18 going on 30.

Some people are born to be teenagers. Some people are born to be students. Some people never want to grow up, and stay younger forever. But a rare few quite like the idea of getting that little bit older, of slowing the pace of life down before it has time to get started.

Me, I think I was born to be middle-aged.

Now I'm saying with no personal insight into what it's like to be middle-aged; being 18, I haven't reached that point yet. But that's the thing; stating my age just then felt like a confession, a revelation of a hidden truth that I'm not accustomed to people knowing. Its like I'm a tiny bit ashamed to be so young, because I've never felt like I can claim that I live (or want to live) the life of a typical 18 year old in the Western world. I don't deserve this youth, because I don't utilize it enough, I don't take advantage of the fact that my mind and body are a lot sharper than they're going to be in only a few years' time (well, my mind in any case, my body is actually falling apart at the minute, but at least it's healing fast). How on earth can I be 18, when in reality I'd rather be 30?

What I mean by this is that I'd much rather stay in and finish the book I'm reading/film I'm watching/actually sleep than go out and dance the night away in a club, whilst being completely wasted, and waking up to a multitude of embarrassing photos than convey exactly why I don't remember any of the events that were captured happening at all. I like structure, I like routine, I like clean clothes and a (relatively) tidy room and three meals a day and movie nights and a weekly night at the pub. Goodness, this middle-aged affliction is worse than I thought.

In my mind, all of these things that I try to instate into my daily student life manifest themselves as the life I'm aspiring to have in the future. Similarly, all the things I try and avoid - going out every night, not remembering how I got home, forgetting to eat/surviving on Pot Noodles for weeks, leaving work to the last minute, spending every valuable moment watching Vine videos - I associate with the life I should be wanting to lead, the youthful and care-free student life. Don't get me wrong, that last description really is my life (more so than I care to admit) but its getting on my nerves already and I've only been here a month! Give me a tub of Ben and Jerry's and Titanic over a night out any day, I'm begging you.

This sense of guilt I've been feeling has made me think though; am I really just having this premature yearning to be middle-aged and boring, or is this just another of society's stereotype games trying to push me into a box, dictating who I'm supposed to be and how I'm supposed to act? We all know that student life is largely based around a heavy drinking culture. A lack of order is to be expected, and on several occasions I've found myself exaggerating how much I've drank and how little I've slept, just to adhere to this strange sense of normality within the typical student existence. I wonder, do most students genuinely want to get utterly pissed each night, or do they just feel a need to conform, to get ready and go out with the rest of their flatmates who always seem to be more up for it than they are?

It might just be me, and my weird set of life ambitions. I'm constantly plagued by the feeling that I absolutely have to get the most out of life, and be liked by everybody, and at the moment the easiest way to satisfy both of those needs is by going out and getting drunk and 'having a good time'. I'm not intending to slate alcohol, by the way, and occasionally I do have a brilliant night out. But, just for once, I'd love to go out because I actually want to, and I'd love to be able to have a good time without the need to get myself as intoxicated as possible in the shortest amount of time.

My student moan is over now! I'll fill you in with all the more enthusiastic and uplifting details of student life soon. I'm now off to climb into my freshly washed bedsheets - and I think after all that ranting I still feel a little too guilty for being so excited about that. 

I'm a Fresher!

As of about six hours ago, I have now been a full-time, undergraduate, Lancaster University Freshers student. On the one hand, this week has gone much faster than I thought it would. I mean, my first week of living on my own has been and gone, how is that possible?! On the other hand though, somehow I have packed so many subject talks and free pizza leaflets and empty cider bottles into this week, I feel like I've already been here for years.

It was a bit weird to start with; I'm living with eleven other people at the moment (in the UK's best University accommodation for 4 years' running, just thought I'd mention it) so the first few days were incredibly overwhelming. My housemates are all very different and very wonderful people! I'll no doubt be talking about them lots over the next year.

After my parents and sister left me in my room, it did start to hit me that I'd really done it. I'd moved out, I'd started a new part of my life. And right now it's also dawning on me that I've survived my first week here; I've cooked several meals (albeit some took considerably more preparation than others), joined a few societies, been on a few nights out, even met a few people outside my house and college, and took part in the student women's rugby trials today, which were really relaxed and involved a pint afterwards - always good! It's my last official freshers night out tonight, I've got my first ChurchSearch destination tomorrow, and then my lectures start on Monday. Surely then, if I've got this far, I can definitely make it to the end of this year. Fingers crossed!

I am missing my family and friends back home though; I'm hoping my sister is going to come up and see me soon, and my girlfriend is coming up next week - it's been really hard not seeing her regularly. It's not quite the same, and it's still something I'm adjusting to.

As for the whole gay thing, well, I didn't think it was going very well at first. I was crushed on my first night when our Freshers' Reps started calling the female president of the LGBT club 'the Beast', and no one seemed particularly up for stopping using the word 'fag' when I asked them not to. However, as the week has gone on, people have started to ask me about my girlfriend after I casually slipped her into conversations a few times, and a few girls have even said that I should tell them if anyone gives me trouble about it next week. I'm sure it'll be fine, just as everything else has gone much more smoothly than I could ever imagined.

It's funny, I rarely tend to notice God's presence when each second is speeding past me and I'm in the thick of the moment - but always, in retrospect, I can see how much He helps me through every day. Some would call it coincidence, some would say I got through this week as well as I have through my own strength. But you definitely wouldn't be saying those things if you'd seen me the night before I left! No, God has been next to me through this entire week. Reflection is a good way to stop me doubting.

Now I need to get ready before I go out one last time this week; it is by far not the last time I will ever go out this year! But I have a feeling I'm going to need a serious boost in energy to keep me going tomorrow. I'll let you know how on getting I'm soon.

God bless :)

Change.

Forcing excitement is hard. Trying to remain positive is hard. Willing yourself into actively taking in the good things that people say about a situation is hard. It shouldn't be, I shouldn't be feeling like this, I should be raring to go. But I'm not, and that's making me feel guilty, and that's even harder.

I've never been good with change. I like routine, I like feeling rooted. Goodness, I sound autistic! Not that that's a bad thing, but to be honest I don't think I'm far off though anyway. Moving to university and saying goodbye to friends collectively is the biggest change I've had to go through so far in my life, and the biggest challenge. I keep having to remind myself that yes, everyone else is in the same boat, and yes, God has gone before me and I'm going to be fine. But I still feel broken and unprepared and totally not ready for what's about to happen. What's happening, what's in motion, what I'm most powerless to stop.

It took me such a long time to feel accepted, both in who I am and within the different groups and places in my life that I belonged to. Now its as if I'm going back into the darkness and confusion that I felt stuck in when I was 13; it's not like the way that I'm different is something that I can turn on and off for someone else's liking or preference. To find a church I can settle into, to find a group of friends I can trust, I might have to compromise, put myself in a box, lose who I am. Honestly, I don't know where my sense of identity has gone right now and I haven't even left yet, how am I going to cope when I get there?

I know where some of it has gone. My heart left in Birmingham, my left arm all the way down in Southampton, my right leg soon to be travelling all the way to Florida, and it probably won't be coming back. These people accept me, and love me, somehow, and I feel incredibly fortunate and humble that they do. It's got to be a hard job loving me! I just don't know how I'm going to find other people who will, and I don't know what I'm going to do without the ones who already do.

I'm aware I'm rambling a bit. This post doesn't really have a direction, much like my thoughts and I at the moment. But I need to get this out, as pathetic as it is, and if I say it out loud I'll cry again and that just won't help anything!

I was watching 'The Great Gatsby' today, the new one with Leonardo DiCaprio in it, and it got me thinking back to all the subtext discussed when me and the rest of my A Level English group read the book two years ago. I came to the scene where Gatsby knocks the clock off Nick's mantelpiece, and remembered the metaphorical significance that we'd been so interested to discover as class at the time. Gatsby, having been separated from the love of his life for five years, simply wanted to pick up the pieces from the past and start again where they left off, as if he could reform the past again. Hence, breaking the clock would freeze the time on it; but, no matter what he did to the clock, time would never turn back, and he would never regain the time lost and be able to live as he once had.

I spend forever looking backwards, like Gatsby I guess. These last few years have been wonderful, particularly the last year with my girlfriend and my closest friends, and I'd give anything to be sitting back in an RS class on a Friday afternoon again. But I can't. Looking forward, of course, means change, and its the only way to go. I have no choice, I have to keep going. but things where so good then, how can they ever be any better?

Everything hurts, its like my whole body is struggling against this change too. I don't know how long I can take this for. I don't know how to feel. I want out. I can't do this. 

The Red Pill.

In less than a month, I shall be leaving for university. I have no clue as to where my summer has gone. It seems, as per usual, change is creeping up on me at a pace that I'm both uncomfortable with and powerless to stop.

My grades were fairly good, and despite a slight bit of drama on the day I'm now actually going to Lancaster. It doesn't feel real, and I guess it won't until my parents drive back home and leave me there. I'm imagining that it might feel like the time when I took part in a German Exchange programme with my school a few years ago; I got into the car with the mother of my German host, and suddenly the friends and teachers that I trusted (and spoke English) were fading away and it dawned on me quite heavily that I was alone, in a foreign country, with people I didn't know, and there was nothing I could do to get out of it. I got myself (willingly, somehow) into this situation, so I had to see it through, albeit with gritted teeth and the little German I'd remembered from my classroom that was even further away than my friends.

I'm sure it won't be that dramatic this time. But that's the thing; I'm the eldest child, and I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this experience. I'm sure it'll be fine, as most things are, as I am when I eventually get used to things. It's just a little disconcerting that most of my friends are incredibly excited by the 40p Ikea kitchen utensils and 2 for 1 Pizza Hut vouchers that have presented themselves with our university acceptances, and not one of them is as nervous as I am.

I have to keep actively reminding myself that God is going with me, as He goes with me everywhere. It's at times like these though that the lack of God's physical presence seems to grow larger than His spiritual presence; I hate writing these doubts down, I feel like I should be satisfied with everything God gives me but sometimes the fear takes hold and the certainties you had before seem absurd now and nothing makes sense anymore.

I'm praying I'll meet a Christian on my first day. I'm praying that no-one will have an issue with the fact that I might attend the LGBT events and the Christian Union. I'm praying that I'll find a church I can feel comfortable and accepted in, and that I'll find it fairly soon. I'm praying that I'll find a job too, and a few solid friends, and a variety of good friends, and that I won't lose myself during Freshers Week, and that I love my course, and that I don't have too many books to read, and that I don't die of food poisoning or run out of money in my first week. And I'm praying that God will open doors and perhaps use me and my insecurities in ways that I haven't even dreamed of yet.

So even though I'm doubting that God is actually present, I'm still asking for quite a lot of things. I'm a bit of an idiot really. How can we be so flawed, and yet ask for so much? How can God even look at us and how tainted we've become, let alone listen to us? His grace astounds me every day. It shouldn't be true. it's too good a reality to exist. But He does.

People argue that a world without God is by far a better place; its better to have no God rather than a God who allows suffering to happen and who controls our lives like a relentless and detached puppetmaster. But can't anyone see? He has to deal with all of us at our worst, full of sin and hatred and human imperfection, yet still He loves us. And this isn't just love as we understand it, beautiful but sometimes a bit unreliable and limited, centered around the giver and not the receiver; no, the love that God has for us is completely unconditional, faultless to the point that we could never hope to return it in the same way but He doesn't expect it back. He died for us, Jesus was crucified and experienced the worst pain imaginable so that we wouldn't have to know what it felt like ourselves, even though we deserve it ten times over.

How on earth can we argue, therefore, that the world would be a better place if Jesus hadn't died for us? If God hadn't shook the world by its shoulders on that day and sacrificed himself out of a burning love for us? How do people survive, how do they breathe without it? How do they sleep at night believing that only darkness waits for them after falling from death's precipice? How can they stand living in a world that is void of any true, unfailing light that can't even be touched, let alone dimmed or overshadowed?

I used to think I knew what life was like for a time without God, but I had no idea. I just wanted to rule the world without thinking of the terrifying consequences that came with the notion that I didn't have a clue about what was best for me. I'll hold my hands up and admit it, I need God more than I'll ever need anything, and if that makes me weak in the eyes of some then so be it. But you just watch me rise with God by my side, and you won't say it then, because truly I am weak but it is God who makes me strong.

It is this strength that I'm going to need over the next few months, and its not going to come from alcohol or money or new clothes. I just need to keep reminding myself of that! I'm just overwhelming fortunate that my God is patient enough to put up with the times when I forget He's with me, and He knows what's best.

My girlfriend said a few months back that, being an Atheist, she felt like she'd 'taken the red pill' for those of you who have seen the Matrix, and believed that she lived in the reality that God didn't exist, and everything I believed in wasn't real. I completely respect what she thinks, and the fact that she has her own opinion on just about everything is something that attracted me to her in the first place (hiding your opinions in a Religious Studies class isn't really an option). But, in my opinion, I'm the one that swallowed the red pill, and reality isn't half as bad as the Matrix makes it out to be, let me tell you. Reality doesn't have to be a cold and harsh concept; reality is Jesus, and it's about as warm and hopeful as it gets here. Not the all the time, for don't get me wrong, life is hard, but living with a belief in Jesus is living with a permanent silver lining in your heart, and it''s pretty good.

I'm aware I've been rambling for quite a while now; it's nice to splurge your insecurities and thoughts every now and again, but not everyone wants to know about it! I apologise if everything you've just read makes no sense too. Let me know, and I'll try and explain it a bit better. But, yes, take the red pill, people. It's worth it.

Angels.

There were unfortunately no gay-related seminars or talks at Soul Survivor, which I was a bit disappointed about. But as well as aiming to equip myself for University and later life, I also had another short-term aim to focus on. I'd been asked to speak at Vitalise on the following Sunday after I got back (when I say speak, I mean preach, but I'm not using the word 'preach' as I've realised it doesn't have a lot of positive connotations with people!). This would be the first time I'd ever talked on my own, as I'd spoken with another wiser and much more able person before, but it had never just been me at the front! It was regarding the subject of leadership and humility within Philippians 2, what it means to be humble, and how Jesus complete turned our view of leadership on its head when he lived as a human among us.

Funnily enough, the first seminar at Soul Survivor I attended on women in leadership used Philippians 2 as the first evaluated passage, which made me smile! Here's the passage, and if anyone is interested in reading my notes then let me know!


The talk itself didn't go too badly; I felt like I lost it a bit halfway through and kept repeating myself, but I had some good feedback so it can't have been too awful! It was certainly a learning experience that I'll bear in mind if I'm ever asked to speak again.

But I wanted to share something with you concerning the aftermath of my talk, particularly regarding what someone said to me. Just to put what I'm about to say into context, when I was baptised a year ago I had to give my testimony to the congregation of the church I grew up in. I was immensely terrified, as I was essentially about to come out to the rest of my church, the people who had watched me grow up since I was born. I had a lot of worst-case-scenario responses going through my head; maybe I'd be laughed at, jeered at, maybe I'd be rejected by my second family, maybe I wouldn't even allowed to be baptised today.

I was, of course, for God would not have put me through all that for nothing! He needed me in that pool, and that's where I ended up a few minutes after I came out to my church, you could say. He was with me more prevalently than I realised, through all of it, as I was told later.

My best friend's mother who had attended my baptism, a very wise woman who I have an abundance of respect and admiration for, commended me for how well I'd spoken during my testimony. She told me that I talked with the authority of God, and - yes here it is - that there were two angels standing behind me all the way through, protecting and guiding me and the words I spoke. 

I did have to double-check at the time, she did definitely say angels. I mean, angels?! I didn't know whether to feel honoured, joyful or just downright terrified! I think I ended up feeling a little of all three. Retrospectively, come to think of it, I can't really remember any part of my testimony, so someone else must have been in control because I certainly wasn't! But knowing that I was under that much protection, and that I was actually that important to have angels (I mean, come on, angels) standing behind me - well, it made that day all the more amazing.

Back to my talk though. It only happened again. This time, another person came and spoke to me afterwards; a totally different woman, who would have had no way of knowing what had happened on the day of my baptism. She told me I spoke with complete authority from God, and that there were two angels standing behind me from the moment I got up to speak, sealing my words with this divine power.

Okay, so once is mind-boggling, but twice!? I thanked the person who told me this, whilst practically doing cartwheels of excitement and fear and joy and confusion in my mind. How on earth could God have a reason for sending angels to stand behind me, of all people, the gay one, the young and inexperienced one, how is this possible?!

I've learnt fairly quickly in the time I've been on this journey, particularly with being gay, that there are so many questions we can never know the answers to - or not now in this life, anyway. For some people this isn't enough, and that's more than understandable, and there are some answers that I will never stop yearning for. But, with some things, I find myself feeling at peace with the knowledge that God knows, and he's got it all sorted, and that's all I need to know.

So, with the angels, I have absolutely no idea why they happened to be standing behind me on the two occasions when I spoke alone in front of a congregation at church. Also, it's a little infuriating that they seem to like standing behind me where I can't see them, but thinking about this seriously, I think if I did actually see them I'd faint or something dramatic and unnecessary like that, which stands as more proof that God knows what he's doing and I don't.

But they were, and there was a reason, and it's utterly mind-blowing. I will most definitely let you know if it happens again! And if you know me and happen to see two angels standing behind me on an occasion, please inform me in a relatively calm manner - that would be very much appreciated.

This is the passage I spoke on, I thought I'd add it in just in case anyone was interested. I hope someone found my insights useful! And if not, I had quite an eventful evening regardless.

'In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

The Calling To An Ordinary Life.

Firstly I'd like to apologise for leaving such a long gap between posts! I'm hoping to make this a kind of habit, and not something I start and never finish ( because I tend to be better at the latter and not the former unfortunately).

Soul Survivor, where to begin? It was fantastic and perhaps unexpectedly emotional week; I went with a view to have a standard experience there, attending seminars and learning all I can to equip myself as much as I could for next year. And, in other words, draw as less attention to myself as possible. I certainly did that, but God sort of had other plans, as He usually does.

I found myself being very overcome with emotion quite frequently throughout the week, which is quite a big deal as I like to think I'm really not someone who expresses their emotions at all! I felt as if God was breaking me, as they say 'breaking my heart for what breaks His', not for any reason that I'm aware of yet, but it allowed me to break down and be comforted in His presence in a way I've never dealt with before. It was refreshing, and at the same time incredibly confusing and draining - even retrospectively, I really have no idea what happened! But as much as I'm yearning to discover all the right questions I have about faith (rather than the answers, referring to a quote from Tom Wright - wonderful theologian), and I'm hoping my course at University will help with that, at the moment I'm quite content to not have any clear knowledge about some things, because that's not how God works. I know He's got me, and He understands me better than I understand myself; that's all I need to know.

Besides this, I learnt a lot too regarding leadership and communication, about hearing God's voice, and surrounding a lot of other things that I'm sure I'll talk about later. There was a lot of information and encouragement for prospective University students too, which was invaluable! I met another girl who was hoping to study Media at Salford University, and we got on really well; one of my insecurities about University is my potential inability to make friends and talk to new people, but gaining a friend encouraged me quite a lot. Maybe I'm not so bad at making conversation and finding common ground with a person as I thought! I've also linked up to the Christian Union at Lancaster University and had my email address shared with the churches there through Fusion, a Christian organisation for students that provided me with a lot of support at Soul Survivor that I also wasn't expecting! Here's the link for anyone who's reading and might be interested.

At a point during the week I felt particularly called to give my life to God, completely. I had an inkling that I might be called to do something specific in the future that would require me to be utterly dependent on God, serving His purpose somehow and sharing His message of hope and unconditional love to those who feel lost and disconnected to this world. Now I feel totally inadequate to do this; I'm nothing special, I'm far from special, believe me! But I realised that I couldn't live for God as I am now, on my own, just like no-one else can. It is the piece of God inside of me, inside of everyone, in the form of the Holy Spirit, that will enable me to follow the path that God wants me to walk for Him. I was fairly relieved at this, and had another overwhelming moment thinking how amazing God is.

When I got back, I shared this with a wise and very treasured friend of mine, this time including my partly selfish fears that perhaps if God called me to live for him, then I'd never enjoy or experience the things that I was most looking forward to in the future, such as having a family. She told me something that gave me not only further relief but a stronger sense of purpose; she said that a lot of the time as Christians we tend to glorify the people that make the 'biggest' sacrifices to follow God's calling and carry out Jesus' mission, like the missionaries that go to foreign countries, or the people who leave behind their wealth and sometimes their families to do what they think is right. These people are rightly commended, for what they do is incredible (my aunt was a missionary in Congo some years ago, and she's an incredible woman!), but often we forget to commend the extraordinary within the ordinary. What she meant was, there are people who live very ordinary lives all over the world, who have a family, a career, a house, a mortgage, a dog/cat/etc, who still manage to live entirely for God, which is equally quite a hard thing to do. Living as a Christian in any circumstance is hard, because we have to essentially live and participate in a world that we can't conform to, amongst people that will laugh at us and call us stupid (and that's a nice word to use).

So as much as we glorify the extraordinary, we should also not underestimate the struggles of the ordinary. I might be called to live an extraordinary life for God, I haven't a clue what my future involves yet - similarly, I might be called to live an ordinary life with a family and career, yet in an extraordinary way still for the glory of God, which may be just as challenging. We shall have to see!

Soul Survivor, and the Marriage Bill.

I'm off to Soul Survivor Week A with a few friends tomorrow - rather excited after the events that unfolded last year (which included watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony in a crowd of 4000 young people - it felt like I was actually there!), but also anticipating it in a different way this time around.

This is just wishful thinking, and I will by no means be disappointed if this doesn't happen, but I'm hoping that due to the presence of the homosexuality debate at the moment, there might be a seminar or two about it in the programme this year. Or at least there might be some more reading material on the subject that I might be able to purchase and read up on! Who knows.

But regardless of that, I'm really looking forward to hearing what God has to say to me and to everyone else over the next few days. How He speak to us, how Hes surprises, and the things He might do that could potentially change some lives. he has a knack for doing that quite a lot! But we shall see. I'll let you know next week, unless I come across any WiFi on the campsite, but somehow I highly doubt it, I doubt internet access is particularly high on God's agenda!

Also, I thought I should mention that David Cameron has announced that gay marriage will eventually in a few years become legal in England and Wales. He's even gone as far to add that the UK will be the best place to be gay and get married and live as an equal citizen in the whole of Europe. I truly hope in one way this will be true, but the priority still remains concerning world equality; although that is clearly going to take some time, especially when you take countries like Uganda into account.

As Alice Arnold highlights, however, this is all wonderfully good and hopeful news, but Britain still has a way to go in achieving total equality, void of discrimination and homophobia which is still extremely evident in our society. Kids are still being bullied at school, gay and lesbian stereotypes are still present and evermore damaging; I was reminded of this when walking in a park during the evening with my girlfriend a few weeks ago. I hadn't particularly noticed the group of young people a few yards away from us, or the middle-aged Asian men minding their children in the play park, yet my girlfriend seemed slightly uncomfortable when I reached for her hand and had to push me away a little to prevent drawing any attention to ourselves. I think she was right do so at that time; I was being pretty naive, and despite how I'm past the point of caring what others think of me, I could have made us both incredibly vulnerable to all sorts of prejudice, had I drawn attention to the fact that we were a couple.

That vulnerability still lingers within our society; changing a law is powerful way to begin changing the way people think, but it is general attitude and understanding that needs to adapt before homophobia can really be eradicated from general thought. I believe that the Church has a big role to play in the pace of this attitude change, but I truly believe that it will happen at some stage, hopefully in my lifetime - God treats us all equally, therefore he demands that we have an attitude of equality towards each other, as we are all made in His image regardless of skin colour, sexual orientation or anything else that defines us as who we are. We'll all realise that one day.

Here's Alice Arnold's article about the passing of the Equal Marriage Bill, in case you were wondering. Thank goodness someone can be totally honest about it! And honestly, I'm quietly over the moon about the fact that I might be be able to marry the woman I love one day. As much as I can be empathetic with the various conflicting views against this Bill, I'm hoping I can be allowed to be a little self-indulgent here. Here's to marriage, and a sure sign of equality, at last.

See you next week!

Retrospective Encouragement.

I've just been reading a old notebook/ journal type thing that I was writing in this time last year, when I got baptised and went to Soul Survivor for the first time. It was a pretty intense period in my life; everything was moving very fast, being a Christian was scary and exciting and totally fresh and new, and although I had by no means forgotten that I was gay (on the contrary really, I'd come out to my church and at one point was terrified that God was going to take my sexuality away from me - but that's another story), I'd started to find a way to live as Christian without acknowledging who I was, not living as a gay Christian perhaps but as a Christian who occasionally had feelings and thoughts about the same sex.

I guess it's because back then I didn't have a girlfriend, whereas now I do. Back then, as I finished a very sexualised and negative relationship God came storming back into my life, so maybe I think I associated the fact that that relationship had ended with God's new intentions for me. 

Now, I have a girlfriend. A wonderful girlfriend, who seems very much a part of me now as anything else. She is the gay side to me; not that she isn't involved in the Christian side of me, but that is also a whole other story - it's her story, really. 

However, this is the challenge that I now face, which is completely different to the problems I started out with last year. I am now living as two halves, trying to make them fit together and find bridges to make them work as a team. So far, it's going okay. 

Reading back though, I did come across a few verses I'd made a note of that took me almost by surprise. It's funny, you tend to expect reading back across something you've written that you won't find anything new, just old, preserved memories, but these verses that must have impacted me last year have still struck a chord with me now, sitting in my room a year on from then. That's the beauty of the Bible, right there; the majority of it is always, always relevant, and God can use it so much to talk to you and bring you back to things that you'd discarded or forgotten about. With God's Word, we are in a continual process of learning and sharing, so I thought I'd just share these verses with you.

'We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,nor any powers, 39 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.

And who can argue with that? It is clear here, that God does not expect to judge each other, or keep others from knowing the love of Christ because we believe they shouldn't - that is not our right. Indeed, there is nothing of this earth or of the spiritual realms that can keep us from knowing God's unconditional and merciful love.So, speaking as a lesbian with a Christian faith, there can be absolutely nothing that stops me from knowing and experiencing the love of God, and I should neither be afraid that I can ever be separated from me because of how I feel or act. That firm belief is easier said than actually believed, but there is the truth of it.

The Jesus Creed.

Last night, surrounding the epiphany I had about creating this blog, my youth church was looking at something called the Jesus Creed. The video we watched basically summarised how, despite the density of the Bible and the 613 laws included in Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so on, when asked about which law was the greatest of all Jesus responded with one law, and then added another.

These two laws are now encompassed under a term we now know as the 'Golden Rule', found in Luke 10v27:

'He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'

This was the starting point for the rest of the evening. To put this Rule into context, we all gathered and sat around a mat in the middle of the room scattered with candles and tea lights, and we were read the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan from the various predicted perspectives of the characters involved: the victim, the robbers, the Priest and the Levite who passed the man by, and of course the Samaritan himself. When we felt like we related to a particular take on a perspective, or felt like we needed to actively give something to God from our lives that might have been connected to a part of the story, we were encouraged to light a candle for ourselves and place it on the mat.

I think for many of us in the room, it was a fairly therapeutic and calming evening. We let go of things, asked for forgiveness, not out of guilt but just for a need for release. 

But, for me, I was thinking about something that caught my attention during the talk that I felt I needed to write down.

Currently, the Christian society and the British population in general is somewhat torn on what stance to take on homosexuality and the issues that come with it; marriage, children, education, acceptance into church communities and culture. Living within a wide Christian community in Wolverhampton, I get to see the different points of view on these issues form both sides, particularly the Christian point of view. 

Now I've heard countless arguments and people trying to justify their own views whilst to remain in concordance with the Bible and its teachings. Leviticus 18v22 is often a verse which is thrown into a debate:

 ‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.'

Another verse I've also heard mentioned a few times, in Romans:

'Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ... therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another ... even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.'

There are numerous other examples of where homosexuality seems to be blatantly condemned both in the Old and New Testament. The fact that this condemnation lies in both parts, for many people eliminates the argument that the law stating it to be against God's intentions for us is now void in retrospect due to the new teachings of Jesus, for it is mentioned by Paul as well. There is still the aspect of context that people also draw upon in their points of view, yet statistically, homosexuality is a sin that is both unlawful and justly punishable, as God's Word decrees.

However, here lies the question that I struggle with daily: why then, if God 'detests' homosexuality, would He create some of us to be homosexual, and furthermore allow us to live in various states of denial, fear of rejection, loneliness, and doubt of our ability to be loved by our Creator?

I could discuss this for hours, and probably will do so through this blog for the foreseeable future. Although Jesus never directly spoke on the matter, I do believe for now that the answer lies in the topic of conversation that we analysed last night during my youth church: the Golden Rule, and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Take the Priest, for example. During the parable Jesus tells us that despite seeing the state that the man was in, having been beaten and left for dead by the side of the road, he thought it better not to help and continued on his journey. Why? Perhaps because the man was practically a corpse, and it states clearly in Numbers 19 that:

'Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclean for seven days.'

This Priest might not have been able to afford to be considered unclean in the eyes of God for seven days, for he was far too busy to put his religious duties on hold for a whole week. In the eyes of the law, it was perhaps best not for him to have anything to do with the man.

Or maybe he feared for his own safety? This ordinary man had not long been attacked by men who would not think twice about stealing the rich garments that he wore; if anything, he was more at risk of being beaten than the man now lying on the road nearing death. It may cost him his life if he stopped to help the man, for the attackers may return and do exactly the same thing to him.

It occurred to me whilst these ideas were being narratively voiced, that this perhaps how as Christians we can perceive the sinners and outcasts of our world. I use the term 'we', because I am just as much to blame for this as anyone else, perhaps more so in some cases. We sometimes believe that the biblical laws we follow prevent and almost excuse us in some way from helping and including those who are most in need of inclusion and help, just as the Priest possibly believed that he simply couldn't help the man, because touching the man would lead to uncleanliness and the consequences of being so. In a similar manner, was a human race we also sometimes refuse to be associated with such sinners, for fear of being accused of acting in a similar nature to them. This can be viewed as another version of uncleanliness; pride, and a desire for others to see us as a good and righteous person, may cause us to think twice about talking to someone who's sins might allow us to be seen differently as well.

On a personal note, this might be how some treat/think of homosexuality, and the majority of gay people. The bible condemns that sort of thing, so we should too. If I go into that gay club and talk to those guys, someone might see me and think I'm gay too.

But how does the parable end? What message of morality does Jesus want to convey through this story, that would eventually become one of the most well-known parables of all time? The Samaritan, the man who has little regard for what others think of him because he is so similarly disliked anyway, the man who almost certainly had reasons like the Priest and the Levite to pass by and not help at all. He stopped, tended to the man's wounds as best he could, took him to an inn, paid for his care and promised to return to pay for any extra costs that may not have been accounted for by the original sum he gave. The Samaritan acted with the love and grace that Jesus acted with towards the outcasts he came across on his travels, the love and grace that he expects us to extend towards others as his disciples, the love and grace that is cemented in the Bible within that one Golden Rule that he gave us to follow that should be obeyed above all other laws.

It is this love and grace that I believe should be absolutely taken into account when dealing with the issue of homosexuality. Particularly within churches, homosexuality can be reviewed as a fact, a statistic, when in fact there are real people with genuine feelings and lives that are affected by rejection just like everyone else. The Golden Rule, as previously mentioned, exists as a law that is above the other 611 laws and is ultimately superior to them; it is the Jesus Creed, and is the one rule we should quintessentially follow. So why are some so quick to disregard it when discussing homosexuality? This attitude is the one that is causing a divide both amongst churches and between the Church as a whole and the secular community, and it is that attitude that I think must change, just as beliefs were altered when slavery was abolished in 1833.

Personally, I'm hoping that the question in my mind that forms each day is not 'will this attitude change' but 'when and how this attitude will change'. Who knows? There is a Priest and a Samaritan inside all of us, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I know which persona Jesus would rather us act upon, particularly in these conflicting circumstances.

The First Thought.

It occurred to me last night, at my youth church. Being a Christian and being gay is in many ways a normality for me; everyday I wake up a lesbian, and I wake up with a grounded belief in God.

As I think God intended for humanity to do, I often question these two conditions that make me who I am, both as separate issues and as a whole, present issue that I'm realizing quite a lot of people struggle with. There are so many questions and ideas that roll around my head each day; I've come a long way from where I used to be, but I'm still nowhere near close to understanding what on earth is going on with me and how homosexuality fits in with God's plans.

So why not write my thoughts and feelings down? At least it might be easier to make sense of things that way.

Now don't get me wrong; I'm 18 years old, I'm fully aware of my naivety of the world, and there are so many more things I don't know than do know. I'm not claiming to have any superior knowledge about anything I talk about, and honestly I'm already at quite a disadvantage here! Although I do have a bit of personal experience on my side.

Please forgive me and my thoughts if I get a little subjective; I'll try and leave that to the blog intended for splurging my adolescent emotions, but I can't make any promises. Just bear with me for a bit, until i get my bearings.

Here goes!