The Greatest of These: Part Two

This past Sunday, we had the second part of the Spiritual Gifts.  My sister does a “pow wow” with the pre-teen girls.  She prints off the PowerPoint slides with lines on the side for notes.  I take these print outs as well.  I was looking through the slides before the sermon started and there it was…  a slide that simply said “Husbands and Wives.”  I started silently freaking out a little bit.  Any type of talk with “Husbands and Wives” in a sermon, freaks me out because I don’t know what it will entail.  Will it be the whole “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” talk?

The moment the dread set in!!

I kept an open heart and an open mind.  I was getting a lot out of the sermon and my heart stopped a little bit when the “Husbands and Wives” slide showed up on the overhead projector.  Here is what it was about:

”Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.  If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.”

1 Corinthians 14:34-35

The church had a good laugh about this because the pastor’s wife is also a co-pastor.  She is a very outspoken force in the church.  The pastor goes on to say that this was written for the situation at that time.  It was chaos back then.  The men sat in a different section from the women.  The women would yell up to their husbands to have them explain what the service was about.  Let me repeat a key phrase in this entire paragraph:

THIS WAS WRITTEN FOR THE SITUATION AT THAT TIME.

This is what I needed to hear from out of a pastor’s mouth.  God’s word is very, very important part of a Christian’s life.  It is life.  But it was written thousands and thousands of years ago.  A lot of it is timeless.  But there is a lot that was written for that time.

As time goes on and as I get closer to God.  I begin to understand myself more and that being me is what He wants.  He has plans for my authentic self.  And I love that and I can’t wait to see what He has in store for me.

All Caught Up!!

No more overtime for me! This means more family time. More God time. More blog time. More ME time!!

The weather is gorgeous. God is good. My kids are awesome. My Honey Bee is beautiful. My life is pretty blessed currently!

I’ve had so much to blog about but I’ve never had the time. I would come home and just crash in my recliner and spend the hour I had left before my babies had to go to bed.

Do not fret. I am back and I have much to write about!!

Change the Tune

I had Bible study this past Thursday and it was a good lesson.  I love Bible study.  I love the study book we are working in.  It’s just a wonderful time of fellowship with my sister and her best friend.  Currently, her best friend is struggling with breaking up with her boyfriend.  The discussion switched to having the man that God has for you and living a Godly life so you could find said Godly man.  Also, you shouldn’t be sleeping around.

What started out as a wonderful night turned into a heavy night of condemnation in my heart.  I get upset about the talks of relationships within a Christian lifestyle because it always leads to a man and a woman couple.  Then I start feeling the condemnation of my relationship with EJ.  Then I start feeling defeated because it just seems like it’s the same record playing in my head over and over.  “You have to make a conscious effort to change the tune that has been playing in your head for decades,” my therapist would say to me.

EJ and I were able to Skype for a little bit after Bible study.  Which was exactly what I needed.  No matter what my issue is, when I see her face and hear her voice, the issue is nonexistent.  It’s a glimmer or a whisper of a thought.  It just floats away.  I let loose of what was bothering me.  I didn’t want to cry because I don’t like our Skype sessions to be me crying the entire time.  But I couldn’t help it.

My faith is important to me.  Just because I am in a gay relationship, I don’t want to say “Well, I don’t need to go by the guidelines that were set for the straight couples.”  Because I do not believe that my love for my Honey Bee is a sin, I should treat our relationship just as other straight Christians would treat theirs.

I have waited so long to find a partner that cares about my beliefs and my faith.  I have found that with EJ.  She is so supportive and wonderful and understanding.  She will wait for me.  She told me that she will wait for however long it takes.  She’s not going anywhere.  This is how trust is built.  This is going in the right direction.  I have always wanted to be in a relationship that was built on mutual respect of each other’s well-being.  I have always wanted to have someone hold my happiness in as high regard as I hold theirs.

I have never felt like this with any man.  That’s because I was never meant to be with a man.  I was meant to be with a woman.  I really don’t care what anyone else thinks.  The partner that God has chosen for me is not a man.

After we talked it out and she reassured me that I am not in struggle alone, I felt so much better.  We started talking about our plans for my trip to New Zealand.  I am super excited and I am very thankful for the opportunity.  I cannot wait.  She made me feel better about everything.  She might someday help me change the tune of the record that keeps playing in my head.  That is why I heart her.

The Greatest of These

Sunday’s church service was about the people who are being persecuted abroad for their beliefs in Christ.  There was a story about a man who was passing out Bibles to a village in India.  The villagers were very angry and they beat him up and left him for dead.  One of the men who attacked him felt convicted about it all.  He and his wife went out to the pit where the man was tossed into after he was beaten.  He was still alive.  The man and his wife took care of him.  The couple took Jesus as their savior and the man was back in the village passing out Bibles again.  What a great story of boldness and faith!

Another story was about a woman in Tibet.  She can only worship God in secret.  There are no Christian churches.  Only small groups.  She said that if the government knew that they were meeting it would mean big trouble.

Of course, there are many more stories like these. Even in our country.  Even among other Christians.  I had a little voice in the back of my head was saying, “Gay Christians are persecuted by other Christians all the time!”  This has to stop.

The sermon this Sunday was awesome.  It was about love.  Loving everyone.  That’s what Christianity is all about.  Serving God and serving others with love.  Not worrying about their social status, sexual orientation, or whatever else people judge others on.

“But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Chorinthians 13:13

2016 Is Off with a Bang

So what has your friendly neighborhood Lesbian been doing at the beginning of the new year?  Tons of stuff has been happening!

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in coloring books!  So many wonderful books.  I got 3 new books from my family and I got a book for myself.  I went to Hobby Lobby and I got myself an Ocean Wonders one because my oldest sister said I should color pages with accents of colors I have in my bedroom and then frame them to hang them on my wall.  I’m pretty excited about that.

Of course, I’ve been working massive overtime.  But I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.  Which is great news.  I do believe I will only have a couple more weeks of overtime left.  I have been way stressed out about it.  I had a stress headache this morning.  I decided to sleep it off.  My dream was crazy because I had to get something done for one of the doctors I work for before a deadline that ended in a few hours.  In my dream, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish it.  I woke up feeling more exhausted and really groggy.  I must find time for myself to relax or I just might go a little crazier than I already am.

Let me tell you about some other things that have been stressing me out!  I ran over a nail in a spot were a patch would not be able to fix.  I have to buy a new tire.  The cheapest tire is $120.  YAY!  I have a leaky valve stem in a different tire but luckily that was only $20.  The clothes dryer crapped out so there’s another expense that we weren’t planning on.  So many things that are stressing me out but I have so many great things that I have been blessed with.

The best news out of all of this is that I have a date set on my New Zealand trip!  I’ll be meeting my Honey Bee in person mid-May!!!!  I am so very excited.  Everyone at work seems to be excited as well.  One of the office girls is letting me borrow a suitcase that the doctors don’t use. It’s a very nice one with hard case.  I’m just so excited that I don’t have to buy new luggage.  It is truly a blessing.

Honey Bee and I have been planning different things to do.  I’m getting together all the important things I need to have before I depart in 4 months.  (FOUR MONTHS!!!!  AHHH!!!)  My bestie is coming with me for the first week of the trip.  I’m very excited for that!  We have yet to come together to plan things.  We were supposed to do it this weekend but I was unavailable.  Hopefully, this weekend or sometime this week we can start planning things.

This is my very first trip out of the country and my bestie has been out of the country several times.  I am very glad she is coming with me!  I am totally lost when it comes to these things.  I am a pretty nervous and really excited about it all!!

Have any of you had flown out of the country?  Where did you go?  Are there any tips that would be helpful for a newbie globe trotter?