Making space to Come Out.
“There is a ditch on either side of the road,” my husband Shawn says. That statement (along with his famous “it’s two separate things”) has grown my ability to think in nuanced ways about a host of topics. So when we were discussing National Coming Out Day earlier today, I said, “it seems like there’s a ditch on either side,” He smiled and nodded.
I can often feel this. Like I’m walking on a narrow path where straying to either side brings rough consequences. It takes focus to navigate.
Let me first explain the path or road that I think we should be heading on. Then I’ll get to the two ditches.
I believe we need to create safe spaces for people to share vulnerably about their experiences. My passion is for teens to be able to share openly about their sexual or gender identity questions and find loving adults to walk alongside them as they search for truth. If someone never shares, adults never have the chance to walk alongside them.
So, if it takes a day like National Coming Out Day to give people courage to share, it can be a useful tool.
Mark Yarhouse, a Christian psychologist, researcher, and author, shared that while doing research for his book, A Costly Obedience, statistics revealed that over 90% of the same-sex attracted people that he interviewed began to recognize their attractions around age 13. He also said that over 90% of those he interviewed did not disclose these attractions to anyone until age 21.
Read those two sentences again.
Eight years generally elapses before most same-sex attracted individuals feel safe enough, develop enough courage, or find someone they trust enough to talk with. That’s eight years carrying the weight of their attractions alone. Eight years of hiding and fear of rejection. There is a huge fear of bullying, rejection, and shame, especially for churched teens, but even for the unchurched..
I want those years to be redeemed. I want spaces created where thirteen-year-olds find loving adults who understand that all the pieces and parts of us became disordered by the Fall. Every thought, emotion, and desire is fallen and in need of the redemption and repair that’s only found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
So when I sit at camp and listen to the brave teen gal sharing that she feels attractions for other females and not for males, I want to explain that my sinful tendencies are no better or worse than hers. We are all sinners looking for forgiveness. Hopefully I can walk alongside her and point her eyes towards Jesus, who is pursuing and loving her.
When I sit in the booth with a college student who hates himself for his attractions, or hear about a young woman who always showers in her swimsuit because she feels such gender discordance that she could not see herself naked, I want to, again, point them to a Savior who is crazy in love with them and wants a relationship with them.
But this can only happen if there is safety and space created for such conversations and people ready to love and listen.
An yet…the ditches remain.
On one side of the road there is the ditch of celebration. National Coming Out Day is a “celebration of sin,” I read today in an article from a popular Christian organization. And there is certainly some of that celebrating going on. Culture today is massively affirming of gay marriage, and the Church recoils against that.
On the other side of the road is the ditch of secrecy and shame. In my opinion, this is, unfortunately, the ditch that the evangelical church has supported with our language and lack of love. You may disagree with me, but we’ve honestly earned the reputation of being “anti-gay.”
So what can we do to walk in the center of the road and not fall off to either side? We need a massive heart restructuring in our evangelical church bodies.
This means that:
We begin to be honest about our sins and struggles with those around us.
We lead with the same kind of honesty.
We work to create a culture of honesty and vulnerability—beginning, again, with ourselves first.
We educate ourselves and our church bodies about the biblical sexual ethic.
We use language correctly and with intention.
We risk being in relationships with people unlike ourselves.
We ask more questions than we share solutions.
We sit quietly beside people and genuinely listen.
We resolve to push the honesty and transparency agenda over and over again. And then, perhaps we will begin to create space for people to share. Perhaps in our church bodies we won’t need a special day set aside to allow people to come out, because it will happen with regularity.
While hanging out with a friend the other day, she got quiet and said, “I am struggling with sexual thoughts in a way that I haven’t ever experienced, and I just need to say it aloud.”
It was obvious that she was nervous, so I was humbled by her brave honesty. And I told her that and shared about my own wrestling with sexual sin.
The Apostle Paul assures us that we will wrestle with “doing the things we do not want to do.” So why are we so surprised? The battle with sin is universal, and we need each other in the fight.
We all most likely have something to “come out” about, don’t we? Let’s take the plank out of our own eye and do our darndest to make the space around us safe and inviting of honesty—every day.