(Written Sat 18th Jan 2014)

So it’s Saturday morning, and I’m currently sat in bed, in my dressing gown, surrounded by Bibles, Bible studies, and newspaper clippings. Today is our first ‘serious’ meeting with the LGBT Christian Fellowship group we have managed to set up. We’re going to look at the ‘clobber passages’ and I thought I better refresh myself and have a little read. (The clobber passages being, Genesis 19:4-5, Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10.)

I remember when I first came out reading these over and over again, going to the internet for help and advice and stumbling across articles. Some saying the passages weren’t condemning homosexuality and then with the next click seeing another that said it does! I remember being utterly confused. Translations, cultural context, different meanings of words, UGH!

I guess I find myself in a similar situation this morning. I’ve read so many books, heard so many peoples interpretations that it all just rolls into one. Obviously, I’m now in a much better place than I was 7 years ago, but it’s still so easy to be baffled by all there this out there about these passages.

It got me thinking, if I’m still confused by these passages what is it that makes me so confident in who I am and what I do in fight for equality. I’ve come to the conclusion, that my really simple and quite refreshing answer is God’s love.

This is the link to the blog I posted when I came out.

All who know me, know I feel, I could have done it all a lot better than I did back then. I think it was probably down to my immaturity and excitement of what my life was about to become.

However, even back then, it was through prayer and worship that I came to the conclusion God loved me ‘Just as I am’. I realise some may interpret this as ‘Yes he loves you just as you are, but you need to make some changes too, one being your sexuality’
I have quite a few immediate reactions to that some of which are probably best not published here!

But mainly, I felt God’s presence, I felt his arms around me and tell me it’s ok. I am perfectly created in his image, and God does not make mistakes. Granted I make mistakes, and there have been quite a few occasions, where I have felt the overwhelming conviction to do something, about a mistake or situation, but as yet, my sexuality has not been one of them. In fact it’s been the opposite.

One example I hold close to my heart, is the group I initiated. The success we’ve had, the conversations we’ve had, and the opportunities we’ve been given so far. Last year, when we were going to have our very first meeting to decide what we wanted out of a fellowship group, my Mum gave me a photo copy of her Bible notes from that very morning.

“Jesus went looking

Don’t miss the tenderness behind the miracle. Jesus heard that the once-blind man had been thrown out by the utterly blind Pharisees, and so went looking for him. What follows is a wonderful exchange, as the kingdom of God turns everything upside down.
I love this portrait of the Jesus who went in search of a man who was ejected by stern, hostile religion. I wonder how many others have found themselves out in the cold, because of an unwelcoming church that has decided that they don’t fit the religious bill?
I am convinced that God has a special heart for prodigals. Some of them are not running from God but are ‘on the run’ because they are desperately trying to find Him. And here’s the wonderful truth: just as the father came running out the greet the son in the famous parable, so God runs around looking for those who have been rejected by a harsh, unloving church.
Jesus went looking for the man. And he’s walking around, looking to sit down with the dejected and the rejected, perhaps wanting them to know that He, too, has been barred from some churches.”[1]

To me, that was a pat on the back, a ‘yes, what you’re doing is right’. I believe it’s little things, like that, in my everyday life that tell me that being gay is ok.

I’m not saying the Bible is redundant by any means, but I think it’s so easy, especially where the subject of homosexuality is concerned, to get swept up in the meaning of these passages, and it pains me to think there are people out there who feel they can’t embrace the amazing gift of love for another human being that God has given us.

So, it is God’s love, his hand on my life, and the fire he puts in my heart that makes me *so* sure of who I am and what I’m doing.

Lucy x