It all started when I was 18 years old and I started liking a girl who sat next to me in class. I didn’t know exactly what it meant but I already understood that I liked girls. The bold me told her how I felt and her response was dead silence. She was cool about it but once I got that off my shoulders, it was back to reality and I started to feel bad for feeling this way and I decided that I needed to “treat” this liking of women by dating so many men. The men didn’t make sense. I dated good guys, hot guys, brainy guys but I just couldn’t find any emotional attachment with them. After awhile, I kissed a girl and I thought, “Why does this feel so right?” I felt safe and comfortable in her arms and I wondered why I couldn’t feel this with the guys I dated.
I felt ashamed and guilty and there were many questions in my head I couldn’t answer. Back then we didn’t have much access to the internet and there weren’t even movies with LGBT characters. So how would I know? How could I know that there were others like me who were attracted to the same sex? I felt so lonely and I decided to put away these feelings and thoughts and attempted to try and act as “normal” as possible.
Now, I realize that I am loved by God. I didn’t choose this life, I was chosen for it.
I felt like a sinner. I tried to pray away the gay from myself. I used to cry a lot and I used to think: Why would God not make me straight and normal like my friends? However, the two worlds finally collapsed in front of my eyes and that is when I decided it’s better to end my life than live this way. I attempted to commit suicide before I lost my mind. Thankfully, I didn’t go through with it and I am glad I didn’t because I would be missing out on this beautiful life that I have right now.
I dated a woman but I never accepted myself. It was a tough experience to have someone as a partner without accepting who you are. I started to go to church more but every time I went there I was taught that I was a sinner for loving someone of the same sex, that sexuality and spirituality are like water and oil and that they don’t mix and that I am living a lie and a sin. I couldn’t find a ground to stand on. Here I was in love with a woman and at the same time in love with a God who I was taught hates me if I love a woman.
I believe one can’t be a peaceful person with others unless they are first at peace with themselves. Even after all this time I used to struggle so much with myself. Then came the internet, online dating, meeting people and I started to explore my sexuality with different people while still praying that God would change me because I was constantly taught that I am a sinner in the church. I was told that I am supposed to hate these people and not to be one of them.
Now I am past 27 and it is the age where everyone either expects you to be already married or planning a wedding. Your family, friends and neighbors all ask you: “When are you planning to get married?” “Who is the guy?” “Why aren’t you dating?” “You will not be young forever so you better hurry” and all these cliche things that people say to women of a certain age. I really wish people would mind their own freakin’ business and leave us the hell alone. I was confused for so long because I was living from the outside to the inside. I was listening to people while I should have been listening to MYSELF and GOD. You hear about your friends’ dating lives everyday yet you’re always considered single because we (as lesbians) can’t talk about it in this society. I have now been dating for the past year. I am in a committed same-sex relationship and I want people to know that this is possible. Being gay or lesbian is not about sex or lust. It’s about something way bigger. It is about love.
I am in a committed same-sex relationship and I want people to know that this is possible. Being gay or lesbian is not about sex or lust. It’s about something way bigger. It is about love.
Now, I realize that I am loved by God. I didn’t choose this life, I was chosen for it. Jesus knows I am attracted to girls and it’s OK. The God I worship loves all kinds of people and He does not delight in me living a lie rather than living and accepting who He created me to be and using this gift as a tool to encourage and build others into loving themselves and those around them.
I am a Woman. I am a Christian and I am a Lesbian. Nothing and no one can ever tell me anything different because it’s who I am. It’s me!
I will leave you with this.
No one should come between God and us! No one!
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our LORD.”
