An anonymous encouragement... Who we stood for.

The following email came to my 'inbox' this morning.  It reminded, once again, just how worthy this cause is, that it is a cause to be with people who love Jesus, and not an issue about someone's sexual orientation.

I don't know who the email came from.  However, I can tell you that it will sustain me for a long time to come!

Much blessing and thanks to the anonymous mailer!

Here's the email:

Recently our minister announced in church that a pro-gay lobby amongst the ministers had disrupted the synod by asking for the right to marry homosexuals. While drinking tea after church there was a heated debate as to why Christians would even entertain such ideas and particularly why Methodist ministers would risk their futures "after all there are no gay Methodists" "who did they think they were standing for". Perhaps you are wondering who you were standing for -- you were standing for me. I thank you for your courage. I am a leader in the Methodist Church (no stranger to synods) known to many as a friendly single person who just hasn't found the right one. Only the very astute are aware of the truth, the very different truth. I came to love Jesus as a teenager, around that time I realised I was attracted to boys and youth was the place to be - there was a never ending supply of boys who loved each other "in the Lord". Being gay was no problem because I was indoctrinated to believe that sex belonged in marriage and as there was no way boys could get married and so there was no way that I get to do the wicked thing of sleeping with another man. So I became over committed to the Church, diverted my sexual energies, hung on to the fact that St Paul seemed to think that it was best not to marry and in strange way my flaw had made me holy. The constant condemnation of homosexual acts by the church and her leaders taught me never to mention the subject and change subject when ever it was brought up.

Amongst the pagans I found those who were gay and proud, those who left the Christian way because their sin was so gross. Those who still loved Jesus although they had been thrown out of the church, by ministers, leader's meetings and formal courts of the church as well as those who knew they were not welcome and left before the pain.

I also found the invisible group of us who are still there in your pews, teaching your children giving our money. For those who know, or suspect there is a reverent silent. A unspoken conspiracy.

I still believe that the place of sex is in marriage and yearn to be married. My "strange" conviction and the realisation that marriage is impossible has kept me from relationships (why go there if it can never be fulfilled). Sadly it hasn't kept me from anonymous sex.

Because of the constitutional Court I am shifting, but am so deeply entrenched in church that I doubt I will ever fulfill my yearning if the church can't recognise my relationship.

You stood for me, that I might one day be able to be fully human and truly holy.

We will continue to interact if miracles do happen one I may get married in your church and then you will put face this message but till then in the word of John Donne.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Thank you my friends...