Parents of gay children, where do you go when you are hurting?

One of the saddest things I hear from parents contacting us at Eklektos is "I couldn't talk to anyone at church about my gay son because I was frightened how they would react!"

I too had reservations about sharing the news that my son had "come out" with church folk. It took me several weeks to come to terms with how I felt before I could share it with church folk, but even then, I was very guarded on who I told.

First, it was our closest church friends as I felt they may be more sympathetic knowing me better than most in the church, and as expected, the empathy and support from them was very comforting.

As my boldness grew, I approached less close church friends ... those that knew me quite well, but not as closely as the previous folk. This time there was a mixed reaction, but still overwhelmingly supportive.

As my son was quite well known in the church, the word began to spread and more people were asking to be remembered to him, as he had left the church after coming out to us but prior to it becoming public knowledge!

There were a group of folk who just didn't know how to respond to me. They would say something similar to "I've heard the news!" and then just look at you with pitying eyes, or the response "We are praying for you all at this time", and I supposed that masked an inability to know how to respond to me.

I would like to think that the one place where hurting people can find love and support is with their church fellowship, but I feel the problem is that until we as "church" get this subject out in the open and break down the stigma, there will always be a group of people that treat gays and their relatives like "lepers".

One of the aims of the Eklektos network is to help the church start the discussion, so everyone can hear the facts, look at God's word and discern what Jesus would do, and then perhaps we can all find a fellowship where there is love and support for everyone.

"Let him without sin cast the first stone!"

It is all so very easy to look at someone's life and make judgement about them, their lifestyle, their sexuality, and yet that isn't our job. Jesus challenges those that make such judgements to examine their own lives (John 8:1-11) before judging and condemning others.

The bad news is that biblical law highlights how we all fall short of God's standard and that not one of us is perfect! The Good News is that Jesus came to pay the price of our shortcomings and it is through his sacrifice that we receive God's grace.

After 35 years of faith you would have thought that I would have matured enough by reading God's word that I would be perfect by now. Well, unfortunately, I am not. I still struggle daily with various areas of my life that falls short of God's standard, but each day I can come to Him and tell Him of my struggles, ask His forgiveness and for His strength to do better.

Now whether your weakness is greed, lust, pornography, bad manners, lack of love for others, inhospitable, judgmental, etc., etc., you are in need of God's grace too!

Another thing that Jesus shows us in Luke 6 "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

I have tremendous admiration for Vicky Beeching coming out  the other day. For someone with such a high profile within the Christian community to share something so personal took a great deal of courage! We must life her up in prayer as she faces people who proclaim to be Christian but do not show the love and grace that I know Jesus is showing Vicky. We need to pray that they will see that their reaction is not Christ-like and does nothing to further God's kingdom.

Now receiving God's grace does not mean that anything goes; Paul argues this in Romans 6. We all must strive to live our lives God's way and be obedient to Him, sharing the Good News to all that will listen. So let us not get distracted by arguing over the interpretation of scripture, let us be obedient to God and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what it means.