Churchmilitant testimony

 

That testimony was first published on churchmilitant website, on august 2023, where it generated an interesting and positive debate, but as churchmilitant have gone down permanently, I would like to rescue that testimony and put it here. The general tone is quite different from my other testimony (here in this same blog) because the audience it was directed was also quite different. Both testimonies however tell the same story and are about the same truth. People are encouraged to discuss here or on reddit, because the point of doing a testimony is to reach people out there and helping them understand what being a lgbt christian means.

Hello I am a lgbt christian and I would like to share my story, in case it help other fellows christians to understand this has nothing to do with Satan and everything with God.

For many years I have felt there was something wrong in me, that I was different of the rest. I stealed my mom clothes and put on me, and when I see myself on the mirror I recognised myself as a woman, but I didn´t understand why God had put me on this situation. Why He have made me this way. I felt many pain and desperation, as I didn´t feel any way of living was possible to me, that I wouldn´t never be able to be really me. During many years I prayed God just to say why me? Why I can´t be like everybody else? But God didn´t answer me. And I got resentful, angry, with bad feelings about me and the people around me. One day my wife said enough and asked me for divorce. And then I felt myself on a new crossroad. What to do with my life. Keep being me on the closet or maybe start everything anew, and I prayed again God for an answer. And then a miracle truly happened. I asked God for an answer and then randomly opened the Bible and looked for a verse to try to get an idea on what to do.

And the Bible opened by the talents parable (Mark 25:14-30). I´m sure most of you will know the parable, God give some person many talents, they use it and get many things with them, but give other person just one talent, he buried it and is punished for that. And then I realised that all the pain I have suffered was because I was been rejecting and burying the talent of transexuality that God have given to me. That my transexuality was a talent, not a burden, that God had given me, and that I only needed to unburied and showed it as the God's gift it was. The parable talks about the gnashing of teeth for burying the talents that God have given you, and people usually think it refers to hell, but I know that is talking about the closet. That is where the pain and the gnashing of teeth really is. I know because I lived there for more than 30 years. And to be honest I was terrified to be outside of the closet. I´m a high school teacher, so I feared pupils reaction and even losing my job. I feared losing friends and family, to lose the custody of my kids after the divorce for being trans, I feared all that and more. But when God showed me that my transexuality was a gift from Him and that I need to unburied it, I also felt that I was not alone, that He will be by my side, protecting me. So it was God himself who empowered me and gave me strength to leave the closet, because I on my own was not strong enough to do it.

And now I´m sure some of you could be thinking that this is the way of the devil, not from God. But you know a tree for its fruits and I can tell you all the fruits of coming out have been good. Although I feared lots of problems on my job, with my family, friends and specially my kids, I almost have none. Surely God was protecting me all the way. Better yet after my divorce, getting kids and that kind of things I found a great partner that loved me as I were, and we are almost 5 years together now. And most important of all I feel like my relationship with God got better and better all the time. I found some lgbt christians associations, something I never thought that ever existed before going out of the closet. I started to pray more regularly and to go to mass weekly, things I had never previously done. And as a consequence of my relationship with God being closer, I was kinder, happier and lovelier than ever. It is hard to express with words, but somehow I feel like sometimes the love of God overflow me, is so vast that I can only hold one part of it so I just spread it on all people around me. Like I´m spreading it now here, with this story because I love a lot for the people who attack and pursue me, and worry for them as they worry for me for being a lgbt christian. But there is not need to worry for me. On the final judgment I will happily accept whatever God will decide for me, because if he thinks hell is the better place for me, I wouldn’t like to be in another place, honest. Because I trust Him totally, I know whatever place he would send me it would be the best for me. And I know on my heart that hell is not the place God have reserved for me. But even if I´m wrong, it doesn’t matter because I trust Him that whenever He will send me it will be the best place for me, and that is what is important. So you don’t need to worry about me for being a lgbt christian, because being out of the closet made me a kinder, happier and better person. It make me feel closer to God and to attend mass weekly and participate actively on the church through several catholic associations (some of them specifically lgbt, but other just regular ones) and I wonder how then going out of the closet can be a bad thing when all their fruits are so good. The devil for sure would not like anything of that for me, but for me to be as I was before going out of the closet.

But sometimes I also worry for some of you, because many times I can feel your own pain on your attacks on me, and I wonder if maybe is because you are like me, worried to unbury your own talents, worried if the path, the tree, is good or bad, but I can tell you that like me, all lgbt christians who had the strength to go out of the closet are enjoying a better, more honest life where their spirituality have grown, not diminished at all. Because for its fruit we will know, and I´m talking about fruits of many years not just short lived fruits. God only want to the best for us, but the devil likes to see ourselves to suffer needlessly, and I would like for everybody, specially for the people who actively attack lgbt christians to look back for the fruits of what you are doing on the last two, three, five years on this matter, if it have brought you closer to God, closer to others, have made you a better, more caring people or just the opposite, if it have put you far away of other people who think different, have toughen up your heart and sour your character, in the other words, if the fruits of that voice inside you are not as good as they should be to help us discern to what tree they truly belong.

I will ask all you to reflect and pray on this, maybe even to reread the talents parable, and that God will bless with you with their knowledge.