I miss Rachel Held Evans.
Her voice on twitter echoed through out social media.
She always knew exactly what to say.
She had a power in her that people listened to.
She had a stamina with the internet trolls that rivaled that of an olympic marathon runner.
She had a peace in her words that made us all believe that God really loves us.
I only hope I can carry an ounce of the faith that she held up for those of us that had a hard time believing.
Most days I don't believe in God.
Most days it feels like he abandoned us to fix earth ourselves.
Most days it feels like we will never get better.
Most days I question why I go to church.
Most days I question why trying to love people well is even a necessity.
The Christian Church keeps telling me that I need to calm down, the church keeps telling me I need to find peace.
I can't.
I can't be at peace when people are dying and no one is doing anything about it.
I can't calm down when minorities are being told Jesus only loves part of them, because a book that was written hundreds of years ago is worshiped as the final word of God.
I am angry.
We sing this song that reverberates through my body, over and over and over again.
"Spirit lead me where my trust is without boarders, Let me walk upon the water where ever you may call me."
But we remain tied to the dock of our lives or we aren't even in the boat at all.
We sit on shore.
We deny ourselves the freedom The Spirit brings.
We believe in safety.
We believe in financial stability.
We believe in existing only in circles where The Spirit looks, smells, feels and tastes like us.
NONE of these beliefs are who Jesus was or why Jesus existed in the first place.
My rebellion has ruined a lot of relationships, it has caused family members to mute me and unfriend me.
My rebellion has left me sobbing in my bed at night because The God of the Universe that separated light from darkness and then put it all back together again in all it's goodness, is so often used as a reason to only see the darkness in people.
We claim all lives matter but when it comes down to it and we have to love someone who is different than us, we choose what we believe to be true every time over their sacred existence.
I don't have any answers. I don't have any defense.
I don't have any theological thesis on why I believe God loves us.
Which I think is why I have spent so much time reading and studying theologies and researching seminaries, I want to have validity.
But like I said, I don't have any answers.
But I do have Heart Break and fear and pain and being abandoned.
And in my heart break, I have been met with love.
In my desertion, I have been met with oil on my head.
In my pain, I have been met with healing.
I have studied and researched and poured over texts and prayed that God would make me perfect.
I hear The Spirit in me every day.
I drowned her out.
I am tired of denying her the space that she was created to take up.
I am thirty years old.
My life has felt like it is being lived by someone else.
Not by me.
I feel like I am fighting who I am constantly.
Always being told that "you just need to do xyz..."
As if any of us have any sort of real answer.
We can make claims that the bible is our real answer, but the bible has been the "real answer" to oppress millions of people.
This is not who God is.
I firmly believe that God is an all or nothing kind of deity.
God encompasses all.
She encompasses me.
Ya'll....
I am so so so unbelievably Queer.
God encompasses that too.
My body feels hot thinking about posting this for real.
I fear so much push back and so many questions.
I fear rejection.
I fear my family hating me.
I fear my family being awkward.
I fear past church friends who I love dearly, just casting off.
I fear current church friends trying to "love" me well.
But what I fear even more than that is dishonoring the Creator by not living out my life in it's fullness.
Dishonoring my self.
Tonight, I sat and listened to Tasha Cobbs as she sang "You know my name."
I was reminded that through my doubt, through my feelings of emptiness and abandonment....
The Spirit of the Living God, knows my name.
I want you to all know my "name" too.
I am tired of living out my queerness in secret.
While I am sure many of you are not even remotely shocked, having it written down feels like mercy and the idea of someone reading the words already brings so much freedom.
Quarantine really does something to you I think. haha
Between all the attempts to drowned out the thoughts your brain is thinking and the noise in your head that makes you ignore the Holy Spirit, you learn who you want to be.
I still don't have a total answer for any of it.
I don't have a bible verse to defend myself.
I don't have a motivational speech to get you all to emotionally be on my team.
But....
I do know that I want to have the right words like Rachel.
I want to have resilience against trolls and people who diminish other people's identities.
I want to be at peace in war.
I want to say "Jesus loves you" and believe it for myself.
I want people to know I will remind them that they are holy, and without fault.
I want to believe--no. I want to know, that I am holy and with out fault.
If you can't see where the full goodness of God is in this world, I will help point her out for you.
If you don't understand any of this blog, know that I don't really either. But I do know in my breath and in my Spirit, that you and I, we are wholly, complete, loved and holy people, created by a God that makes absolutely zero sense.
But you can see her in every person. Some times, it just feels really small and the light is really dim.
Please, love all of a person. Even the parts you don't understand.
Hold them in your hands and say, I don't understand you, but I want to.
That's literally all anyone needs to hear ever.
