I want to thank all the people who are open to questions and realize that people are hurting and saying “stop sinning” just isn’t the answer. Thank you to those of you who have written blogs about your struggles and victories and failures—as those struggling with homosexuality, as those who have come out of homosexuality, and as those like me who simply…feel the pain and want to help. Thank you to those who are involved in homosexuality, but love me and are open to talking despite all the hate they have received from Christians in general. Thank you to Christians who offer wisdom and love to everyone, not just those who “do the right things.”

Please, let us not be silent. I don’t want my little brother to learn about homosexuality through crass jokes made by the boys behind the church. I don’t want him to be one of those making the jokes. I want him to be the one who reaches out to the new boy with the pink shirt. And the one who reaches out to the one with the blue shirt. I want him to know that God forgives, and God loves. I want him to know that “Jesus wasn’t afraid to forgive the prostitute. He also wasn’t afraid to tell her to go and sin no more.”

I want him to know that it is okay to not have all the answers and to not understand everything, but to trust that God is still good. I want him to have gay friends and straight friends and lying friends and stealing friends and friends that sleep around—because that is life, and you cannot hide from it. But I also want him to know God and be broken by the sin and the pain, in his own life and in those around him and desire to be clean and forgiven and to be transformed into the image of Christ. I want him to know that Jesus is the only answer for him, those struggling with homosexuality, and for the world.

Please pray for me, as I continue to learn what it means to be a follower of Christ, in all areas, and in this area of homosexuality. I want to do more. I want to reach out in love. And I really don’t know how. I am just taking the trip as it comes…or…falls in my lap, as it has so far. Share with me any wisdom or advice you have. You know, simple things that took years to learn. Or something. Dialog is good. We need to be ready for whatever comes along, and the training is simple: learn to love.

As I continued to listen to my friends that struggled with homosexuality, and we had more discussions on it, I began to see and give advice. As friends do. I did not know about homosexual feelings, but I knew about loving someone who was not right for me—someone that I wanted, with all that was in me, but I knew was wrong for me. I saw that the love my friend had for this other person was wrong, but it was love. And love, like I had learned, is stubborn and unruly and takes you places you never thought you would have gone. As I remembered my own sins and failings, my feelings of “dang, why aren’t you past this?” Or “Why can’t you see this is wrong?” turned into “Man, I remember that. And I still struggle. And man, it is hard.”

But there was still so much stigmatism. There were only a select few others that I could talk to about homosexuality. I brought up the subject generally, and by the person’s first reaction, I could tell if I would ever bring it up again. Since my friends were not openly gay, it wasn’t for me to tell others about, or ask for advice or support. For awhile, and still to this day, I feel alone. I feel heavy because I know I am fallible. I don’t have the answers. And I can’t even tell my friends “Well here, go talk to this person, they know what’s going on” because I really don’t know.

I went to a gay pride event, but didn’t tell anyone. I just walked around…looking for some kind of answer. An answer that understands something that I didn’t understand yet, curious to find out more. Once again, as I walked around and looked into faces, I felt the pain. A sharp, deep pain that brought tears to my eyes and I knew I could not even feel the bottom of it because it goes on and on and on…I prayed some. I enjoyed myself—it was like a fair. And I watched a lot of people. I wondered what their lives were like. I wondered why. Because everyone has a “why” for where they are and how they got there.

All this time, I have not heard one word from Christians. From the church. No advice. Nothing that would tell me how to help a friend in need who is dealing with homosexuality. I visited California, and there it was. A pastor shared how he had been invited to a gay/straight conversation thing. And he had felt the pain. The pain I knew well by now. And he loved and talked and cried and was real. And he didn’t quote Judges. Or Exodus, or 1 Corinthians. He simply said “Jesus wasn’t afraid to forgive the prostitute. He also wasn’t afraid to tell her to go and sin no more.” That’s where it’s at.

I can’t say that made everything better and easy. Or that I don’t have any more questions. The thing is…I need to know when to listen, and I need to be able to say “homosexuality is wrong” if the opportunity is right. I need to be able to say that I don’t know how, and I don’t know anything else—but I know that God has a plan for them in this. My friend asked me once “so God is asking me to be alone for the rest of my life?” you know what I did? I sat there in agony, reading the pain in his eyes and I couldn’t say one word. Not one word. How do you answer that? How do you look into someone’s eyes and say “yes. If you are only attracted to men, it is a sin to be with a man like that…and I don’t know how that works…but I cannot change what I know is true.” It is not easy. And sometimes…I just ignore it. And many times…it is time to just listen, they are not ready to hear it or don’t need to hear it. My friends know what is right and wrong. It doesn’t need to be stated again. But what needs to reminded is that hope is there, because forgiveness is always there, and is always beautiful. And Someone willing to forgive all the time also gains the power to say what is wrong and needs to be forgiven.

And it doesn’t make the struggle go away. Maybe one day it will, but maybe it won’t. And maybe one day I will understand it more, and maybe I won’t. But I am learning. And I love my friends—gay and straight. All of them. And I have my struggles and they have theirs. And we still love each other. Because the Bible tells me so.

I was 12 years old, sitting in the back of the church van when I overheard the conversation…”Well, you know they are gay—and I don’t mean happy.” Something hit my heart—and I suddenly realized there was a world that I didn’t know existed. Before that day, I didn’t know there were men who had sex with men, and women with women. Oh, I’d learned the Bible stories, I had heard of Sodomy. But that was a town a long time ago…and weren’t they destroyed by fire?

My knowledge of homosexuality grew over the next couple of years, mostly through conversations overheard, and mean-spirited jokes. I felt a repulsion to them, and something lay unsettled in me—I knew it was wrong to joke about things God hates, and to joke about people in an unloving manner. It wasn’t until after high school that the personal encounters began…the rumor that a neighbor was gay. A friend of a friend.

Then came the day when one of the kids I worked with at the youth center came and told me that so and so was living with another guy. This had been a boy I had had many spiritual conversations with. A boy I loved and respected and cared about. I was thrown into confusion. What should I do? What was my responsibility? How can I help? But the main thing I felt was pain. Overwhelming pain…and I just wanted to give him a hug and let him let it out.

Since then homosexuality has reached in and touched my closest relationships. While I listened to a friend share her struggle, thoughts scramble around my head: “How could this be? How did she allow this to get like it is? It is wrong—I need to say it is wrong! But she know, she knows.” But as I sat and listened, the thoughts got more distant. The only thing that pounded at me over and over again was “the pain. She is in pain. The struggle—what a struggle. The hopelessness, she feels so lost. The pain, the pain.”

I struggled in myself. I saw the pain so strongly. I saw the attempts to do better and the condemning failure and guilt that permanently crippled. I wrestled with questions like “When does the person go from being tempted with homosexual thoughts, to being gay? When does the liar stop being a liar? when he stops lying? so do you stop being gay when you stop gay-ing? or what about the prostitute? is she no longer a prostitute when her shift ends? Or when she gets a new job?”

I studied all the verses. I studied the internet to see how those verses were explained away by pro-homosexual sites. But it wouldn’t leave. I knew that homosexuality was a sin. I knew it inside me, even though I wanted to just…dilute the feeling a little, so as to reconcile and make things a little easier for my friends.

I fought with God. In the people I knew, homosexuality was not something they chose. They did not sit down and say “I want to be attracted to the same sex.” On the contrary. It was something they constantly fought and tried to get away from. One friend finally stopped fighting. Then I had more questions “If you say you are gay, does that mean you have given up? you are not going to struggle anymore? you are embracing your sin and saying that that is who you are? to say “i am gay,” is that like saying “i am a sinner?” “

That friend looked me in the eyes and said “Do you think I want this? This…thing that that makes me hide who I am from those I love the most? Do you think I would choose something everyone hates—for the heck of it? No, I am doing the best I can with what I have been given.”

I cried out to God: “If you say that homosexuality is a sin, won’t you give the power to stop? isn’t the power to overcome always there? somewhere? Why don’t you do something and make them un-gay!” It came down to the question of do I believe that God permits temptations/sins that cannot be overcome? Can i look someone in the face, someone who says they are gay and has gone through GOD ONLY KNOWS more pain and trouble and confusion and struggle than I can imagine, and say that God won’t allow sin that cannot be defeated? I don’t know. But i can tell them they can be forgiven and made new. clean. and for that moment, that was enough.

Really, what I was asking was God, WHO ARE YOU? i wanted to know Him and i wanted to know that He was good. And that no one is doomed. That somewhere, there is always a chance. That there is always an option not to sin. Somewhere.

i made a cake.
no measuring allowed.
no recipe allowed.
i just tried to remember what stuff was needed and how much of what.
and i remembered the golden rule of cooking: if it doesn’t taste good before you cook it, it won’t taste good after.
i made it with coconut milk. which, my friends, does not come out of coconuts. and there are not smooth green coconuts and brown hairy ones. they are the same coconut, and water stuff is inside it. i learned that the painful way.

it was Anna’s birthday this week and i got to talk to her.
the good kind of talk. not the artifical one.
the one where you feel nice and full afterwards.
and she is growing up. she is growing older than me. it happens to everyone.
they get married and poof–they are suddenly in this ADULT world that is somewhere…beyond me.
somewhere i cannot get to. somewhere i feel left out of.
not that i really want to be there. but i just wish i could understand and be…part of it.
without getting married.

and Obama is the president and it feels so very far away from me. and i…voted to please those i love.
how many things do i simply do to please others? to make sure i distance myself from that fiend named guilt?

i had a dream the other night that i completely forgot about my English class.
my students came to me afterwards with this grim shaking of their heads… i hate grim shaking of their heads.
the “i am disappointed in you” thing.
which i why i try not to commit to anything.
because then i cannot disappoint you.
and then i cannot live.

i yelled at my students on Monday. because i was stressed. and they were stressed.
and it was horrible. and I apologized the next day.
(sometimes… it almost seems worth it to fight so you can make up. things were so much better after that.)

and i am in charge of the Christmas program–50 kids, 9 songs, two verses per song.
three practices a week.
ever since the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” insident…me and play practice don’t settle together very well.
But it is going surprisingly well.

and this week at college we had this special “Feira” thing.
my college class is…a group of talking women. LOUD talking women.
i don’t have a good track record on working “as a team.”
the few classes i had that had group projects in the past, group project meant “put-it-off-until-the-last-week-when-Rachel-ends-up-doing-all-the-work” projects.
i quickly learned to go solo, at all costs.

well, in Brasil, they do everything in groups.
even tests.
and i am the last to be picked on the team, due to my lovely Portuguese grammar skills.

so a week before the “Feira” project (like a fair with booths), they have battled it out, and have a theme: “playing and educating.” i am stuck on the decorating commity. i show up, and then wait around, my job being to “guard the stuff.” good thing i brought Uno and my juggling balls. because typical lateness, the fair started at 7pm, and none of my classmates showed up until 7:30pm. So for the first half hour, i entertained all the children with Uno, juggling, and learning “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in English.
The next night, same thing happened. but this time i was ready with paint…i did face/hand painting.

so add that to my resume. grin.

and right now, i am trying to catch up on all the wonderful e-mails people have written me…and my new “NEW LOOK” hotmail thingy…is not letting me write anyone back. for once…i have a valid excuse. but i am finding that even valid excuses don’t make someone feel better when they are lonely.

“So Rachel, has anyone gotten saved?”

i hear the question with dread. the deer in the headlights. My ministry in Brasil is limited on how much i can share the gospel–simply because of language barriors. While people are quick to start conversations with me because i am new and different…they are slow to speak of matters of the heart because i am new and different–i am still, and in some sense will always be, the forienger. with children, it is hard for them to understand my accent. When they have questions, i am quick to find someone to help explain it to them–someone who can explain much better than i.

so i will confess to you here and now: i have not led one Brasilian to the Lord in all the time i have been here. Some days, the full extent of my ministry is miscommunication and misunderstanding…but i hope it is with a smile and a heart of love. i am not here to save anyone, i am here to love. i am here to be God’s hands to those around me. to show Him, to share Him. I am here to live day by day. and in that day, to find Jesus so i can show Him to others.

Save the people is the cry–but let us not drown out the voices of the babies who are saved and never grow spiritually–and lie there helpless on the floor until someone comes along and destroys them. i am NOT saying salvation is not important. i am just saying it is one pit stop in the road–what about the rest of the traveling? what about the road TO salvation-the planting seeds, conversations, love, care, listening–and the road AFTER salvation–discipleship, sharing, encouraging, exhorting, correcting, fellowship? the whole journey is important–just as important.

Salvation is a marker, yes, and how joyous it is to be in on that party. but it is not my party. When someone is saved, it certainly was not me–GOD FORBID it be–for if it was, then i have the power to undo it too. Please do not ask me if i have gone to Brasil to save people, because i have not and i cannot.

How do you measure success? it is not by how many are saved. success is a day lived with Christ. seeking Him, and then sharing what you find. on whatever part of the road you are at. in the end, i cannot measure this success in your life, and you cannot in mine. i am called to obedience to Christ, and i will give account for that–that is my responsibility, no more and no less.

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Two people in front of me

Are they opposites?

 

One is a leader

And she controls with a fist of iron

She knows what she wants

And normally gets it

She constantly plans

Constantly fears

Constantly manipulates

She sees results

 

The other one floats around

She lives with hands wide open

She isn’t sure of anything, and yet loves everything

She doesn’t know

She wants to know

She sits and wonders

Until something crashes down

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I wrote my first poem in Portuguese. Thought in Portuguese,
and written. Nada de Inglis.

O que e

Isso briga em mim

Isso fogo que quemar

Mais tambem dar o luz

Pra meu caminho?

 

Isso sentido de certeza

De todo que e errado

E medo de tudo

Que e for a minha mao?

 

Isso dor que mata

Mas creser esperanca

Na imposivel?

 

Isso felicidade

Que fugi quando eu alcanca

Mas dar o toca fundo

Que e imprimido na minha mente?

 

Isso tristeza

Que acaba minha vida

Mas dar poder

Eu preciso pra andar

Mais uma rua?

 

Que saudades

Que mata antes

O comencar