This way of life—living out loud—is hard. It’s good, in many ways, but it’s hard too. Most of the people who read my stories don’t know me, but many do. And it’s tough, sometimes, on the people who know me. It’s hard on my family and my friends. In many ways living out loud is the hardest on me.
I mostly love writing. It serves me, heals me, and satisfies the creative cat constantly clawing at my insides, trying to get out. It helps me make sense of things and holds me accountable to myself.
Recently I wrote a blog on homosexuality and my beliefs surrounding it.
What I received back in response to my writing…My, my, my. While there were many who have responded with personal attacks and unfair generalizations, I want to thank everyone who has privately and publicly encouraged me (even those who disagree) with the love of Christ. You know my heart. You know my commitment to God’s word. You know my commitment to Jesus and to loving people. Thank you for fighting for the Kingdom. God is able. He is still in control.
I walk onto this field without armor or weapons, by choice, and so the risk is that every once in a while, someone will shoot. It happens. It hurts, and it always, always makes me want to quit writing. But I don’t. When I want to shut off my computer, take my life back as my own, curl up into a protective roly-poly ball, I don’t. I come back to the table because I want to keep loving and remaining open, even though neither love nor openness is easy.
Love is not warm and fuzzy or sweet and sticky. Real love is tough as nails. It’s having your heart ripped out, putting it back together, and the next day, offering it back to the same world that just tore it up. It’s running toward pain and grief and brokenness instead of away from it. It’s turning the other cheek ’til you get whiplash. It’s resisting the overwhelming desire to quit, to save yourself for yourself. It’s exhausting and uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s ugly, like using your bare hands to search for gold in piles of crap.
I try to live my life the same way that a carpenter who lived two thousand years ago lived his. Once he stood on a hilltop and explained how to love well to a huge group of people hanging onto his every word, shocked by the countercultural ideas he was suggesting. And they recognized what he was saying as the Truth. He wasn’t telling them anything new, actually. He was just reminding them of everything that was already written onto their hearts.
The first time I read the things Jesus said about love, it all rang so true to me that my heart about exploded. It rang hard but true. Jesus said that when someone hurts you, you should love that person, and you should turn the other cheek over and over and over again. Seven times seventy times. I’m almost 30, so I’ve got to be getting close to that number. But, I’m not there yet (I know, I know—not the point). So, since my Jesus insists, I must turn the other cheek. The beautiful thing about turning the other cheek is that it forces you to break eye contact with the person who has slapped you, and this little turn changes your perspective. Now, all of a sudden, you are looking away, forward, to something better, more beautiful, and your heartbeat settles, and your palms stop sweating.
So here I am. I’ve turned. I have a new perspective. I have tried to do what a friend of mine used to say, which is to “listen for the love” in what’s said to me. And so, here I am-yet again- and I’ll try to address you with love.
