RJ

Growing up, I was always drawn to more typically boy-like behavior, clothing and toys. My favorite toys were cars, Legos, Lincoln Logs, guns, etc. We were a very conservative family that belonged to legalistic churches, so we girls were not allowed to wear pants or shorts, just culottes or skirts. I pretended my culottes were pants or shorts and hated anything girly or frilly. Looking back, I realize that as an adolescent I had crushes on different friends and some adult women, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

From age three on, I planned to be a missionary, so I never even considered dating anyone who I didn’t think might also share that desire. Because of that, and my general awkwardness with guys, I didn’t date much. Between ages 15-39, I only had 5 different boyfriends and none of the relationships lasted even 6 months. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t bond emotionally with a guy.

At age 26-27, I became involved with a woman for the first time. I had no idea I was romantically attracted to women until things became physical between us. Both of us were Christians and neither of us were aware of our sexuality, so we worked very hard to keep our very close friendship and leave the physical behind us. It took a couple of years to finally stop any physical involvement, and we remained friends for years afterwards. By that point, of course, I said that if I weren’t a Christian, I’d be bisexual.

Growing up, I didn’t know much if anything about gay people. I was taught that men should act like men and women should act like ladies, period. When I became aware of the LGBTQ+ community, it was through a book written by an evangelist about the AIDS epidemic. I was taught and believed firmly that Christian and gay could not co-exist in the same person and that no gay person could ever go to Heaven because that’s what the Bible said (or did it?).

When I was 39, I resigned from my missionary career after 18 years and began trying to find my place in the United States as an adult. While still dating my last boyfriend, I became reunited with a friend I’d known for nearly 20 years, but hadn’t spoken to in quite some time. We talked on the phone initially, because we lived in different states. I began falling in love with her, but I allowed myself to believe it was just a friendship. I went to visit her to have a short vacation and to help her move. She slowly introduced me to alternate ideas about the compatibility between being Christian and gay. She made no efforts to persuade me, just gave me some things to think about. Of course, the fact that I was in love with her was extremely troubling to me as I still believed firmly that I could not have a gay relationship and be a Christian. By that point, I did believe that there were gay Christians, but that they had to be celibate, just like there could be alcoholic Christians, but they couldn’t drink.

Initially, I read God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines. Later, I read The Bible, Gender and Sexuality by Brownson. I became convinced that the Bible wasn’t addressing same-sex monogamous relationships at all through the comparison Vines made to the Roman emperor who basically did everything portrayed in Romans 1 and whom the Roman believers would have instinctively known Paul was referring to when they read that passage. Since then, I have read Vicky Beeching’s book, as well as other testimonial type books. I absolutely love the research based approach of Kathy Baldock’s work in Walking the Bridgeless Canyon as well. Each of these has helped to contribute to my total belief system today. Primarily, though, it is understanding the cultural and linguistic context of the Scriptures used to condemn same-sex relationships that ultimately convinced me.

I describe myself as a biblicist before everything else (in the theological viewpoint category). I still hold a very high view of Scripture and believe that it is the inerrant Word of God. At the same time, I believe God creates everyone differently, and he created me to be a lesbian woman. I am now married to that friend I fell in love with. We have been together nearly four years and were finally legally married this past June. She is the love of my life and I can’t imagine my life with anyone else. Even though leaving my missionary career behind was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I still miss the people and the work I did there, I am so grateful that God took me off the mission field so that I could reunite and fall in love with the person He has always had for me. To God be the glory for the things He has done, is doing, and will do!