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I Will Fight For Love

Love one another and you will be happy. It is as simple and as difficult as that.

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I am gay.

That phrase took me 22 years to be able say. I have been hiding who I am out of fear of what my family, friends, coworkers, and employers would think. I am not hiding anymore.

I grew up going to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. For my entire childhood I was told a woman loving another woman was “not allowed” or “wrong” according to what was taught in church and what my parents told me. I was told that marriage was between a man and a woman and that was the only option in the eyes of God.

In high school is when I first started realizing I was not really attracted to men. I had always been one of the guys and I loved being that. We hung out, played Ultimate, and talked about all their girl problems, and talked about which actress was the hottest at the moment. I was who all the other girls came to in order to get advice on how to date the guys I was hanging out with. While I dated one or two of them, it was never anything serious and we all stayed friends. It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized why none of those dating relationships, or any guys for that matter, felt right.

I knew I was attracted to women and I was terrified.

What would my mom and dad say? What would my siblings think? What would my friends think? I was a leader in my church youth group at a Southern Baptist church! I couldn’t be attracted to women! Did this mean God wasn’t going to love me anymore? So I stuffed it down and denied it.

Two secret relationships (with girls), three years, and a bout of depression later, I stopped. I stopped trying to change who I was.

I was gay and that wasn’t going to change.

The fear gripped me again. I didn’t know what to do. Up until then I had never come to terms with how this would change my life. “Coming out” had never crossed my mind. I knew there would be people who would turn their back’s on me. How could I handle that? So I stopped denying it, but I still kept it quiet.

It was not until I entered Celebrate Recovery for the major problem in my life, my addiction, that I decided if I was going to learn to be my authentic self, I had to do it in every facet of my life. I had to be brave and start telling people. So one-by-one I did.

I started with my best friends. They love me. I told my sponsor. She supports me. I start telling everyone else in my life. They accept me. Finally, I tell my mother. One of the hardest moments of my life.

We all have that one person we never want to disappoint. My mother is that person. I had already felt like my life had been a disappointment to her. I was not as good of a student as my brother or sister, I was the “rebellious” child in my teenage years, and I am a sex addict. Now I had to tell her I was gay, which in her eyes would be a hard pill to swallow and probably a disappointment. It took everything I am to utter the words, “I am gay, mom.”

When I finally did, I can’t say that she was happy. I can’t say that she wrapped her arms around me. I can’t even say she said anything positive in our first conversation. It was quite the opposite.

She asked how I could be gay and be a christian? She thought my being gay would damage my integrity and testimony. She thought that it was fine for me to have feelings for women, as long as I didn’t act on them. However, at the end, before I left the room she told me that she loved me. She said that no matter what, she would always love me.

While all of those other concerns are not great, and we may not agree on everything, I know one thing and to me that is what really matters. My mother loves me for who I am.

Not everyone in my life knows yet, but they will in time. The important thing is that I have the freedom to be who I am and I am not ashamed of it. I am gay and proud to be who I am. I look forward to finding the woman of my dreams and marrying her. I look forward to watching my kids run around in the front yard. I look forward to growing old with my love.

No one should ever have to be ashamed. Gay or straight, know that you are loved and accepted for who you are. Love who you want to love and be who you want to be. Never let anything or anyone stand in the way of your happiness.

Peace

4

love

Yesterday I go my first tattoo and I could not be more stoked.

After long deliberation and having friends write it different ways for me, I picked the writting I liked the most and just bit the bullet.

Some people may say that getting “Love” tattooed on your arm is cliché or so “basic”. Well here is why I chose to write love on my arm.

Love is more than an emotion. It is more than telling someone you love them before leaving or hanging up the phone.

Love is and action and a choice.

Love is the foundation of everything that I believe in.

I have lived the majority of my 23 years believing that I was not worthy of love and that I had no love to offer. I could only offer a sarcastic comment in order to cover up my insecurities. I grew up not understanding what it really meant to love. My father always provided for the family financially and otherwise, but was emotionally distant. My mom tried to over-compensate by being a people pleaser and make us all happy, but that isn’t the definition of love either.

With this upbringing it was very easy to develop a hardened heart, and that is exactly what happened.  Through my teenage years I rebelled like most kids and stopped talking to my parents and just gave the cool kid head nod saying “What’s up” when I walked through the door on my way to my room. With that rebellion also came a bout of depression that led to thoughts of suicide and ultimately a sex addiction. I came out of that depression by the grace of God and those around me and am still working on the addiction part, but taking it one day at a time in my recovery.

For the first time in my life, at the age of 18 I realized what it was to be loved.

I had a friend I thought I was going to loose. I thought, like so many time before, I had messed up beyond repair, and they would just walk out on me. But she didn’t.

It clicked. People had been loving me all along, I just didn’t see it because I was too busy trying to shut them out. Once I started letting people into my story, my whole world changed. I started being honest with myself and a handful of people around me. Slowly but surely I started letting people into my life. I let them love me and show me they loved me and I did my best to do so in return.

Over the past five years I have made it my mission to show love in any possible way to those around me. Simply because if there is one thing I have learned it is this:

I was created for a purpose. The vast majority of that purpose is to love and be loved by those around me.

To value people.

To show them they are important.

To show them they have a story that is meant to be lived out.

To live my life authentically so that I can be living proof to others that it does get better.

To love my family.

To love my friends.

To love strangers I meet in the Starbucks line.

To simply be myself and love who I am.

Don’t get me wrong, I have stumbled a lot along the way. I am still stumbling today. I am a much healthier me though. I am recovering day by day. The biggest change in me is that I choose to live with love in my heart and in my actions. I still throw in the occasional sarcastic comment here and there, but it’s not all I do now. I choose to live love and speak love.

This is why love is written on my arm.

Side Note: I grew up in Germany and hold that beautiful place near to my heart, which is why the language I chose is German.

Peace

0

everything (pt.2)

clean

but it’s never that easy

my body craves what it misses

constantly tense

constantly gripped with fear

fear of slipping

fear of not being strong enough

fear of no control

everyday is a battle

i long for the night when i lay down my head and my brain can stop

stop thinking of temptation

stop thinking of the past

stop my imagination from creating things i know won’t last

but then there are moments

these simple moments

this tiny glimpse of truth

brief

but that’s all i need

the truth

the truth that set me free

one cross that’s all it took

one Man who took it all

one love that stands tall

for the broken

for the oppressed

for the eighty year old

and for the child who is fatherless

He stopped the lies that say

i’m not good enough

i can do this on my own

i don’t need God

i can fight this alone

but the shame consumes me still

until

i remember His last breath

“It Is Finished”

and with that He paid my debt

so how can i believe the lies

that i’m not good enough

that i have to be afraid to live

i wasn’t created to fear life

but to embrace the hope

that one day i might

tear down the walls and choose to fight

fight with the Man who arrested my death

to bring the hope to those who are just like me

the scarred, the weary, the broken and ashamed

to bring the good news

that Jesus changed…

Everything.

0

everything (pt. 1)

darkness surrounds me

i’m in a hole

i can’t see the light, i can’t feel the warmth

there’s nothing but shadows consuming my thoughts

when can i get it next?

when will it be enough?

i look down, barely able to see my hands shaking

will it ever be enough?

i sit. my body aches. my mind is blank.

when did it get this bad?

when did i get this bad?

i sit. my heart races. my mind runs from thoughts i have not faced.

how did i get here?

how could i be so selfish?

look at me now:

no family

no friends

no life

nothing but shadows that lurk, waiting for me to try and fight

those are my only friends

those are my only thoughts

that is what consumes me

i look up and cry out in a kind of fury that only shadows can light

why me?

why now?

where did you go?

why did you leave me alone?

i’m shaking

cold

empty

and angry

so angry

fire runs through my body and i jump up

arms out wide, i scream

my veins raised, my blood boiling in rage

my throat tightens as the last bit of breath leaves me

i collapse

in tears

tears that have been there for years but have never reached the surface

i’m done

done fighting

done trying to be what i’m not

done lying

done waiting to get caught.

0

what if…?

We are often told, “It’s not what is on the outside that counts, but what’s on the inside”.

This is 100% true. Do NOT get me wrong.

A phrase I try to live by is, “What makes you vulnerable, makes you beautiful.”

But what do you do when you don’t know how they will react when you do divulge what you have on the inside. What do you do when they don’t like what is on the inside?

You think:

What if they won’t accept me?

What if they won’t like what I have to say?

What if they don’t understand?

What if they turn away from me?

What if…

These are the thoughts that go through my head. These are the thoughts that keep me awake at night. These are the thoughts that make me think I will never be accepted.

The truthful answers to most of these questions, at least in my life, are not great.

As a Christian and growing up in a very traditional Southern Baptist environment, there are preconceived notions about how people should act. Sexual immorality is at the top of the no-no list, which puts me at the top of the no-no list. Now everyone has their fair share of mistakes too, but this sexual sin is one of those that is not handled well.

It makes me feel like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Like I have a big red A on my shirt when I’m walking around.

There are still many people in my life who do not know I am an addict. I went through a time recently where I was terrified of what people would think of me when they found out.

The simple truth is that they won’t understand. I have to be okay with that.

I have to be okay with being me in all my glorious mistakes.

I have to be okay with what they may not like about me and love them with all my heart despite that.

More importantly I have to love myself.

The problem with all of those questions up there is that they say “What if they…?”. When it comes to recovery and finding who I am, I have to be selfish in order to work on myself. I have to love me. I have to understand me. I have to accept me.

Just because someone around you right now may not accept you, that does not mean you are worthless. You and I are going to touch so many lives through the struggles we have gone through and we will use our brokenness to help other through theirs.

 

 

Peace

What makes you vulnerable, makes you beautiful.

Brené Brown

0

identity

For years I hated Sushi. There was just something about putting raw fish in my mouth that was disgusting and in no way appetizing. My brother tried for so long to just get me to try it, just a California roll, it gets no more basic than that. I just wouldn’t budge. So I went off to college. Now we all know that in college you try new things (some good and some bad). Well I met a friend and she loved Sushi. She asked me to try it, so and I did. Turns out… I love Sushi.

I went home for fall break and my brother wanted to go get Sushi and I said I would tag along. He was excited, thinking I was finally going to try it. Little did he know I had become a aficionado. When I told him, he lost it. All of these years and it took one random girl I had just met to get me to try Sushi. Needless to say, I still have not lived this down.

Now this may be a random example, but you know that you have had a moment like this. Your friends and family have told you that you need to fix or change something about your life, but you don’t listen. Then you hear it from someone else, someone new, someone who surely knows what they are talking about, and you do without question.

I had this happen to me recently.

As an addict you lose who you are in your addiction. You lose who you were made to be. You lose so much more than control. You lose yourself.

Because of that, a majority of the recovery process is figuring out who you are, getting reacquainted with yourself. So I just started brainstorming, “Who do I want to be?”:

“Okay, this is my one chance to reinvent myself. This is my turn to choose who I want to be, not who my parents want me to be, not who my friends expect me to be, not who society thinks I should look like. I am free, for the first time, really free.”

Well the first thing I thought was that I should find my identity in Christ. That is so much easier said than done though. I had this thought that I could not be this really down to earth person and still be this “Awesome Christian”.

I was so far from wrong it wasn’t even funny. I had this idea that I had to be an extreme. A miserable sinner with no hope or the person who thinks they are above everyone else and better than the world just because they are a Christian.

I was reading a book called “If You Feel Too Much” by Jamie Tworkowski, the founder of To Write Love on Her Arms. Here is this person that is so down to earth and yet loves God, and you can see it in his writing. You see that he is happy with who he is and that person is a follower of Christ and a surfer who swears every once in a while. I am not writing this too praise him, simply to give the example that you can live your life authentically and be accepted for who you are. People who are real make the biggest difference.

Now I have had people telling me this for as long as I have been in recovery… My Sponsor, accountability partners, friends, but of course it didn’t set in. I don’t know what it is about hearing it from a stranger, but it really resinated with me this time.

This is something I am still figuring out. This “how to be free” thing. I don’t know, and have never really known what that feels like. I like the possibility though. I like the freedom to choose who I want to be, to choose what I want to be, and to follow my true passion without any inhibitions.

I am free. I just have to choose to love myself enough to do what truly makes me happy.

 

Peace

0

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