Clearly, it was just easier to let me go.
And I might’ve, could’ve, stayed.
I was waiting.
As asked.
You never followed through.
And that told me everything I needed to know.
You said, “Hey, give us a couple weeks, just so we can get past graduations and such.”
You would talk with the ladies who had such a problem with me but who weren’t willing to sit down with me about it. Remember?
Months rolled by.
And as you apologize now for the ball inattentively dropped, it pains me to have to remind you . . .
You didn’t just drop a ball. You dropped a person. And you walked away.
As you apologize now for the delay . . . As you admit you saw my struggle, my disappointment, my decision to try to move onward, maybe elsewhere, maybe nowhere, and didn’t know what to do or say . . . As you one part claim and another part confess you didn’t see hope for reconciliation . . . Bear in mind, you didn’t reach out to offer it either.
You don’t think waiting for months like I did without follow up had anything at all to do with my disappointment with and disinterest in continuing on with my church family of 13 years?
Talk about losing hope. 🙁
And your observation of my struggle, without comment or reach out, speaks volumes.
And here’s what I understand.
You found it easier to delay and avoid doing the hard work of addressing the issue of LGBTQ acceptance, the intolerance for differing views among your offended but favored leaders/members than to actually face the bigotry and do something about it.
You waited ’til I walked away. It was simply easiest for you. A relief, actually, and no great loss.
That’s what I understand.
Is there anything you can do now to bring peace?
Yeah. There is.
You can start by doing better going forward. Face the bigotry and correct it. Meet with those ladies who simply couldn’t bear that I was accepting and affirming of LGBTQ people rather than non-affirming and discriminatory like they were. Who couldn’t bear that I expressed that view alongside their intolerant ones on Facebook. And who couldn’t bear to sit across a table from me because of it. Let them know their “heart posture” could use some addressing, not mine.
Let them know there’s room at the table for those who hold a different view of LGBTQ people (for both biblical and human decency reasons) and are FOR welcoming the hurting and seeking marginalized and outcast with open arms and all the grace we claim for ourselves.
Do your part to educate about the very real and reasonable and varying biblical interpretations regarding the issue of homosexuality and gender identity and consider how maybe we shouldn’t be bolting and barring the door of salvation, or our churches, to the rainbow of beloved beings the Lord has wonderfully and fearfully made based on a handful of hotly contested, deservedly questionable verses.
THAT would bring a WORLD of peace.
And not to just me.
Photo Credit: nevermindtheend — shadow
· Permalink
These things are very difficult. Christians don’t mind talking about this to others who agree, but it can damage relationships where we disagree. And yet it is my test whether a person is a very damaged Christian- do they support equal marriage? Or possibly not a Christian at all: do they welcome LGBT folk? If they don’t welcome me, I will shake the dust off my feet. And eventually we will get talking.
· Permalink
I hear you, Clare. I was asked if I could have grace for my brothers and sisters that did not hold my view of affirmation and acceptance of LGBTQ. I told them of course I could. I wasn’t the one who was going around unfriending and refusing to sit across the table from them that had a different point of view. But I made it clear I wanted better for them then such a bigoty belief. I wanted them to learn better so they could do better. Teens are killing themselves. Trans people are living in fear of being found out and even doing something as basic as using a public restroom. We’ll let them do our hair, our taxes, teach our children to dance, but when they ask us for a cake, a marriage license, equal rights, protections, and treatment under the law or at our own service counters, we humiliate them and refuse them service. Grave and unnecessary damage is being done to LGBTQ people in the name of Jesus, who never breathed a word about it and was all about reaching out in love and acceptance to the hurting, the marginalized, the outcast. In fact, He reserved his woe-iest words for the religious leaders who were dead set on doing the complete opposite. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter. (Matthew 23:13) I’m with you, Clare. If they’re not going to welcome you or the sweet seeking rainbow of people I know and care for, if they can’t abide a view that embraces people like you, then I’m off, and the dust too.