A Mum’s View...
It’s 13
years since my son took the brave step of coming out to me. It came as a total surprise and I’m ashamed
to say my views at that time were very black and white. I saw homosexuality as wrong, but thought
‘it’ could be healed.
After
the initial shock I suppose I fell into a kind of grief. Very selfishly grieving for the
grandchildren I wouldn’t have and I suppose fear of what others would
think. I felt nauseous in my grief and
had to force myself to eat, wishing I could just hide away while I coped with
the situation. I also had to deal with
the guilt, thinking I’d caused this to happen somehow. Had I been a dominant mother? I then moved onto fears for my son, entering
into a world I knew nothing about and was therefore unable to advise or protect
him.
One thing I do know is that right
from the start it made me love him even more.
My son
broke it to me gently by telling me he thought he might be gay, but in my heart I knew he’d made up his mind. As we’re a Christian family, I did ask him if
he’d prayed about it and he said when he did he was given a sense of
peace. This more than anything else
sustained me.
I now
accept my son is gay, he was born this way and he’s made in the image of God
the same as everyone else.
It has
however been a long journey. I told a
very few trusted friends early on and couldn’t even speak about it for some
time without crying. During this time my
husband had been training to become a Vicar and as we moved for his first post
as a Curate we didn’t feel we should broadcast this intimate information about
our family. We said it was to protect
our son’s privacy, but I suspect the truth was fear of the reaction we may
receive from parishioners. The same
applied when we moved on when my husband was appointed Vicar of some rural
parishes. However the more time we spent
there the more we shared. It is only
since my husband retired that we have both felt comfortable talking about
it. It’s as we look back on our parish
ministry we realise we also found ourselves ministering to men and women of the
LGBT community within our rural churches.
Presumably
this was all part of our training and preparation for hearing the Lord call us
to start Joel Ministries while at New Wine last summer. My husband heard the call first to share
Jesus’ love with the gay community and I readily supported him in this. As our week at New Wine continued we then met
two mums with gay children and realised we were perhaps also to offer a
listening ear to those coming to terms with a loved one coming out. It was one of these mums who suggested the
name Joel (restoring the years the locusts have stolen*). We then saw the acronym:
Jesus Offers Everyone Love
I love
both my children very dearly. I am proud
of all they have already achieved in their lives. I accept them both just as they are, after
all God created them in His image.
*Joel 2:25 'The Lord says, "I will give you back what you lost..." '
No comments:
Post a Comment