The Truth

My daughter had always been a very happy and contented girl – a typical teenager.  The summer of 2008 changed that.  She would become angry and hostile.  To put it simply, she was hiding something she didn’t want us to know.  There was one problem, for I knew what her secret was.  Plus, I knew she was beginning to suffer from a disease which seems to be prevalent in my family; a disease that I still suffer from.  Luckily, I had shared my battle with my daughter and husband, unknowingly preparing them for the events to come.

            It all began when she met a girl at college.  They became fast friends and were always together.  It was easy to see that there was more to their relationship than friendship.  In the summer of 2008, my daughter collapsed in my arms and began sobbing relentlessly.  All night I stayed up watching over her.  I watched my girl go from that vibrant smiling cherub to an empty shell that just went through the motions of life.  I took her to our doctor who prescribed anti-depressants and then to a counselor for therapy.  Finally, in June, 2009 she accepted what I and her father already knew was true and accepted.  She came to us while we were sitting in the living room, and asked us if we could talk.  I could tell she was nervous; she always walks around and waves her hands as if she were Keith Lockhart directing the Boston Pops when she is excited or apprehensive.  She looked at us both and said, “I love you.  I know that I have to be what I was meant to be.  I can’t lie nor hide what I am.”   “So, what are you,” I asked.  She peered at us with fear that shook her slender body, but she bravely answered, “I am a lesbian”.  My husband and I exchanged a glance and broke out in laughter.  Our daughter stared at us as if we had lost our minds.  Finally, I pulled her close and kissed her.  “Sweetheart, don’t you know by now that you are always my girl and that we love you no matter what.  We don’t care if you’re a lesbian; we just want you to be happy”.  My husband echoes the same sentiment, and we watched as a tear trickled down her cheek.  Her voice quivering, she said, “I didn’t think you would ever call me, ‘your girl’ ever again”.  That simple phrase, “my girl”, was all she needed to know that we loved and accepted her.  It is the phrase I always use when I know she is feeling down for I realize it helps her recognize the truth about my love for her.

            Unfortunately, not everyone feels the way we do about homosexuals.  We had been going to the same church for seventeen years.  Regrettably, what occurred in the middle of July, 2009 drove us from any chance of reconciliation with the church and its young pastor.  We heard a soft knock on our front door and when my husband answered it, there stood our young pastor.  We had not expected him for my husband had told him that we were looking for a new church.  Yet, Pastor had come again to question why we were leaving.  My daughter finally came forth with the true reason.  I can still see her standing in the living room, her riotous curly brown hair shook around her head as she punctuated every word to this young man; “If I want to love a woman that is none of your business”!  Saying this she dissolved into tears and fled the room with my husband pursuing her.  I stood frozen and felt that all of the work that had been done to help her had been destroyed by the vanity of this man.  I asked him three times to leave my home, but he would not go.  I countered him verse by verse, and he smirked when he said “sin no more.”  I gazed at him and said, “Pastor, I would like you to stop sinning right now.”  Astonishingly, he told me he would!  I knew then what a hypocrite and liar he was.  I knew of the verse that would end this witch hunt; nevertheless, I kept it to myself.  No matter what verse I would repeat, Pastor would remain antagonistic and cocky in his belief that gays were condemned to hell.  I went to my daughter, she sobbing uncontrollably, and my husband, trying in vain to comfort her.  My husband and I traded places, and I could hear my husband’s gentle admonishments to Pastor and his requests to leave.  Finally, Pastor left and with him went our desire to ever attend a church again.             

            This is the truth and the verse I knew is one that reflects truth:  “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).  You see I search for truth and I know that truth is what each one of us makes it.  Author, Parker Palmer, wrote these words in his book, Let Your Life Speak:  Listening for the Voice of Vocation, which I find very inspiring: 

“The world still waits for the truth that will set us free –

My truth, your truth, our truth –

The truth that was seeded in the earth

 When each of us arrived here

 Formed in the image of God.

Cultivating that truth, I believe,

Is the authentic vocation of every human being” (36).

Parker is right.  We all have our own truths which we must not only sow, but tend to, and allow to grow for it is not only a reflection of ourselves, but also God.  The truth, my daughter is a lesbian whom we love and enjoy!  Another truth, this all took place over four years ago and the majority of what I have written here was first done in the Fall of 2008.  We have been through many more events and they have sent us through the ringer.  The reactions of most who know have been overwhelmingly positive.  My girl knows this.  But there have been many who react to her the same as that young Pastor.  Full of hate and perpetuating condemnation, we’ve dealt with insults, the beating of my girl, and betrayal by people we thought were friends and discovered just how fair weather they really were.  No, homosexuals aren’t committing a sin, they have been born to love in a way that some heterosexuals don’t understand.  But then again it isn’t anybody’s business what goes on in the sexual life of others.  I know I sure don’t want to know about other couples around us and I really don’t know why that is so important to some.  But there is one thing I do know.  Read Mathew 19: 11-12, then think about it…really, you might just see the truth.  Now Accept it. 

 

Work Cited

Holy Bible. Grand Rapids.  Zondervon.  1991.

Parker, Palmer J.  Let Your Life Speak:  Listening for the Voice of Vocation.  San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. 2000.