My heart is brimming with God’s love for some 700 LGBTQ men and women and supportive family! I spent four days at the Gay Christian Network Conference in Chicago with this group of gays, lesbians, transgender men and women at every point on the journey. Some believe God blesses same-sex, committed relationships (Side A), and some believe God requires gays to be celibate (Side B). These are Christians across the spectrum — Evangelicals, Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics, Nazarenes, and so many others — some with good church relationships, and many who were deeply rejected by their own churches, some told unequivocally that God does not love them.
Yet those “differences” were not even present, because our focus was on basking in God’s love for us and loving each other the way Jesus told us to.
An adorable young man with a wooden (yes wooden!) bow tie, thanked me for being there in support. He came out to his parents six years ago, and he has not seen them since. Imagine!
A beautiful and quiet young woman told me how her parents pulled the rug out from under her schooling just because of her orientation. She’s in her 20s.
Imagine ‘disposing’ of your children because they are honest and trusting and express to you their orientation over which they have no control (even if they’ve never acted upon it). Jesus’ heart is not to kick out His precious children, but to embrace them, especially in their hardships. He asks the same of us.
Differences were not even present, because we all love Christ and Christ loves all of us.
I will write more posts inspired by the beauty of this conference — I’m still recovering from a long, long weekend! If you were there in Chicago, thank you for sharing your heart, your courage, and God’s love.
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