Because Christ IS Love, by Jasmine

"I fell in love with my best friend, a woman. I was afraid at first, but it happened. It was beautiful. Throughout our relationship with my girlfriend, I was so undoubtedly in love with her that I knew that there was no way this could be wrong. I prayed to God and thanked Him for her, and I knew he knew her and was blessing us and our relationship. It was a feeling that just could not be denied. After we broke up, I ran to Jesus, and He came to my rescue, no questions asked. The church, however, was a different story.

Long story short, I was exposed to the, unfortunately, foundational paradigm that exists in the Christian Church that being gay is simply wrong. This tension was very hard on me. I asked God to just make me believe it was wrong so that it could be easier for me to assimilate, because the confrontations were just too much. He never changed my heart on the issue. One day, on an airplane, after hearing about how a little boy was tortured by his mom and her boyfriend for being gay, I closed my eyes and wept.

Suddenly, I received the most real and clear vision I had ever seen so far in my life. A little girl going to her mother, telling her how she felt about girls. Her mother told her that it was not right, and she needed to change, and that if she prayed hard enough, Jesus would change her. The little girl begins to cry. Jesus is next to the little girl, bent over close to her with a hand on her shoulder, and looking back and forth between them, but neither of them see Him. "No, she's perfect. I love her." He is saying, almost aching, to the mother, "No, no, I love you." He says to the girl. The little girl runs to her room and shuts the door, and immediately starts praying for Jesus to please change her. The One who loves Her the Most and created her shakes His head and cries. I opened my eyes, picked up my pen, and put it to paper. I felt like Christ honestly took over my hand, and wrote a note out that I still have today, "Jasmine, I love them. I love you. You are all perfect just as you are."

I've honestly never told anyone that story until now. Not even in my efforts to help bridge the gap between the LGBT community and the church. I've spoken about everything, from my extensive research on a view of the passages in the bible that is alternative to the traditional anti-gay view, to my experiences with my girlfriend, to the countless stories I have heard of unbelievable hurt and pain from young Gay Christians, ostracized by this view in a number of ways, stories of people who would get together in my home and talk about their experiences in an LGBT Group I created with friends. I've shared and talked about it all, but never this vision. I always felt it was not concrete enough, that people would think I was making things up. But honestly, this is why I feel like I can say I know for sure, to the best of my ability, that God loves us just as we are, and wants us to find love just like everybody else. This is who God is to me, and who He shows me He is everyday, even when I try to think otherwise. I want to end with two of the bible verses that changed it all for me.

1 Timothy 4: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

1 John 4: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

~Jasmine