We All Win When Love Wins: My story.

All this talk of marriage equality feels like being home alone on Valentine’s Day.

That was my Facebook post when The Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage. Really though, the decision has a far deeper reaching message to me.

I have identified myself as a follower of Christ for over thirty years, but its only within the last ten years, that I have openly admitted to being gay. Even now, that particular admission of self-acceptance I keep pretty shadowed to the aforementioned group. Christians make me nervous.

Just about a year ago I was in the process of killing myself. Slowly. I’m way too chicken to commit traditional suicide. I know this because I have had the gun to my head many times but I could never pull the trigger. Wasting away seemed both appropriate and somehow profound to me. Truth is, I’d simply lost the will to live. Yet, though my physical condition was deteriorating, I never stopped feeling God reach through the fog. In fact, it was all of those months in bed that gave me the opportunity to read a book called “Love Wins” by Rob Bell. The title’s irony is not been lost to me every time I see the victory chant of the LGBT community, #love wins. Bell’s book hit the organized church like a tidal wave with it’s message of barrier breaking salvation for all, and here they go again getting slapped in the face with the same chant: love wins.

Of course love wins. God is love. Duh.

My neighbors came across the hall to check on me one day because they knew something was up, even though they couldn’t put their finger on it. As I recall, the conversation was light. There was talk of a potential hail storm and tornado heading our way. They asked me if I had heard that marriage equality had been legalized in Pennsylvania, and I took the news in stride. It was an issue I had chosen to never really delve in to because I have long ago given up on finding that kind of relationship or fulfilment. As the conversation continued, unexpected tears started to fall from my eyes. Then the floodgates opened, and I started to sob.

For the first time in my fifty-something years, it was legal to be me.

I had no idea how important all of this all was to me because I didn’t realize that it wasn’t about being able to marry another man, it was about being a societal outcast all of my life. It was about living in the fringes. It was about wanting to serve God with everything in me, but feeling unworthy and unable because of my secret; one I was born with and did not choose. It was about experiencing the freedom in Christ to be all that He created me to be, like I had been promised all those years.

I am a generation that has come up when gay bashing is not only accepted, but in many circles, expected. As has happened time and time again, many of us have come to terms with ourselves, leaving a trail of divorces and broken homes behind – let’s pray that we are at the tail end of that genesis. We are addicts who have used substances to numb the pain of not fitting in, and we are well-respected professionals who have had to resort to bathroom stalls and back alleys just to find a form of the love that we were created to experience; through others and through God. We are the lost boys who may not have been out in the streets with our rainbow flags held proud, but whose lives have been eternally impacted by our fellow commrades who were. I realize that man’s opinion shouldn’t matter that much, but somehow, God’s love got a little bit brighter the day I heard that I was legally accptable.

There aren’t words to describe the feeling of walking through the barbed wire gates of a state correctional facility after serving a prison sentence. The last year has felt a lot like that. The ability to love myself and walk a little taller has made me a new man. The drugs are miraculously nothing but a memory, and my heart is re-warmed by a calling I had many years ago and have run many miles to get away from. I enjoy diversity of opinion and in people and I’m genuinely grateful for the sun and the clouds, because I know that God wastes nothing. There has been so much that I have missed carrying around the weight of my guilt and shame. I am living and enjoying life now, not just surviving it and I’m pretty sure that though unconsciously, feeling like an accepted member of society has made a big difference.

I am filled with joy for those whose relationships were affirmed by the Supreme Court ruling and I rejoice with my fellow brothers and sisters that one more man-made barrier to God’s ridiculously big love has been knocked down. I am so enjoying watching God move His story forward. And while I may be home alone on Valentine’s Day, once again, I am very grateful to live in world that in spite of our best logic and efforts, love does and will always win in the end.