Affirmation Talk

On my journey to accepting myself as a gay Mormon, all of my pillars crumbled with the revelation of my sexuality. I lost friends, I lost family, and for a while, I lost the Church. I lost everything. The only pillar that remained was God... my Heavenly Parents. Prayer, the temple, and the Scriptures were what got me through those hard times.

I really took advantage of the healing power of the Atonement... but not because I had sinned. The Atonement is for all of God's children. It's not just for sinners, and a lot of people forget that. The Atonement applies to everyone. It applies if you sin... it applies if you are in pain, it applies if you are in sorrow, it applies if you're straight, and it applies if you are gay. It applies if you are a member of Church, and it applies if you aren't. The Atonement of Christ is everything.

The Book of Enos from the Book of Mormon, was by far my greatest strength. In the first chapter, we read of Enos, and the struggle he had before God. He was concerned about his eternal life, and his soul hungered and he knelt before God in prayer and supplication of his soul. He prayed all day and night.

And then came a voice from Heaven saying, "Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed." Enos knew that God could not lie, and his guilt was swept away. He asked God how this could have been done, and God replied, "Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole." Enos heard God, and he felt that his brethren needed to hear these words, and he prayed to God for them.

Enos and I are mirrors of one another. I knelt in prayer, and I paced my bedroom, praying over and over again. And one day, while in the temple baptistry, I heard God. He confirmed His love for me. He lifted me up in my hour of need. He lifted me above the scorn I felt from the world, and from the children in His Church. And once I could stand on my own... once I could again bear my burdens, I turned to pray for my fellow brothers and sisters. I turned to help them. Gay, straight, Bisexual, Transgender... I prayed for them all. I go out to live Christ's true love, and to bestow it on those who need it the most. 

This is why I stay.

 

Journal Entry 2 December 2011

It's three weeks before Christmas... And for the fifth year in a row, I'm alone... again. My family doesn't want me. God doesn't want me. Nobody wants me. I'm nobody's somebody.

I get why my parents hate me. I get why they don't want me around. They don't even know that I'm gay, but I'm a bad enough person that my gayness doesn't even need to be mentioned for me to be expelled from the family.

I get why God hates me. God hates me because I'm gay. That's a pretty good reason. It's cut and dry... Plain and simple. God loves straight people. God loves people who can "multiply and replenish the earth." God loves people who are pure of heart. But that's not me. I have impure, immoral, and unnatural thoughts all the time. I'm dirty, and repulsive. No unclean thing can enter God's presence. No unclean thing can go to heaven. But no matter how hard I scrub my skin, no matter how much, and how sincerely I pray... I'm still impure. God can't possibly love someone like me.

I still hold my temple recommend... But I know that I shouldn't. Someone gave a talk in Sacrament meeting last week about morality, and told us that if we feel rotten in our hearts about something that we have done, it means that we've sinned, and that we need to reevaluate our temple worthiness. I know that I shouldn't have it. But I need to go to the temple one last time... And then I'll figure out what to do. But I have to go just one last time.
 

I'm wearing out the carpet in my room from pacing and kneeling in prayer. I've never prayed about anything more intently, or with more sincerity than this. I was told I would be blessed when I joined the Church... And the only blessing I want is for me to be cured... I want to be straight. Yet God is silent. I've been taught that He will always answer our prayers... but to me, He is silent. He doesn't love me. He can't love me.