“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone…’”
– Genesis 2:18, NIV.
Growing up as the second oldest in what ended up becoming a family of 14, I wasn’t alone a lot, at least physically. But growing up as a gay kid, who wasn’t quite able to admit it out loud, made things lonely in another regard.
When I was a student at public school, I was mostly alone. I had one friend I spent time with. The rest of the time, I was at the mercy and under the scrutiny of classmates who bullied me for being different.
Home wasn’t perfect, school wasn’t either, and I constantly lived in both worlds, looking for escape from the other. I lived around people who didn’t understand me, and making my experiences their own problem, were opposed to who I was as a person.
College didn’t fix this, to the surprise of absolutely no one whatsoever. I spent the first few months of my freshman year knowing basically no one besides my roommate. It took time to form friendships, but eventually I did. Yet being gay would still haunt me. I would go on to unsuccessfully attempt to initiate a few relationships with girls my age before we got to where I am now.
Now I feel like I’m back to where I started and feel unknown and misunderstood as much as ever. Since I came out fully, there’s been an uneasy silence and gray area. What does this mean now? Am I just expecting people to support me, or do I figure my life will be better with this off my chest?
Being out presented new problems and more scrutiny and testing of friendships and numerous reality checks that have the hand on the compass to my life spinning wildly in circles, pointing in every direction. I’ve realized that friendships aren’t really enough and aren’t as ultimate as I tried to postulate. They certainly could be, but few people are interested in cultivating intimate friendships.
This led me to realize the lacking part in all of this - intimate love that doesn’t judge but embraces everything as it is. My relationships have either been shallow or performative, and as I find myself having less to give while longing for more, it’s just not cutting it. I’m finding myself to be more alone than ever, and surrounding myself with people doesn’t bring the same comfort anymore.
Maybe I’m just depressed because it’s winter still, and I’m dying on the inside. I think it’s more than that, though. However messy the path has been, the reality checks, the research, the data, and the doubt have all led me to be affirming of my sexuality. Hating myself because I’m gay and withholding myself from love is leading to the absolute end of me, and I’m so tired and depressed with this season of life that there has to be a lifeline. Surely, something good has to come from this. I can’t say that loving the people who are of the same gender is wrong anymore, and while it’s breaking my worldview in ways that I perceive as being positive and part of the growing pains of learning to love myself, deep down I know that it’s right - somehow. It’s not just a feeling – it’s a certainty, but one arrived at with hopeful hesitancy.
Really, though, it’s true that we can be alone even if we are surrounded by a crowd of people – even people who claim to care for us and about us. That’s how it feels a lot of the time. I have friends that I surround myself with, but still feel largely in isolation in a way that seems to be inexplicable, and that makes it all the more difficult. I just want to be fully known and fully loved, and while that’s exactly how God loves me and all of us, it’s not the same as being physically embraced and held by another human being.
God made us for relationship and for connection, both for relationship and connection with him (as the one who loves and knows us best) and with our fellow human brothers and sisters. That’s all we really are after all. People, not so different from each other, who all bleed the same color, breathe the same air, and live in the same world.
So practically speaking, what does this mean for the one who is gay? What does this mean for the one whose sexuality and their experience of it are different than the examples that we most commonly see throughout time? Does this mean they have to be alone forever, or is there another way, and we just don’t have historical examples because it has been covered up and hidden from the public eye, because it has always been seen as shameful?
I don’t think God wants us to be alone, regardless of how we talk about sexuality, and this is a huge failing because if the church expects its gay members to lead lives of celibacy and commitment, then there should be rigorous support for these individuals. I think we can have a faulty assumption that since we claim God to be our everything, that he is sufficient in and of himself. Yet, this is foolish because even God knows that we need so much more, but everything that we have comes from him in the first place.
So the church leaves people with the assumption that in order to have this Savior, they have to live in a certain way, but that this Savior is all they have to give to their struggling members, and it ought to be sufficient. That’s why it ultimately fails, and maybe that points to the fact that there is a way to justify same-sex relationships, since celibacy is a dangerous thing if pursued in a way that’s forced. The same can be said about relationships that are forced, and by that I’m specifically referring to gay individuals who are forced into straight relationships. While said relationships fit the complementary doctrines encouraged by straight Christians, they aren’t compatible relationships, which end up falling short of God’s design and desire for our relationships (which is why they frequently turn sour, become unhappy, and fall apart).
All theological arguments aside, God still deeply cares about his children who are gay and doesn’t hold us up to impossible expectations. Yet, he knows us and how we feel and doesn’t want us to be alone. It’s not good for us to be alone, after all. So, I think there’s hope for gay Christians that they don’t have to force themselves into a box. They don’t have to choose a path of loneliness because God didn’t design us for that. God is not going to send his children to hell for something that so clearly bears better fruit than the alternative of living with depression and harmful thoughts.
There’s more than just this reason to arrive in an affirming position as a gay Christian, but this is what started to bring me back to reality. What if celibacy isn’t going to draw the queer individual closer to Christ? In fact, I think we already can see how frequently the topic of sexuality is used as an unfair wedge to drive LGBTQ+ individuals out of the church. Yet, just because the church has turned its back on us, it doesn’t mean Jesus does. In fact, he loves us, no matter where we fall. He only asks for faith in him, the faith that he creates in us, and there’s no doubt in my mind that many gay Christians in same-sex relationships have this faith that’s still clinging to and reliant on him.
So maybe the argument isn’t just about theology, which at its best is our best attempt to understand what God is telling us using what his word says and marrying it with human philosophy and interpretation. I think the argument is rather about what is best for the members of his creation who have their own unique deviations from the average person and how they can still be his child, regardless of how they struggle through these things. Especially since scripture lacks certain specificity and is largely silent on this topic. Nothing is impossible with him, and he will never abandon those whom he calls by the power of his word. At the end of the day, it’s the Gospel and not our perfection that fills us up and makes us whole. It’s not about our sin – it’s all about our faith in the one who loves us so much.
