Our own paths to choose

“Being born in McDonalds doesn’t make you a hamburger”. I will always remember this phrase thrown at us by this half balding preacher at one of the chapel services in school. That was exactly what I felt like telling my parents then. Christianity was not a choice. I inherited it. For many of us who were born into Christian families, our Christian path was very much paved out for us. All we had to do was just to stay on it.

When I first came out to myself, it was almost like a half whisper because I couldn’t come to terms with letting God hear me. Having been actively serving in church, it was painful and hypocritical upon realising my attraction to women. It was like having a mistress behind your partner’s back. My only coping mechanism was to keep those two spheres of my life separate so much so that I could make myself believe that I only lived in one.

Unfortunately though, alternating between both worlds took a huge toll on me both mentally and emotionally. I tried cutting away from the so called darker secret sphere by turning straight but the hypocrisy still lingered on in my heart. Eventually I chose my sexuality and God lost. Or so I thought.

Sometimes when you walk away from a relationship, a bit of that past gets internalised within you. It’s the same with my break up with God. A part of him was still there somewhere, tucked away in a corner of my soul.

When Tim, my friend who is gay, first told me about a church that was gay inclusive, I thought it was a scam of some ex gay ministry. And I knew I had to see it for myself and eventually when I did go down, I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because I have never seen so many gay men in my whole entire life. When I look back now and reflect on how I ever did stay on, it really amazes me that God’s hand was in it all these while.

The first time I went to FCC was the first time it was announced that there will be a new support group Lush for lesbians who felt conflicted with their faith and sexuality. And it was this group that eventually led me to carve a new path, a path with my choice in it, to God.

In Lush, which was then led by Jaime and Jin-ee, we went through the six bible passages that spoke of homosexuality and covered issues that gay Christian women face. To be honest, I went not because I wanted to convince myself that homosexuality is not a sin. On the contrary, I attended lush because I wanted to be right that I was wrong all along for forsaking God. Each bible verse we covered, my mind was opening up but my heart remained sceptical. It was only towards the end of Lush that my heart began opening up as well.

For our last session, Jaime and Jin-ee invited a lesbian couple who were both pastors serving in ministry in the States. I was totally floored that lesbian pastors do exist. And what more, they were married to each other. How do they do it? How do they love God serve God and love women as well? The intangible perspective of homosexuality is not a sin was made tangible just by the sample of seeing these two women before me. It is real.

We had so many questions for them. And all the answers to those questions just lay in one statement: So what then will you do if God asks you this, “ Julia, so what have you done for me?”. And at that point, I knew I would have said, “ nothing.” Nothing because I’ve been so busy trying to fix myself first. Nothing because I was so obsessed with what was so wrong with me. Nothing because I was afraid of what others thought of me, a lesbian, serving in your ministry.

I knew then that there really is no greater waste of my life than to live it according to the path that was not chosen for me. It is not mine and I’ll never try to make it mine again. Instead, I chose having a sense of peace in my heart as my own fences that will line my path and guide me on my own walk with God.

Opening up my heart was only the beginning. I never dreamed that God would lead me one full circle in serving him through the way that I was first served. And in so, I became a facilitator for the subsequent runs of Lush. It was my way of passing on what was first given to me. The freedom of knowing that God loves you and can use you whatever way you are is beyond any word of expression. It will never make sense to you unless you open your heart up to the possibility of experiencing it.

- Julia