One day, while his family sat around the dinner table talking about life, a young boy asked his mother, "Why do people say being gay is a choice?"
Mom took a moment to consider how to answer the question. Being a Christian woman, and the wife of an ordained pastor, she had her own struggles with reconciling the belief in a loving God who forgave all of her sins against Him with notion of a hateful God who would not offer that same forgiveness to all of His children. After all, the book of Matthew says "every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven." Every kind of sin. Should that not extend to the "sin" of homosexuality?
Setting aside her own internal conflict with the matter, Mom also understood that this is an impressionable child, a young mind waiting to be shaped and molded by the influences around him. How could she answer the question in such a way as to suggest a notion of understanding and acceptance toward all people who do not live life the way their family did?
Finally, Mom responded with a question of her own. "Do you believe God makes everyone the way they are?"
"Yes," her son replied.
"Do you believe that God makes mistakes?"
The young boy responded with a strong, "No."
"So, you believe God made every person the way they are for a reason."
"Yes," he said again.
Mom looked lovingly at her young son, and said, "Maybe the choice is this: They must chose, just as we do, whether to live the life other people tell them they should, or to life live true to who they believe they are."
Every one of us has this choice to make. Will you live true to what the world says you should be? Or will you live true to who you believe you were created to be? I was created to be a beautifully broken and willfully disobedient, yet deeply loved and forgiven child of God, who has commanded me to love the rest of the beautifully broken and willfully disobedient family.
