Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Enter catchy Title here

May I be honest?

These posts have become really hard for me to write. Not because I don't have anything to say but mainly because I've challenged myself to be honest and some stuff I just don't want you to know!  (We are almost at double digits! WOOO WHHOO!)

Lately I have been struggling with a few things. My plan was to write about blog about expectations. Using my daughter and family as a very nice example on how we let our expectations get in the way of our reality. But... my expectation got in the way of my reality. So instead today I want to talk about some personal things. 1. How funny my money is and 2. how iffy my sexuality is. Please trust me when I say, this is a lot harder than I expected. 

 I have been arguing with God for a few weeks. I keep telling him, Hey I'm an heir I really need some directions, can you please tell me what to do next? His responses have been, well I don't know, He doesn't really "talk" to me the way other people say He talks to them.We don’t really have conversations per say. I’ll pray and then sometimes I just feel different about things or hear a word from different unrelated places that I take as a sign. Sometimes I'll understand something differently than I did before. Like is said not a conversation but communication none the less.

My issue has been that, I don’t know what to do next.  I’m very happy to say that during the last few years I have moved from self-hate and guilt over my sexuality to understanding that God loves me. God is NOT disappointed in how I turned out and that I was the only one surprised or upset by my sexuality. I had a warped idea of God's love. I believed it to be conditional. I believed that if I was X, then He would Y, but the truth is He Is. God doesn't change in accordance to our situation or status. God is.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until recent years that I began to understand that truth. It wasn't until recent that I was able to accept the Love God had shown to me not because I deserve it but because He gave it. Though I was surrounded by love and caring family and friends that knew my status I was scared that I was not living up to the promise. I was convinced that like a drunk person needs to get sober first that I needed to get straight first before I did anything meaningful and successful in the body of Christ.

I was miserable. I was too straight to be gay and too gay to be straight. I was a walking contradiction. I was so full of words and love from God but I was too scared to say anything because maybe my gay would fall out and I would lose all credibility. Gay and Christian is supposed to be an anomaly. You’re just not normal. Something is wrong, you must have been molested or raped or hurting inside. You have daddy or mommy issues. Your parents don’t love you enough. I believed by admitting I was gay I was admitting that the enemy had me. I was scared that even if I spoke of my gay it would become truth, and I so wanted it to be a lie. I so wanted to be normal and holy and godly and a good Christian, there was no way I could do that if I were Gay. I was abnormal and not very useful. And just in case you need to hear this, Those are ALL lies from the pit of hell.


After a few talks with my Pastor and even trying to run away from a few conversations with my associate pastor I came to the realization that God is not limited to my holiness or lack thereof. I had to realize that though God is very capable of turning a gay person straight that was may not be the lot he had for me. He wants me to be whole. He wants me to love me so I can better love you. He wants to be ok with whatsoever He decides for my life. The problem comes in when I began to accept myself but I had no idea what to do with myself.

I thank God for my Pastors and friends that prayed for me and helped me to understand the Truth of God. Which is simply put: Cynethia, I love you I love you I love you- God. Gay Straight black or white He loves you. I won’t get into the argument of born gay vs. choosing gay. I won’t bore you with the 7 verses that are anti Gay in the whole bible vs. the many more about loving each other and not judging but I digress.

So I have spent that last few weeks saying  “Ok God, So, I’m cool with being Gay, but now what? Do I get married? Do I do ministry now? Do I start a gay ministry? Do I argue with anti gays? What now? I want to do want you want me to do but I don’t know what that is, so I’ll sit here and wait” Do you know what happened? I realized that God wanted me to do what he told me to do, and just like you I sat and said “And that was what?” I had no clue, what He wanted from me. I had been focused on being ok with myself, I had taken notes when God said, whatever He said when he said it. Doesn’t he know I forgot? I would like a reminder or something!
Then I realized there was one area that I was wanting to trust Him in but I wasn’t fully and that brings me to money.  God was very specific with money issues in the Bible. He wasn’t always as clear with other issues.  I often reminded Him of this I would pray and say “Hey God! How you been? Good um, you never said, yes or no or the gay thing completely or which marriage is “correct” or if slavery is really wrong or dating only your color or premarital sex – when are you married? When you have sex? Or when you sign the papers? just be real with me, Tell me what I need to do! I want to have kids, I want to get married, so what’s allowed and not allowed? Don’t worry I have my paper today I’ll take notes”
Then, God made clear to me – Pay your tithes. I know what you’re thinking. What? What does money have to do with your sexuality? I was thoroughly confused. Slowly I began to realize this is really about that. See Obedience is better than sacrifice. I need to stop and follow the truths that I’m sure of while I search for answers to the questions I don’t know. I need to do what the Lord said clearly before I ask Him to make clear the murky places.
Pay your tithes Cynethia. No, it’s doesn’t make sense. You make $1100 a paycheck your rent is $1380 and your bills are about $300 a month not including groceries, and don’t forget the money you owe girl scouts, the soccer coach and your overdrawn bank account, yeah and just like I knew you were gay long before you knew, I also knew your finances would never be a mess, so submit and pay your tithes. Take the limits off and see Me work in your finances. OBEY me. Stop worrying about who to marry, what your church will say if you get married, stop worrying about getting pregnant and how that will look to the kingdom stop worrying about all the stuff I have yet to reveal to you, and do the last thing I told you to do. Tithe.
That’s where I’m at. I won’t worry about or try to understand anything else until I obey the commands I know. This may not be a great message of hope and it may be more information than I really wanted to share, but I’ve decided to just obey. It doesn’t always make sense, but I’m trusting that this is about that and that this will help someone somewhere. I pray for God’s blessing over this post and the readers. I pray that God will fix up any and every trick of the enemy to use this for bad. I pray the spirit of fear and confusion die right now as you read this  and every time someone reads this and I pray that the spirit of compassion and love will live and thrive in your life. I pray for courage and strength and ways to show God’s radical love to others. I pray for you and I pray you will pray for me.
Thank you for reading.

1 comment:

  1. Update: Thank God for clarity and for Men of God. Both in church and not in church. After this post I was very nervous about the backlash and I am happy to say, admist all the junk there were a few true men that gave me support and even if they didn't know it, help restore a faith in not just men but good people. Thank you to the ones that have my back, thank you to the ones that will cover my front. Thank you for speaking up and saying what you needed to say. Thank You Thank you Thank you.

    Cynethia

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