21/ Parents, It’s Time To Come Out To Our Kids As Safe

It is truly heartbreaking to witness the daily tragedy around the world and increasingly closer to home during this pandemic. My heart goes out to all of the victims and their families and especially the medical and critical service professionals who are fighting for the survival of all of us right now. THANK YOU! 🙏 The phrase “hindsight is 2020” is also true in reverse; this year 2020 is already about hindsight. Though answers are far off, many are rightfully asking, how could this have been prevented?

 

If only we had seen this coming.

We could have been prepared.

We could have saved lives.

 

“These are unprecedented times.”

 

 

Just last month, my husband and a dear friend and I held the very first meeting for parents and guardians of LGBTQ+ kids in our community (PRIDE + JOY). It had been a long time in the making and is developing still to become a force for good in our town. Many wonderful people have already gotten involved, and we are very excited for the future.

 

We opened up this first meeting by stating a now-familiar phrase: “these are unprecedented times” – times in which LGBTQ+ kids now have the understanding and language to self-identify at a young age. It is not that there are necessarily more LGBTQ+ kids than in previous generations, but this is the first generation to grow up with common language and representation in the community and in sports and in music and on TV. Like my 16-yr-old daughter who heard the word lesbian for the first time in 5^th grade, this did not make her gay, but it did illuminate something meaningful for her: ohhhh, there is a name for this. There must be other people like me. Though it would be three more years until we were clued in to this discovery, she self-identified as gay at 10 years old.

 

This increased awareness among youth means that there are many LGBTQ+ kids at home with us right now whether we know it or not, some closeted, some out at school but not at home, some perhaps questioning and even discovering while they’re home during this extended break. Some who expend great energy to avoid any suspicion, believing that they could not be their authentic selves and remain in good standing with their families or churches. Some whose parents don’t speak about it at all but have been known to laugh at homophobic or transphobic jokes on TV and denigrate the appearance of others for dressing a certain way, micro-aggressions that cause multiple tiny stab wounds to a questioning or closeted kid.

 

If you have ever had someone come out to you, or ever watched coming out videos on YouTube or represented on TV, you have a sense of the fear and anxiety that comes with this declaration. For many, coming out is the act of correcting other people’s wrong assumptions about them. “You assumed A, but it is actually B.” No matter the news, having to tell other people they were wrong is not enjoyable and even more so when the person sharing it is at their most vulnerable. Even in the most accepting of homes, a gay child coming out to their mom and dad could still fear a perception that they are betraying the very relationship that has sustained them. All of these are common fears: Will they still be loved? Will it make their parents sad? Disappointed? Angry? Will they respond with harmful words or actions? Will they heap shame upon them? Disown them? Make it difficult if not impossible to flourish? I have heard numerous stories of LGBTQ+ people whose trepidation with coming out was not due to lack of confidence in their own identities, but because they didn’t want to hurt their parents’ feelings.

 

The number one predictor of negative outcomes for LGBTQ+ kids is family rejection. The risk of suicide is 8x higher for kids from highly rejecting homes than for their LGBTQ+ peers from accepting homes. Many struggle with self-loathing, emotional abandonment, substance abuse, self-harm, homelessness and the list goes on and on. Strikingly, where religious faith has been shown to help reduce suicide risk in the overall population, it is actually the opposite for LGBTQ+ folks. This may sound dramatic, but it is the truth. This is the data. This is the warning siren. Don’t assume this is someone else’s kid. If you were not already informed, consider this your “what if we had known sooner?” moment.

 

At the present time, we are spending all of our days and nights at home with our kids, which presents a rare and critical opportunity aside from keeping them fed and toilet papered:

Parents, it’s time to come out to our kids as safe.

 

Think of this as an invitation to launch the value of inclusive-absolute-always LOVE into our family’s universe and let it hover like the sun. If LGBTQ+ kids are worried about us, worried about hurting our feelings, let’s make it known, preemptively, that we would be A-OK! Let us remove a burden or even the remote possibility of a burden for all of our children and reaffirm our unwavering love and support.

 

Please note: the goal here is not to “out” our kids or try to pull a confession out of them one way or the other, or even to expect any response at all. That is not how any LGBTQ+ person should come out, and we have to respect that. This is us, the adult parents or guardians on whom the responsibility of safety in our home rests, being deliberate in our words and actions to communicate to all of our dear children that they are safe to be known and are worthy of love exactly as they are. This is not “the talk” that our parents probably ever had with us, but it is one that is crucial and potentially lifesaving, especially in these unprecedented times.

 

 

What are some ways we can come out to our kids as safe?

 

Perhaps it is a conversation (or a monologue) that you begin while washing the dishes for the umpteenth time today:

 

“Dear child of mine, I have been hearing about some kids being afraid their families would reject them for being who they are or loving who they love. Some of them even hurting themselves or taking their own lives. I just want all of my kids to know that I will love whoever you love, and it brings me to joy to see how you all uniquely express yourselves. I hope you know if you ever had questions or news or needed to correct any false assumptions I may seem to hold about you, you are safe to do that. I would only be sad if I didn’t get to know the real you. I love you and knowing you better could only increase that.”

 

And they may respond with an eye roll: “Okkkkayyyyy. Umm… there’s not. But thanks.”

 

And that would be wonderful, regardless. This is not about their response. This is about you being unequivocal. Let them all hear these words from your mouth whether they are straight, cisgender, or anywhere on the rainbow. Tell me, who would not benefit from receiving clear communication that they are loved and accepted for who they are?

 

Perhaps it is making tiny conscious choices to speak and think differently.

 

Instead of asking the elementary aged boy if he has a girlfriend, ask if anyone special has his eye. (Alternatively, we could ask ourselves why we so frequently need to know about children’s love lives.)

 

When a public personality comes out as transgender, refer to them by the correct pronouns.

 

Stop gendering things that aren’t people: boy toys vs girl toys, boy clothes vs girl clothes, and challenge our own biases if we recognize that certain things make us uncomfortable. Remind ourselves that what other people like and wear is not about us.

 

Do not make homophobic or transphobic jokes, and challenge the ones you hear on TV or the radio, or from people you know. Your kids are listening.

 

Make positive comments about the same-sex relationships or self-expression you see on shows you are watching together.

 

Perhaps it is growing as an LGBTQ+ ally.

 

Take your family to a PRIDE festival to show your support and to give your kids the gift of exposure to other people who may not look like you celebrating life and caring for one another.

 

Volunteer with organizations such as PFLAG, HRC, Free Mom Hugs or local shelters who provide housing and services for homeless LGBTQ+ youth.

 

Display a PRIDE flag in your home.

 

Get educated. Learn about issues affecting educators and students on GLESN’s website. Learn about suicide risks and support services through The Trevor Project. Read autobiographies from LGBTQ+ people to learn about their lives in a personal and nuanced way.

 

Know and share life with LGBTQ+ people. Demonstrate your respect for them as people you are fortunate to know, not as people who are fortunate to be tolerated by you.

 

Grow your home’s library with books (for children through adult) by LGBTQ+ authors and with inclusive messages.

 

Perhaps it is recognizing that your kids are really not “safe” in your home in a way that they would be celebrated if they were to come out as LGBTQ+ and taking steps to make it so.

 

If you are held back by doubts stemming from long-held beliefs, or the messages you hear at church and are afraid to question, try Googling Justin Lee and/or The Reformation Project and/or Q Christian to start discovering NUMEROUS resources (video, podcasts, books, articles, etc.) to help you get educated about the what Bible does and does not say about same-sex relationships. This would be a most valiant use of this extra time spent at home right now.

 

While you’re at it, watch some Coming Out Videos on YouTube. Spend an hour listening to people’s stories. Let your heart soften. Learn to see LGBTQ+ people as PEOPLE, rather than as an issue, and certainly rather than as an enemy.

 

Turn off content that would threaten closeness or authenticity with your LGBTQ+ child. When it comes to the safety and flourishing of LGBTQ+ kids, Focus on the Family is not your friend. Westboro Baptist Church is not your friend. Franklin Graham is not your friend. Activist Mommy is not your friend. Your pastor may not even be your friend. Bad theology kills. And those who willfully (or even ignorantly) dismiss or block out the experiences of those who have been harmed by non-affirming families and religious systems are not valuing people. “The Bible is very clear” is not a good enough answer. Do the work. Read the Bible for yourself. Listen to other perspectives on the context and meaning behind the “clobber verses.” There are many reasons that those with platforms and influence will be slow to publicly change, but when it comes to the well-being of our own families, we alone are accountable for the environments we create at home, and for ensuring our kids can be all God created them to be.

 

Perhaps the greatest gift we can give our kids is to “not assume” or bury them with expectations in the first place, but to provide sunshine and water and watch with anticipation as their wonderful uniqueness blossoms. If I had to do it all over again, I would take this approach. And I know many already do this, and I am learning from them still. But consider….

 

Why should LGBTQ+ kids/adults have to come out in the first place?

 

What if all kids simply got to wear what they like and play with what they like to play with and love who they love?

 

What if we did not redirect and shame our kids when their interests seem to go off course from the path we had envisioned for them?

 

What if our difficulty with letting go of expectations had more to do with us than with them? What bad messaging was passed down to us that we reflexively pass down to our kids? How could we heal and even thrive if we believed we are worthy of love exactly as we are?

 

What if we have already been on the receiving end of a coming out conversation that did not go so well? If that’s you (and it was me), why not take this opportunity to ask for a do-over? How can we use our time and creative energy and awareness of ‘the things that really matter’ right now to communicate our LOVE and support to our LGBTQ+ kids (or family members or friends, etc.), and affirm our ongoing commitment to listen and learn and grow?

 

 

Glennon Doyle’s newest book, UNTAMED, just came out, and I have been slowly sipping its potent wisdom over the past couple of weeks. (If you’re looking to expand your library of LGBTQ+ authors and biographies, this is a powerful selection.)

 

She writes:

 

“When it comes to who my children are, I don’t want to be an Expectations Parent. I don’t want my kids striving to meet an arbitrary list of preconceived goals I have created for them. I want to be a Treasure Hunt Parent. I want to encourage my children to spend their lives digging, uncovering more and more about who they already are, and then sharing what they discover with those lucky enough to be trusted by them. When my child uncovers a gem inside and pulls it out for me to see, I want to widen my eyes and gasp and applaud. In other words: If my daughter told me she was gay, I would love her not in spite of it, I would love her because of it.”

 

I can tell you from the other side, it is a tremendous blessing to be the parent of an LGBTQ+ child. If you are lucky enough to have a child share this gem with you, may you appreciate it for all the beauty and goodness that it is.

 

In these scary times, I can think of no greater tragedy than losing something precious when we had every chance to be prepared. If we make any assumption, let it be that the person who sleeps down the hall just might be in a high-risk category for the harm that comes from unkind judgments and family rejection, and may be carrying a secret, unnecessary burden. How would we parent that person if we knew that was the case?

 

Let’s come out to them first. Let’s LOVE our children. Tell them they are loved. Show them they are loved. Remove their burdens. Make our homes safe. Make ourselves safe. Observe them and appreciate them and discover all the wonderful facets of their personalities and identities. Let us be grateful for every day we get to know and protect these beautiful treasures.

 

 

16/ Ralphie, The Church and The LGBTQ Community: A Lesson On Rule-Breaking from the ‘Other’ Christmas Story

The great thing about Jean Shepherd’s classic holiday film A Christmas Story is, there’s no bad part. If you flip to a channel and find it playing during any of its 1000+ seasonal airings, chances are good that you’ll land on a hilarious scene. It soothed my jitters as I watched it on VHS while folding programs the night before my wedding, and I have friendships that were partially built on a shared affinity for classic lines:

“Showww mommy how the piggies eat!”

“You’ll shoot your eye out!”

“It’s a Major Awaaard!”

…among many others 😂

My Dad first took me to see it at the theater during its original 1983 release when I was six years old, evidently to get me out of the house while one of my older siblings was having friends over for a birthday party. (Hey, why wasn’t I invited?) And though I remember being confused by how well Ralphie rebounded after shooting his eye out (he did declare this during the infamous Christmas morning scene, after all, and who was I not to believe him?), I appreciated seeing a story that was told from a kid’s perspective. Adults often seem to forget what it was like to be a child, and treat their wishes and fears as though they are not valid or important. When it comes to the history of a childhood, is there a perspective more true and significant than a child’s?

According to math, I’m an adult now. And as much as A Christmas Story will always be my first nostalgic love language, I have started to view the content from a different perspective. For instance, I can see the deeply woven layers of patriarchy that shielded Ralphie’s father from the fact that his entire family was afraid of him. For example: 1) The mother who never ate a hot meal, and voicelessly shrank as her husband exalted that fishnet stocking’d leg lamp. 2) Ralphie eating a bar of soap for dinner and scapegoating his good friend to avoid admitting that he learned the f-dash-dash-dash word from his father. 3) The little brother who hid inside a cabinet due to his visceral belief that “Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie!” My husband and I had a deep discussion about it this week, and we now question whether Ralphie’s dad is actually the “Bart” of his marauder-laden nightmares, the impetus for the craving of security that a Red Ryder BB Gun would ensure. 👀 Watch it again and give us your take.

 

And then there is the infamous flagpole scene.

 

In one of the most memorable moments in movie history, Ralphie’s friend Flick accepts a “triple dog dare” to press his tongue against a frozen flagpole in the schoolyard, which predictably results in his tongue freezing to it, rendering him helplessly “stuuuuuck!!!” as the students are summoned inside to class by the bell. Most students quickly flee the scene of the crime, but Ralphie sees Flick in trouble and his internal conflict begins:

 

• If he stays and helps Flick, he will be disobeying the rule to go inside to class when called.
• And he could get in trouble.
• And it could be revealed that Ralph was part of a group that encouraged Flick to attempt this stunt, so he and/or his pals could get in more trouble. Guilty by association. He certainly wouldn’t want to upset his dad.
• And he really doesn’t know what to do about Flick’s dilemma anyway. Nobody trained him for this.
• And it’s Flick’s own fault, really, for getting stuck; he shouldn’t have accepted the dare.
• And nobody else stayed. They all went inside, so maybe that’s the right response. After all, rules are rules for a reason. If there’s one thing Ralphie has been taught, it is to never question the rules. He should just go in. Following the rules is always the right thing to do, even if it feels like the wrong thing to do.

 

I swear you can read this all on Ralphie’s face in that brief moment before he blurts out in retreat:

 

“I don’t know, the bell rang!”  

 

🤷‍♂️

 

In summary: Ralphie sees that his friend is suffering, and he abandons him.

 

What choice did he have?

 

The bell rang.

 

A short time later, their teacher catches a glimpse of of what’s happening outside the window and jumps into action. First responders come and rescue the child, and the teacher expresses her deep disappointment in the students who knew Flick was in trouble, and left him outside.

Interestingly, no credit was given to Ralphie or the other students for “following the rules.”

 

As my mature/parental sensitivities now bend toward the topic of LGBTQ inclusion and the church, I can’t unsee it: I used to be just like Ralphie! Glasses and all! And perhaps like many other Christians who don’t know how to respond to LGBTQ people, and feel torn between what they’ve always assumed and what they are now seeing before them: people who’ve been left outside to suffer.

 

People who’ve been told:

You can’t serve here.

You can’t work here.

You can’t teach here.

You can’t use your gifts here.

You can’t get married here.

You can’t use the bathroom here.

You can’t experience love like the rest of us here.

You can’t exist here.

You can’t really come inside.

 

Exclusionary practices and the shackles of forced lifelong celibacy (not to mention harmful “change” tactics sold by conversion therapy) have led to suffering for far too many followers of Jesus: depression, self-loathing, hopelessness, substance abuse, self-harm and suicide among the toxic fruit.

And we can’t claim ignorance anymore. Are your eyes open? Are you looking around? The statistics are there. It is gaining public attention, even from some Christian media outlets. And if you have been following my story, I have been reporting what I have observed with my own two (ok, four 🤓) eyes over the past two years as I’ve engaged with many LGBTQ Christians: precious people who loooove Jesus and their churches and their families but have been wounded by their Christian communities in large and small ways — when all they desire is to be regarded in the same way that the church regards its cisgender, heterosexual members (ie, the overwhelming majority of us): equally. Not as an issue. Not as special. Not as someone who needs to be discussed at a pastor’s meeting. Not as someone whose eligibility to play in the worship band could be revoked. Not as someone who is supposed to feel privileged to be invited to the table despite their God-given orientation.

(Side note: Privilege is never needing to be invited to the table, but rather assuming our position as hosts.)

 

As a recovering privileged, conflict-avoidant, scaredy cat rule follower, I can see how Ralphie’s internal conflict could mirror that of very loving, compassionate Christians who are struggling with LGBTQ issues:

But, the rules

But, I don’t want to get in trouble

But, I wasn’t trained for this

But, maybe they deserve their suffering

But, my pastor says

But, my church isn’t talking about this at all

But, the Bible is very clear…

= I don’t know, the bell rang!

 

But, I can also relate with Flick. Last year when we found out our child was gay, I was the one out of place, asking for help, support, understanding, someone to stand with me in my place of trouble, and I can’t tell you how terrible it felt to be abandoned by those who briefly took a moment to look me in the eyes and witness my struggle, but ultimately shrugged and went inside. A sort of “I feel bad but don’t know what to do about it, and since there are so many of us — including those with degrees and titles — not doing anything about it, this non-response feels safe and the least disruptive and, sorry not sorry, 🤷‍♂️,but the Bible is very clear.” 👋

 

YOU GUYS! I get it. I really do. You want to honor Scripture, and so do I — so here is a lens I would like to offer you. It’s true, across the library of 66 books, the Bible can be very clear, but it depends on the position from which we are reading it.

Like a message written on a window, the Bible reads very differently if you are reading it from the inside or from the outside.

Consider that many of its authors were survivors of exile and imprisonment, outcasts literally ready to die as they followed Jesus’s subversive teachings about another kingdom which threatened the status quo of the politically and religiously powerful. Jesus himself elevated the “socially low” as persons that those high in status could learn from: women, children, sexual minorities (eunuchs), disabled, poor. In the kingdom of heaven, everything is jubilantly flipped upside down. The first will be last! The weak will be strong! Don’t you know the Good News was written from the outside, not from the inside?

 

Did Jesus come to reward Ralphie, or rescue Flick?

 

Let’s go back to the Bible and reexamine it as an outsider.

 

• Exhibit A: Jesus Healed on the Sabbath (a good rule-follower’s no-no)
  • Matthew 12:1-13 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” 3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” 9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” 11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.  << of course they did

 

Insider perspective: Sought to bring charges against Jesus and provoked him with “the law.”

Outsider perspective: Thank you, Jesus, for my new hand! It’s a Sabbath Day Miracle!

The Pharisees were PROs at observing the law (Scripture) from the position of those with power, those on the inside. Not only did their privilege lend itself toward their pristine ability to keep the law, but also enabled them to wield power over others according to how well they appeared to uphold the law. Convenient how well (an insider’s perspective of) the law always seems to work in favor of those in power, isn’t it? The problem is, they were winning at the wrong game.

Consistently, Jesus challenged their perspective and turned it completely around, to benefit those on the outside. Instead of wielding his actual power, he yielded it to demonstrate that the care for people — individuals and groups — was the purpose of power. The fulfillment of the law. The law was for the people, not the people for the law.

 

• Matthew 22:34-40 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 

This is one of those moments where the Bible is abundantly clear: Jesus, from his own Jewish, thirty-something mouth, said that the Greatest Commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

Picture every other verse of the Bible stacked underneath this statement on a flow chart. Every law. Every “should.” Every interpretation. Every verse that we spend sooooo much time debating. If we are to take Jesus seriously, this theme provides context for the word “truth,” wherever some may try to weaponize it to mean something else which harms their neighbor.

 

But what if being too nice to a gay person violates some other law? What if affirming their queer or transgender identity ticks God off?

 

Honest questions. See Matthew 22:39: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 

What we should be more concerned with is: What if we let LGBTQ people suffer when we could have helped them? What if we could have gone back to study the Bible on our own and did not allow our pastor’s explicit (or silent, implied) position determine what we should think or do? What if one day You and I will be held accountable for how we supported people that we knew were suffering?

Lord, Lord, when did we see you non-gender conforming? is another good question to consider, and hopefully never have to answer to.

If all the law can be fulfilled by loving your neighbor as yourself, where does that leave LGBTQ people under a “traditional” perspective that assumes loving, same-sex relationships fall under the same judgment as the abusive, same-sex relations which were prevalent in Paul’s time? And what about the fact that a gay person would be condemned for the very commandment TO love their neighbor as themselves? Jesus clearly stated that this is the commandment to live by, and yet the religiously powerful of today seek to hijack Jesus’s beautiful, life-giving, inclusive theology and prohibit a minority population from loving their same-sex neighbor: Because, the LAW!!

And all that does is keep the marginalized on the outside, suffering, while those who are unaffected can simply avoid eye contact and go about blessing themselves on the inside.

In the parable of Ralphie, the Christlike response would have been for him to support his friend, and not leave him alone outside in the cold, suffering. In a time of crisis, the bell doesn’t matter, the person does. And contrary to popular teachings, our ideas and feelings DO matter. Jesus showed us this. He urged his followers to use their hearts and minds to make a judgment call. “You’ve heard it said, BUT I TELL YOU…” When faced with a moral dilemma to follow what we’ve been told is law, or alleviate somebody’s suffering, always go with the person suffering. That’s who our neighbor is, and loving them is how we actually obey God.

Remember Matthew 12:12: “How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

😭🙌 Yessss!!!

+ How much more valuable is a person than a bathroom!

+ How much more valuable is a person than their clothing or hairstyles!

+ How much more valuable is a person than who they love!

Here is a little good news this holiday season, a little relief for our psyches in case we ever feel conflicted. Under Jesus’s teachings, we have permission to consider our hearts and minds when we aren’t sure what the right thing to do is, especially when we know someone is suffering. In fact, feel free to include your whole heart, mind AND soul! (Matt. 22: 37)

• People are more important than “the law”
• Twist! The real law is actually to love people! You will be keeping the law by doing this. It is LAWFUL to do good!
• Double Twist! This means LGBTQ people get to love people, too; after all, rules are rules!

If we think we can retreat inside to the security of our non-affirming churches and ignore or under-respond to a critical call to action for those we’ve left to suffer right outside our windows — and expect an A+++++ — it’s possible we have completely misunderstood the assignment.

So I urge you, brothers and sisters, to bundle up and go outside. And take another look.

Now that I have ruined A Christmas Story for myself and maybe for you, too, (sorry), I will be reexamining the holidays and the tables I assume are mine to set, and looking around to notice who is not inside with us, and why.

11/ Love Him For Me: Why the World Needs Free Mom Hugs

If you know me at all, then it should come as no surprise that I freaked right out when I heard that my friend Sara Cunningham had been selected to be a guest on Jen Hatmaker’s “For the Love Podcast,” specifically on a crowd-sourced episode for which I, the crowd, had sourced (nominated) her. Sara messaged me while I was at work: “OMG CALL ME,” and I knew. I dialed her number as I ran into an empty conference room and pumped my arms in the air like Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch while Sara excitedly announced that she was going to be the featured guest on this final episode of the “Women Who Built It” series.

 

This was a beautiful moment.

 

Now, one might surmise that my enthusiasm stemmed from my well-documented JH superfan status, however, the true source of this exuberant joy was the idea that Sara’s mission, “Free Mom Hugs,” was going to be shared with a wide and generous audience.

 

“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! I’M SOOO EXCITED!!!”

“I KNOWWW!!! ME TOO!!!”

 

We exchanged these sentiments with mild variations for at least 30 seconds. If two people a thousand miles apart can dance and high five and hug over the phone, we did.

 

The purpose of Free Mom Hugs is, quite simply, to spread love to members of the LGBTQ community – many of whom have been rejected by their families and desperately long to be embraced. Giving a Free Mom Hug is the easiest way in the world to say:

 

I see you and you are loved. Period.

 

**Check out the podcast to hear how Sara, a Christian mother from Oklahoma City who learned that her son was gay on his 21^st birthday, went “from the church to the pride parade,” as she refused to let her love sit still.**

 

• I was excited because this interview had the potential to be a big fat love letter to LGBTQ people. Do they know that there are Christian parents who fully embrace their children? Do they know they are loved and worthy of embrace exactly as they are? Do they know that someone right around the corner could be coming to give them a hug right now?

(I don’t, of course, mean that in a stalkery way. Trust me, no Free Mom Hugs are given without consent and are 100% Not-Creepy Certified.)

 

• I was excited that this show would raise awareness around the Free Mom Hugs movement and that caring people who had never heard of this before might be inspired to make their own signs and buttons and get out there and provide more hugs to more LGBTQ people during Pride season and beyond. It is so easy and meaningful and wonderful.

 

• And I was excited because Sara was about to deliver a message of hope to many other Christian families with LGBTQ children who may feel scared and alone. Through this episode, and subsequent social media sharing, moms like us would have the ability to wave new friends over and hold the door open for any who wanted to come and join the Mama Bear community in a private online Facebook group for moms of LGBTQ kids. If nothing else, we are good at reminding each other that we are not alone and that our children are blessings.

 

 

After my call ended with Sara, I realized that it had been exactly one year and a day since we had spoken on the phone for the first time, having just been introduced by a friend-of-a-friend. It was a time when my own comfy Christian life had been – to borrow a line from the Fresh Prince – “flip turned upside down” after finding out my young teenage daughter was gay, and I struggled with how to reconcile this revelation with my faith. This is not a simple issue to reconcile for someone who was raised in a faith environment where we knew all the answers, but did not necessarily know how we arrived at them. Sara welcomed me into the “Mama Bears” group, and it has truly been a lifeline.

(You may recall hearing me talk about this wonderful group last fall.)

 

But what I kept hearing over and over when I first joined the group, and as I listened to more LGBTQ people of faith in real life, were difficult stories of rejection and loss. This was especially true in families who seemed to believe that pleasing God in this situation meant withholding love from their children. This in itself reminded me of the cross — Father, why have you forsaken me? Being separated from love is hell.

 

Some faith-based literature I was reading at the time told me that finding out your child is gay is like a death, implying that the child you once thought you knew was gone, and we as parents would naturally go through a grieving process. This adjustment period can indeed be difficult for many, but overwhelmingly, the death I saw was in families who were broken because of bad theology and self-imposed boundaries, when parents believed that there truly was a stranger now occupying the space where their beloved child once was. Moms who withheld resources and support, Dads who told their kids they would rather them be dead than queer or trans, and, not surprisingly, tragically high suicide rates.

 

“Dear Child, now that you chosen to be gay, we must treat you as an outsider,” says much of the advice given from faith-based websites and books.

 

It took my breath away.

 

I was engaged in dialogue with some Christian leaders back then, and I remember reporting back about what I saw: extreme devastation. I described my experience as like having visited a third world country on a missions trip, a place where people were bleeding and starving and dying, and nobody was there to support them. I felt as if I were witnessing a crime and was powerless to help except to pass the news on to people who were in a position to possibly do something about it.

 

I was largely met with silence and shrugs.

 

“Well, the Bible is very clear…”

 

Not only did that make me feel more alone, but it made me question whom I could trust, and whether I too had been complicit in other people’s suffering by misjudging the causes of their pain or by ignoring it altogether. I knew then that staying silent was not an option.

 

My husband and I ‘came out’ as parents of an LGBTQ child to our Facebook friends last October with this post:

 

“For every LGBTQ person, there are two parents of LGBTQ persons, and we need safe places to share our experiences. It’s National Parents Coming Out Day, so it’s okay to be open about this today, right? This can be a very isolating experience, especially within the faith community. If anyone else here has an LGBTQ child, or just needs someone safe to talk to, I’d love to connect, so feel free to message me.”

 

The following week, I started this blog with the aim of depositing content into the world that I would have related to way back then, when I first arrived in the Upside Down. My middle daughter is convinced that this blog is all about her sister: The Thing She Needed, and I said, NO! This blog is for ME! I’m SHE! I’d never had a blog before, nor any real interest in writing as a hobby, but I was having these pains, like emotional contractions, and felt that this baby needed to be born. Maybe I just needed to put language to my feelings to help make sense of things for myself. Maybe I knew people would be talking, and rather than having a thousand painful conversations or being misrepresented in gossip, friends could read our story here. Maybe it will reach someone else who needs to hear it, and she is also SHE.

 

I won’t lie, it can be very lonely out here, especially in the church. We do need to know who’s with us. In the podcast, Sara talks about losing her church family and many dear friends, some of whom meant well but just didn’t know how to engage. Which makes sense: if a person’s understanding of doctrine says that your child is an abomination, it can be difficult to continue a relationship in a sincere and mutually respectful way. I can relate to this. Raise your hand if you don’t think that would be a problem for you personally.

 

I can sort of handle the silence and shrugs if it means people just don’t agree on everything, and are abiding by the old adage, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But sometimes I just want to scream:

 

KIDS ARE KILLING THEMSELVES!!

 

DON’T YOU CARE?!!!

 

WHAT IF THIS WAS MY KID?? WHAT IF IT IS YOURS AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IT??

 

WE DON’T GET TO TURN OUR HEADS ANYMORE!!

 

After the national school walkout to honor the Parkland victims and address gun violence last month, the #WalkUpNotOut philosophy started trending, suggesting that, “maybe if high schoolers would just be nicer to each other, a troubled kid might not murder his classmates.” I have frequently shared the alarming rates of self-harm and suicide among LGBTQ youth, especially those from highly rejecting homes, and wonder if anyone has considered applying the same sentiment: “maybe we should be nicer to LGBTQ kids so they don’t kill themselves.”

 

My LGBTQ child will be heading off to college or a career in just three years, and I worry about whether she will be safe in this world. Who might not hire her or provide her with housing because of her orientation? Who might make cruel remarks when she’s walking down the street? Who might threaten to hurt her physically? Who might refuse her service? Who will not joyfully attend her wedding? Who will try to make her doubt God’s unconditional love for her?

 

But also, hopefully, who will approach her at a parade and extend two loving arms for a free mom hug and remind her that she is loved as she is, when I’m not there to tell her myself?

 

Stan Mitchell, a publicly affirming pastor in Nashville, shared a story on his Facebook page last summer about an encounter he had at the Southern Baptist Convention:

 

“Just spent a very stealth & quiet 5 minutes with a Southern Baptist pastor’s wife whose husband happens to pastor a large church a few hundred miles from Nashville. Their son who is gay, now lives in our beloved City of Music and, lately, has been visiting Gracepointe. She wept as she explained that of their four children, he was the most beautiful of spirit, the kindest, the most loving (she was obviously troubled by the reality that she simply could not capture his beauty with her hurried and pained words) and yet, and yet, they “destroyed him” with their faith. Destroyed him.

I will never forget and forever will be inspired by her request: “Love him for us. Love him the way he deserves. Love him the way we should have. Tell him what I wanted to and couldn’t.” My heart broke. I couldn’t tell for whom it broke more – mom or son. I told her there was still time and opportunity for her to do this. She looked dubiously around the foyer of the hotel, teeming with her husband’s ministerial peers, and said with the saddest of eyes, “Please love him.” And she walked away. I have scarcely met a sadder human. Trapped. My chest physically hurt.”

When you see posts from affirming leaders like Stan Mitchell, or Jen Hatmaker, or even a nobody like me, please resist the urge to turn your head and dismiss the issue as somebody else’s problem, somebody who probably deserves it. Because not only are hurting LGBTQ people hidden among the most wonderful people groups in our churches today, but they may have two hurting parents who are equally and tragically hidden as well.

 

They might be your friends. They might even be you.

 

I am so happy that Free Mom Hugs exists, but honestly, I wish it didn’t have to.

 

Let’s make all our places safe for LGBTQ people and the families who love them, whether we know who they are or not. Let’s create sustainable environments where mom hugs are not a scarcity.

 

For those of us who have been blessed with arms for hugging, let’s lean into the mission of embrace, and remember the words of that struggling mama who could not bear to do it herself:

 

“Love him for us. Love him the way he deserves. Love him the way we should have. Tell him what I wanted to and couldn’t.”

 

❤

 

CLICK HERE to learn more about and support the Free Mom Hugs Tour

CLICK HERE to learn more about and support the Mama Bears Documentary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/ Prologue: The Thing She Needed

This month marks the one-year anniversary of when Jen Hatmaker publicly came out as gay-affirming. You may remember the shock waves her interview with Jonathan Merritt sent throughout evangelical circles last October; I sure do.

I was one of many who felt confused and frankly a little bit betrayed; as an enthusiastic fellow Jesus-follower and all-around JH fan girl (she had me at “Worst End of School Year Mom Ever”), I could not wrap my head around how a person of faith whom I admired and had learned so much from could arrive at an unbiblical conclusion that homosexuality was okay, much less call it “holy” as she did in her interview. If you were born and raised in the church like I was, then you probably know that the Bible is very clear about the sin of homosexuality; we don’t say it out loud, but in this culture, being gay is about the worst thing you can be. This is just what we had always been taught. And as an adult who hadn’t really ever studied it for myself, it wasn’t hard to Google, “is homosexuality a sin?” and find numerous writings that point to a handful of verses from the Old and New Testament which speak of homosexuality in an unmistakably negative way. There it is, clear as mud. So Jen……. WHY? HOW? It made no sense to me. I remember talking about it with my husband and we figured that maybe her big heart was just so big and tender that it was hard for her to speak the truth about this difficult subject, and somewhere along the way, perhaps she had been deceived into believing that this actually was okay. (Apple + serpent, anyone?) It must be difficult to stay grounded with the pressures of a career like hers, especially with a growing liberal audience, so I wasn’t exactly mad at her. But I do remember being let down.

What I did not know at the time was that this interview – Jen’s confession – was preparing me: a few months after the interview, my 13-year-old daughter came out as gay. Suddenly this was no longer an issue I could critique from a distance; despite my shallow confidence on the matter, I had never been more lost about what to say or do. This was when I took my husband’s hand and embarked on a journey that would change us forever.

****

Nine months after my daughter’s coming out, nine of the most dreadful, painful months of my life, I am going to try out that ‘vulnerability’ thing everybody’s talking about and share some of my experiences and what I have learned – and unlearned – thus far. This may look like an invitation to debate (it’s not), it may look like I think I have all the answers (I for sure don’t); no, what I am committing to here is leaning in to my own fears and admitting things that scare me, things I’ve misunderstood, things that embarrass me, things I’m wrestling with, and asking God to redeem this work in the hope that other families like mine would have a soft place to land.

On the subject of leadership, NY Times Bestselling author Glennon Doyle recently wrote:

“Someone looks at the world and notices a hole in it. She thinks to herself, ‘This thing, this idea, this service, this kind of person should exist to fill that hole.’ She waits for a little while, thinking about that. And then she stops waiting and starts creating the thing herself. She becomes the person she was waiting for. She creates the thing she needed.”

This blog is for me, 9 months ago.

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