(This is part 2 of a 3-part story…my story and Joel’s story. Joel gave me permission to tell this story. I interviewed him and he has proof-read it and has given his go-ahead. I have worked hard to stay true to his descriptions and his own words. I wanted to write it as a narrative instead of as an interview. If you are new to this blog, you can go here to read Part 1 of Who Wouldn’t Like Joel?)
His heart was banging on his ribs, ordering him ‘Let me out! Let me out!‘ But instead he knew it was really saying ”Tell her! Tell her!” Just say it. Rip the band-aid off. No amount of time or waiting or rehearsing could ever make it easy. It felt like the day he stood on the stoop 500 meters in the air, staring down at the pond, with the bungee chord attached to his ankles. Up until this moment bungee jumping was the most frightening thing he’d ever done. But now this, this was the most frightening thing he would ever have to do. Going into her room he plopped onto the window ledge and took a seat in his usual spot.
He hadn’t wanted to tell her like this. More preparation would have been good. But his friend gave him no choice.
At the time he’d been attending a conservative Christian school. Feeling that he needed to be honest, and believing he could trust them, he confided in his closest friends. L was one of them. L told her grandma. He never knew why L broke her confidence, and looking back he wanted to believe she went to her grandma because it was just a bit too heavy for a fifteen-year-old to process on her own. And he wanted to believe that L was just as perplexed when Grandma betrayed her trust. Grandma was the one who threw down the gauntlet, “If you don’t tell your parents right away then I will.”
That was that.
Such an ultimatum made him extremely nervous. He knew it would be better if he told his parents. He sure didn’t want them finding out from someone else. It made him quite angry, however, that the grandma had control of this. It created so much pressure. He wasn’t ready. He wanted to keep it a secret a little longer. He knew the timing was all wrong. But then again, what exactly made any moment a perfect moment to tell your mom that you’re gay?
“Mom?”
“Ya?” She was already in bed, reading, like she did every night.
Silence. She looked up.
He said, ”I don’t like girls.”
“What do you mean you don’t like girls?”
“I don’t like girls.”
“What do you mean?”
“I like guys.” More silence. Then, “Please… don’t tell Dad.”
It was back in grade nine or ten when he started to realize there was something different about they way he saw things. First it was advertisements. He’d wonder why his attention was drawn to the good-looking guy and not the hot girl. As time went by he knew these feelings contradicted everything he’d been taught to believe. You see, he found himself smack dab in the middle of a conservative evangelical family with two very straight older brothers and two very adoring younger sisters. They were all the beloved offspring of Pentecostal missionary parents. In his family you paid attention to God. You really, really paid attention to God. He was well aware that Conservative evangelicals, and therefore God, are known for their black-and-white stance against homosexuality. They quote the Bible and it seems to make perfect sense to them, that homosexuality is an abomination, that same-sex attraction, if acted upon, leads you directly to hell. Do not pass go. Hell. Plain and clear. God loves the sinner. God hates the sin.
Yet, strangely, he was excited about this growing awareness, about this sort of coming together of the puzzle pieces. There was still a heavy personal conflict, with two sides banging around his head like ball-bearings in the dryer; he warred against himself, on one side the Stoic Soldier of Underground Resistance fighting to keep this hidden, and on the other side was the Courageous Crusader of Admission wanting to be free to live as himself. Somewhere in the battle he lost energy. He lost his appetite, excusing himself from meals saying, ‘I’m fasting.’ Nothing was enjoyable anymore. Nothing held any sense of anticipation. He could not even allow himself to daydream about the object of his first crush, a boy in a grade above him.
Finally, thin and tired, one warrior won the battle; the Courageous Crusader of Admission. First of all he admitted to himself, “I’m gay.” This, surprisingly, was like a liberation. Not the kind that says ‘oh good, now I can do what ever I want’ but more like ‘okay, now I can be who I really am.’ Then he admitted it to God. Years later his mom would ask him some questions, trying to understand how he worked this out with God and found his sense of liberation at that time.
He told her that telling L was a result of his liberation, that the liberation came after his epiphany, “Remember the year I went to the school retreat? Well, during one of the worship times they were telling us to talk to God, to ask Him questions. It was an intimate moment. People were crying. Worshiping. I prayed. I said, ‘God, this is the moment where only you can decide if my being gay is wrong, where you decide if you can’t take me like this.’ In that moment I knew God was telling me ‘ Son, I love you. No matter what, I love you.’ And that was the thing that helped me through all of everyone’s view of me, my friends, you and Dad, our relatives, the other missionaries… the view that being gay is wrong, that I was wrong. Knowing that God loved me got me through.”
He was braced for what he knew was coming. A voice told him ‘fasten your seat belt, danger ahead, beware! You’re about to drive through un-mapped terrain.’
So with this clear conviction of God’s unconditional love he did buckle-up and he was able to come out to his mom, and later to his dad. At the time he had no idea to what extent that conviction would be tested, but in the years to come he would stand on those words, he would stubbornly trust that although other voices told him he was ‘going to hell‘ he held to the Voice that told him so clearly that he was loved.
(To be continued)
Patricia DeWit
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