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\u201cMom, I\u2019m gay.\u201d<\/a> Earth-shattering words to many conservative Christian parents \u2014 tragically, many view it as right up there with, \u201cYour child has a brain tumor.\u201d Actually, Christians will empathize with a brain tumor, but just try telling the church your child is gay and you will find the limit of grace withheld not only from gay Christians but from their accepting families. Not only what is said but unsaid can be oppressive for a family seeking love and truth.<\/p>\n I do not blame the parents in these situations for one nanosecond. Lord knows, they are trying to respond, with the wind knocked out of them, in an area where the church at large allows no breathing room. Parents blame themselves and Christians blame them. Seriously. No sooner do we hear the word gay or lesbian than we brace for impact \u2014 because we know the attack is coming.<\/p>\n This story was posted on FB. My daughter went to school with his brother. The mother, Linda, gave me kind permission to post this\u00a0 in the hope of impacting lives and preventing tragedy. This is why our response as a Christian community matters. A real person with a real story.<\/p>\n The photo above is of Linda and Ryan Robertson.<\/p>\n Just Because He Breathes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n by Linda Mueller Robertson (Notes) on Monday, April 1, 2013 at 12:35am<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Written on December 5th, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n First posted on January 14, 2013 \u2013 Ryan\u2019s would-have-been-24 birthday<\/em><\/p>\n On the night of November 20, 2001, a conversation held over Instant Messenger changed our lives forever. Our twelve year old son messaged me in my office from the computer in his bedroom.<\/p>\n Ryan says: can i tell u something<\/p>\n Mom says: Yes I am listening<\/p>\n Ryan says: well i don\u2019t know how to say this really but, well\u2026\u2026, i can\u2019t keep lying to you about myself. I have been hiding this for too long and i sorta have to tell u now. By now u probably have an idea of what i am about to say.<\/p>\n Ryan says: I am gay<\/p>\n Ryan says: i can\u2019t believe i just told you<\/p>\n Mom says: Are you joking?<\/p>\n Ryan says: no<\/p>\n Ryan says: i thought you would understand because of uncle don<\/p>\n Mom says: of course I would<\/p>\n Mom says: but what makes you think you are?<\/p>\n Ryan says: i know i am<\/p>\n Ryan says: i don\u2019t like hannah<\/p>\n Ryan says: it\u2019s just a cover-up<\/p>\n Mom says: but that doesn\u2019t make you gay\u2026<\/p>\n Ryan says: i know<\/p>\n Ryan says: but u don\u2019t understand<\/p>\n Ryan says: i am gay<\/p>\n Mom says: tell me more<\/p>\n Ryan says: it\u2019s just the way i am and it\u2019s something i know<\/p>\n Ryan says: u r not a lesbian and u know that it is the same thing<\/p>\n Mom says: what do you mean?<\/p>\n Ryan says: i am just gay<\/p>\n Ryan says: i am that<\/p>\n Mom says: I love you no matter what<\/p>\n Ryan says: i am white not black<\/p>\n Ryan says: i know<\/p>\n Ryan says: i am a boy not a girl<\/p>\n Ryan says: i am attracted to boys not girls<\/p>\n Ryan says: u know that about yourself and i know this<\/p>\n Mom says: what about what God thinks about acting on these desires?<\/p>\n Ryan says: i know<\/p>\n Mom says: thank you for telling me<\/p>\n Ryan says: and i am very confused about that right now<\/p>\n Mom says: I love you more for being honest<\/p>\n Ryan says: i know<\/p>\n Ryan says: thanx<\/p>\n We were completely shocked. Not that we didn\u2019t know and love gay people \u2013 my only brother had come out to us several years before, and we adored him. But Ryan? He was unafraid of anything, tough as nails, and ALL boy. We had not seen this coming, and the emotion that overwhelmed us, kept us awake at night and, sadly, influenced all of our reactions over the next six years, was FEAR.<\/p>\n We said all the things that we thought loving Christian parents who believed the Bible to be the Word of God should say:<\/p>\n We love you. We will ALWAYS love you. And this is hard. REALLY hard. But we know what God says about this, and so you are going to have to make some really difficult choices.<\/p>\n We love you. But there are other men who have faced this same struggle, and God has worked in them to change their desires. We\u2019ll get you their books\u2026you can listen to their testimonies. And we will trust God with this.<\/p>\n We love you. But you are young, and your sexual orientation is still developing. The feelings you\u2019ve had for other guys don\u2019t make you gay. So please don\u2019t tell anyone that you ARE gay. You don\u2019t know who you are yet. Your identity is not that you are gay \u2013 it is that you are a child of God.<\/p>\n We love you. We will ALWAYS love you. But if you are going to follow Jesus, holiness is your only option. You are going to have to choose to follow Jesus, no matter what. And since you know what the Bible says, and since you want to follow God, embracing your sexuality is NOT an option.<\/p>\n Basically, we told our son that he had to choose between Jesus and his sexuality. We forced him to make a choice between God and being a sexual person. Choosing God, practically, meant living a lifetime of loneliness (never to fall in love, have his first kiss, hold hands, share intimacy companionship, experience romance), but it also meant the abundant life, perfect peace and eternal rewards.\u00a0 So, for the first six years, he tried to choose Jesus. Like so many others before him, he pleaded with God to help him be attracted to girls. He memorized Scripture, met with his youth pastor weekly, enthusiastically participated in all the church youth group events and Bible Studies, got baptized, read all the books that claimed to know where his gay feelings came from, dove into counseling to further discover the \u201cwhy\u2019s\u201d of his unwanted attraction to other guys, worked through painful conflict resolution with my husband and I, and built strong friendships with other guys \u2013 straight guys \u2013 just like he was told to. He even came out to his entire youth group, giving his testimony of how God had rescued him from the traps of the enemy, and sharing \u2013 by memory \u2013 verse after verse that God had used to draw Ryan to Himself.<\/p>\n But nothing changed. God didn\u2019t answer his prayer \u2013 or ours \u2013 though we were all believing with faith that the God of the Universe \u2013 the God for whom NOTHING is impossible \u2013 could easily make Ryan straight. But He did not.<\/p>\n Though our hearts may have been good (we truly thought what we were doing was loving), we did not even give Ryan a chance to wrestle with God, to figure out what HE believed God was telling him through scripture about his sexuality. We had believed firmly in giving each of our four children the space to question Christianity, to decide for themselves if they wanted to follow Jesus, to truly OWN their own faith. But we were too afraid to give Ryan that room when it came to his sexuality, for fear that he\u2019d make the wrong choice.<\/p>\n And so, just before his 18th birthday, Ryan, depressed, suicidal, disillusioned and convinced that he would never be able to be loved by God, made a new choice. He decided to throw out his Bible and his faith at the same time, and to try searching for what he desperately wanted \u2013 peace \u2013 another way. And the way he chose to try first was drugs.<\/p>\n We had \u2013 unintentionally \u2013 taught Ryan to hate his sexuality. And since sexuality cannot be separated from the self, we had taught Ryan to hate himself. So as he began to use drugs, he did so with a recklessness and a lack of caution for his own safety that was alarming to everyone who knew him.<\/p>\n Suddenly our fear of Ryan someday having a boyfriend (a possibility that honestly terrified me) seemed trivial in contrast to our fear of Ryan\u2019s death, especially in light of his recent rejection of Christianity, and his mounting anger at God.<\/p>\n Ryan started with weed and beer\u2026but in six short months was using cocaine, crack and heroin. He was hooked from the beginning, and his self-loathing and rage at God only fueled his addiction. Shortly after, we lost contact with him. For the next year and a half we didn\u2019t know where he was, or even if he was dead or alive. And during that horrific time, God had our full attention. We stopped praying for Ryan to become straight. We started praying for him to know that God loved him. We stopped praying for him never to have a boyfriend. We started praying that someday he\u2019d come back to Jesus. We even stopped praying for him to come home to us\u2026we only wanted him to come home to God.<\/p>\n By the time our son called us, after 18 long months of silence, God had completely changed our perspective. Because Ryan had done some pretty terrible things while using drugs, the first thing he asked me was this:<\/p>\n Do you think you can ever forgive me? (I told him of course, he was already forgiven. He had ALWAYS been forgiven.)<\/p>\n Do you think you could ever love me again? (I told him that we had never stopped loving him, not for one second. We loved him then more than we had ever loved him.)<\/p>\n Do you think you could even love me with a boyfriend? (Crying, I told him that we could love him with fifteen boyfriends. We just wanted him back in our lives. We just wanted to have a relationship with him again\u2026AND with his boyfriend.)<\/p>\n And a new journey was begun. One of healing, restoration, open communication and grace. LOTS of grace. And God was present every step of the way, leading and guiding us, gently reminding us simply to love our son, and leave the rest up to Him.<\/p>\n Over the next ten months, we learned to love our son. Period. No buts. No conditions. Just because he breathes. We learned to love whoever our son loved. And it was easy. What I had been so afraid of became a blessing. The journey wasn\u2019t without mistakes, but we had grace for each other, and the language of apology and forgiveness became a natural part of our relationship. As our son pursued recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, we pursued him. God taught us how to love him, to rejoice over him, to be proud of the man he was becoming. We were all healing\u2026and most importantly, Ryan began to think that if WE could forgive him and love him, then maybe God could, too.<\/p>\n And then Ryan made the classic mistake of a recovering addict\u2026he got back together with his old friends\u2026his using friends. And one evening that was supposed to simply be a night at the movies turned out to be the first time he had shot up in ten months\u2026and the last time. Ryan died on July 16, 2009. And we lost the ability to love our gay son\u2026because we no longer had a gay son. What we had wished for\u2026prayed for\u2026hoped for\u2026that we would NOT have a gay son, came true. But not at all in the way we used to envision.<\/p>\n Now, when I think back on the fear that governed all my reactions during those first six years after Ryan told us he was gay, I cringe as I realize how foolish I was. I was afraid of all the wrong things. And I grieve, not only for my oldest son, who I will miss every day for the rest of my life, but for the mistakes I made. I grieve for what could have been, had we been walking by FAITH instead of by FEAR. Now, whenever Rob and I join our gay friends for an evening, I think about how much I would love to be visiting with Ryan and his partner over dinner. But instead, we visit Ryan\u2019s gravestone. We celebrate anniversaries: the would-have-been birthdays and the unforgettable day of his death. We wear orange \u2013 his color. We hoard memories: pictures, clothing he wore, handwritten notes, lists of things he loved, tokens of his passions, recollections of the funny songs he invented, his Curious George and baseball blankey, anything, really, that reminds us of our beautiful boy\u2026for that is all we have left, and there will be no new memories.\u00a0 We rejoice in our adult children, and in our growing family as they marry\u2026but ache for the one of our \u201cgang of four\u201d who is missing. We mark life by the days BC (before coma) and AD (after death), because we are different people now; our life was irrevocably changed \u2013 in a million ways \u2013 by his death. We treasure friendships with others who \u201cget it\u201d\u2026because they, too, have lost a child.<\/p>\n We weep. We seek Heaven for grace and mercy and redemption as we try \u2013 not to get better but to be better. And we pray that God can somehow use our story to help other parents learn to truly love their children. Just because they breathe.<\/p>\n Linda Diane Robertson,\u00a0robertson.family@frontier.com<\/em><\/p>\n Written on December 5th, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n Posted on January 14, 2013 \u2013 Ryan\u2019s would-have-been-24 birthday<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/487\/2013\/12\/book-presentation.jpg?w=300\")
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