited.  The more you get to know an individual, the more beauty you find in them.  It is okay, to be not okay.  Not all wounded people have a tendency toward wounding others; for some, wounds increase the human ability to exude grace and love.  Finally, there is no difference greater than the sameness of God’s love.

A person does not have to be directly and personally affected by a cause to champion it; but if you are, the power of your story cannot be overstated.  The stories and lives of these courageous people who have been rejected by their families, their church communities, their neighbors, their friends and often times complete strangers, yet retained hearts overflowing with love, seemed on the surface to be an oxymoron of gigantic proportions.  But just as sure as the sun will rise in the East and set in the West, these people are real.  They are flesh and blood and have hearts that reflect Christ more accurately than most church sanctuaries on Sunday morning.

So as the introduction to our new lives has come to a completion, we each head out today to bring back to our communities the things we learned and experienced.  Which is to speak the knowledge and truth of Christ’s love for everyone to the powerful beast of exclusion.  If we remain diligent, in time, every chain will be broken and the beast we be defeated.  God be with us!

First, let’s get right down to the ugly truth no one wants to talk about.  Marriage is a LEGAL status.  It is not a RELIGIOUS status.  You can get married without the church, without a pastor, without a prayer, but you cannot get married without filing paperwork with the appropriate legal agencies.  In fact, until you file with the proper legal agencies, your marriage is not valid, even if you have had the most extravagant wedding imaginable.  So bottom line marriage is a LEGAL status.

But having said that, I believe marriage is sacred.  Some would argue marriage is a sacrament.  Indeed, marriage is a union which was created by God, and can most certainly be blessed by God.

So what did God have in mind when he created marriage?  Scripture tells us several things that should be considered:

1. It is not good for humans to be alone
2. Procreation
3. Companionship
4. Kinship
5. Support, etc.

But the foundational reason God created marriage, is the very same reason he created everything else.  For His Glory.  God created marriage and I suspect he said It Is Good.

The question that must be answered is can a same sex marriage glorify and honor God.  My belief is the answer is a resounding YES.

The primary argument I have heard from many Christians explaining their unwillingness to support same-sex marriage is directly related to the ideology that a marriage is supposed to be a reflection of, Christ as the groom and the church as the bride.  I could not agree with that proposition more heartily.  In fact, that is the VERY reason I believe same sex marriages can be and are God honoring.

The pill in the jam which is often overlooked is relationships between married individuals and the relationship between Christ and the Church is not entirely symmetrical.  People focus too much on the usage of the words “groom and bride” as it is found in scripture.  Many people are unwilling to admit that not only is the Bible filled with truth it is filled with symbolism, i.e. faith like a mustard seed, holy communion, all the parables told by Jesus, etc.    In light of often used symbolism it seems perfectly reasonable to believe the wording GROOM and BRIDE are symbolic as well.  Additionally, the greater weight of the evidence, implies this symbolism DOES NOT suggest, much less support, that these words were chosen to enforce or mandate opposite sex relationships.  If a person digs a little deeper than a cursory reading of scripture it is easy to see that these scriptures are not sexual in nature at all.

Primarily, a marriage should embody and reflect the same FAITHFULNESS between two people as Christ has for the church.

The same deepening love Christ has for the church.  The same exclusivity Christ has for the church.  The same delight Christ has for the church.  The same sacrificial behavior Christ has for the church.  The same deep desire for unity Christ has for the church.  The same selflessness Christ has for the church.  This is how two married individuals are a reflection of Christ and his relationship to the church.

When a marriage consists of two individuals who are bound together, who resist the human nature of excess and self-centered desire, and resist behaviors that shame or degrade the other, a marriage, regardless of the gender of the two married individuals, glorifies God in everyday, mundane and common ways that are expressly human and not bound by gender or sexuality.

If you choose to follow Christ’s lead in these ways as you enter into marriage, regardless of your gender or sexual orientation, your marriage will glorify and honor God.  It is for that reason alone the Christian faith demands that we support same sex marriages fully.

“…it is a mistake to reduce every decision about Christian living to a “Heaven-or-Hell issue.” David K. Bernard

The problem I have with legalism is the inherent hypocrisy. Generally speaking anyone who needs a book of rules to live by, who needs all answers in black and white, has either weak or lazy faith. Now before you jump to some awful conclusion or defense, let me explain. Often times legalism is ONLY applied to things which the individual is uncomfortable. If you are going to be a passenger on the legalism train then be bold enough to take it all the way into the station or jump off the train.

Example #1. If you are the type of person who is going to pull your support from World Vision (10,000 people did just that) and let 10,000 children lose sponsorship , food and material well-being because the organization thought about and then retracted their policy on hiring and/or not firing gays … then take that train all the way in to the station. Stop shopping at Amazon, Dell, Apple, Starbucks, eBay, Nike, Gap, Ben and Jerry’s, Banana Republic, Levis, Microsoft, Johnson and Johnson, Oreos, Orbitz, Cisco, Goldman Sachs, Marriot, Expedia, and countless others; stop using Google, Instagram, Facebook, MasterCard, Citicorp, AT&T and Jet Blue; and for gosh sakes do not ever buy a graham cracker from Honey Maid. You see it is easy to pull sponsorship which does not directly affect you and you feel all puffed up and self-righteous, but to do without something you use day in and day out is difficult. It is easy to sacrifice an unknown child, but not so easy to sacrifice your comfort and convenience. It is hypocritical to pull your financial support from World Vision and continue to shop at these other retailers. Not to mention in your effort to be “right” children are left starving in third world countries who know absolutely nothing about gays or straights and even if they did, could not care less because they can’t concentrate over their growling empty bellies. Righteous indignation that only comes to the surface when it is convenient is not righteous at all.

Example #2. If you are going to refuse to go to the wedding of a loved one because they are gay … then refuse to go the wedding of the person who is divorced, had pre-marital sex, is marrying an unbeliever, is marrying someone of a different religion, etc. It is hypocritical to single out one “sin” as a reason not to attend a wedding.

It is amazing to me how many will use the Bible and God as an excuse to be hurtful and non-supportive of loved ones, BUT only when it is convenient. The convenience of it all really does say much more about the person doing the rejection than the person being rejected. Until biblical literalism becomes a way of life for EVERY part of your life and you are willing to enforce it equally across the board, I respectfully ask you to keep your hate spewing, intolerant, non-supportive opinions to yourself. The double standard of you wanting to enforce your list of rules on everyone’s life BUT your own is outdated and puts your arrogance on stage front and center for everyone to see. Trust me it is not a flattering look.  If you do not believe enough to believe it 100% of the time, you belief is lukewarm. Your belief is a convenience. Your belief is shallow and your God is small.

What if we took the Bible and God at his Word? What if we got on our knees and let God talk to us individually? What if we dared to have a mature relationship with God? I realize that takes much more faith. I realize it is a scary proposition. But if God cannot lead us through the Holy Spirit which Jesus himself said would come to us, then perhaps he is not God at all. If we are relegated to a list of rules thousands of years old, we do not need Jesus Christ or his death on the cross. We might as well be followers of Moses and not Christ. Jesus death on the cross gave us a new covenant. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left this earth to send us the Holy Spirit to guide us. It is your life. You can chose legalism if you want. But sadly those same rules you judge others by will eventually condemn you to hell as well. And that my friend is a very sad place to be. Very sad indeed.