Walking With God: If I Weren't A Christian, Being Gay Would of Killed Me

I have spent a lot of my life rejecting aspects of the most beautiful parts of myself because of the world. 

The way I use the world is in a biblical sense meaning the ungodly parts of the world. 

Some of the beautiful parts I have been rejecting about myself are that I am a Christian and that I am a lesbian woman. 

There is a deep stigma surrounding being gay. 

Many people cannot bear this stigma and commit suicide. 

Thankfully, we have some brave souls like Ellen  DeGeneres helping us to combat the stigma. 

There is also a deep stigma of being a Christian. In some Islamic countries, you can even be put to death. Persecution is a real event that occurs to Christians all over the world. When I was a kid and my foster mother was dragging me to church, I just thought persecution was an old word that happened to Christians in some potentially made-up history from the past. 

After traveling the world and seeing what happened to my friends in Pakistan, Somalia, and other parts of the word, I can tell you, Christians get killed for being Christians the way gays get killed for being gays, the way blacks get killed for being blacks, the way women get killed for being women and all this hate in the world is shocking. You don't notice it if you stay in your home, but once you step into the world, you notice that it is wicked. It's not all glamorized like the Netflix shows people consume. 

When I was in Bangladesh, a Muslim country I was so fearful I was going to be killed for either being gay or a Christian that I surrounded myself with friends. I was lucky to have friends surround me and offer me an aura of protection for whatever reason I was immediately blessed with a friend circle. which happens the majority of the time I arrive somewhere new god has a team waiting for me. God says it is not good to be of the world, but it is not good to be alone.  I have been fortunate enough to make new friends on my travels. 

The people I was blessed with in Bangladesh felt really earthy and amazing to be around. They were young filmmakers, Yogis, Musicians, and teachers. I was afraid to be alone. Even though I was having my own apartment, I literally slept at a boy's house whose name was Ironic because his name was Safe and I felt safe whenever he was with me. I stayed with him until I got a flight out of there and he asked no money from me. 

He never even looked at me for sex or like when are you going to go, so there was really pure energy with these people who were in my life at the time. I even had a man named John escort me everywhere, which is another biblical name if you want to examine the importance of names more closely and John had a secret safe house so these young lovers could be together and free from their parent's oppression. 

I was living in the capital city called Dhaka. Dhaka is a place where women should be escorted to and from places for safety. Dhaka was known for a terrible incident known as Holey Artisan where 22 foreigners were killed by Islamists for not knowing the Muslim prayers in 2016. Imagine going for a cup of coffee and being beheaded. That is what happened that day. Also in 2016, Xulhaz Mannan a gay journalist was murdered.  According to the law, the punishment for homosexuals is up to life imprisonment in Bangladesh, therefore it is dangerous for those who identify as homosexuals to openly come out in society. 

Homosexuals learn to repress themselves and not because of god, but because of the world. God is not slaughtering gays and Christians, mankind is doing that. Ungodly people are doing that. 

When I was in Dhaka they were rioting because some students got killed in a traffic accident. A lot of crazy stuff was going on politically at that time. The worse traffic you would ever see, the world's largest refugee camp and there were women wearing their Hijab everywhere, which honestly freaked me out because Most Americans have a stigma against Muslims because of 9/11.

For me, my life is dangerous for a lot of reasons. I even have to hide my black roots sometimes. Animals  camouflage themselves so they go by unnoticed and are not attacked by predators. I am not an animal and my body is not naturally designed like a stick to fit in with sticks so it gets hard, but like them, I have to shapeshift to survive. 

Some people might call it lying. Are you gay? No. Do you like men? Yes. Are you a Christian? If you are a Muslim, No because you might try to kill me, but it's survival. Many people mock me if I tell them I believe in God and many people mock me if I show my true feelings for a woman, so I have learned to hide and feel shame throughout my life. 

Even in the 21st century much of the world is still very racist and prejudice and enlightened, so my life has been very hard because of the world and I have found solace in god. I was always deeply spiritual, but I was also a lesbian. For a time I rejected Christianity when I was falling in love for the first time with a woman because so many Christians attacked my heart. Then for a time I rejected being a lesbian, I thought my life is hard because I am sinful and the Christians of the world are right. It took me a long time to reconcile both sides of myself. In fact, I think I am learning to harmonize with myself as I write this. 

Because of the way the world attacks those who are different even as a grown woman I try to bury this beautiful part of myself that loves God and loves women. The most painful part about being a lesbian woman is watching the few other lesbian woman I  find on my journey reject themselves and their love for me or other women underneath the shame they feel.  It's this total Tarzan moment where Tarzan sees other humans for the first time, but he's afraid the gorillas will kill him if he is really a human. Well, that's not exactly what happened in Tarzan, but you know what I mean. You finally met someone like you and it's rare and it's beautiful and you reject it because you are worried about the opinions of the wicked world.

There is nothing worse than finding love and both sides are too ashamed to fall in love it out of fear of what others will think. 

If I were a lesbian woman without being a Christian woman, I am certain  I would be dead because how would I have had the strength to combat the world. Who would comfort me in my loneliness and depression? Who would fill me with strength?  Most people from the world say if I am gay I cannot be a Christian.  Honestly, because of the attacks on me because of the world, it's amazing I have not been murdered. It's amazing I am alive. It's amazing I have not fallen into the deepest depression and committed suicide. 

Well, I am here to tell you I can and this is between me, my wife, and god. The world is no longer allowed to ask to reject me and bury myself and live a life in denial and repression to make them comfortable with what they think they know about, god or life, or the bible or love. Who I love is divine. It is not a sin. Over the years, I have heard so many people misrepresent the story for Sodom and Gomorrah. That story is about rape, no same love. 

I do not have time to study the bible with you in this article, so here is the cheat sheet, which is

the TEN COMMANDMENTS. 

The Ten Commandments

• You shall have no other Gods but me.
• You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
• You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
• You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
• Respect your father and mother.
• You must not commit murder.
• You must not commit adultery.
• You must not steal.
• You must not give false evidence against your neighbor.
• You must not be envious of your neighbor's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.

"I am done hiding the most beautiful parts of myself because of the world because it is the world who should feel ashamed not me." - Lyon Amor Brave