What would you do?

/ Lesa / Leave a comment

There is a television show that I absolutely love called “What would you do?” Each week they have actors portray different situations where someone is either doing something wrong, putting someone in potential danger, or being a bully in some way. The goal is to see if anyone steps in and says something. Their tagline is “What would you do when you think no one is watching?” It can really point out our prejudices. For instance, if they are doing a scenario with a parent and child they may start with a mother and child to see who responds and then change to a father and child doing the same thing to see if it solicits a different response. They do the same thing with race and the sex of the actors. They will switch things up to see if it makes a difference. It is so refreshing to see people standing up for what is right and good. Every single episode brings me to tears. Watch it…it will restore your hope in humanity.

I like that the show makes you think about what you would do if you were in the same situation. It opens us up to think about what a person may be feeling or experiencing. I feel that we are really lacking that in our society today. People are so quick to judge many times without having any knowledge of the person they are judging (like seeing a post from a stranger on the internet). I’ve seen such disdain towards people that are complete strangers because of assumptions made, or just downright ignorance on a topic.

Something that seems to elicit this type of response lately is the topic of transgender people. It’s no wonder given that the President has signed executive orders that are literally erasing them. That seems to embolden others to act poorly. People seem to think that being transgender is something new when in fact transgender people date back to ancient civilizations. The difference is that we talk about it today. And this is so important. I think about the young adults that I met on this journey who for years knew something was different about themselves, but didn’t know how to explain it. They suffered. They were so relieved when they learned there was a word that explained who they were and what they were feeling.

This post has taken twists and turns. The rhetoric that has been used against transgender people has been so damaging. My head is spinning from the amount of bills being written against them in different states. I was going to go into all of that, but instead I decided I would just ask…

What would YOU do?

If your little boy came to you and told you he was really a girl. Or if your little girl came to you and told you that she was really a boy. Perhaps you would explain to your little boy that he had different body parts than little girls so it proved that he was a boy. What if in his mind the solution was to get rid of that body part? I know a family that went through this. Their son was 4 years old and was caught (just in the nick of time) with a pair of scissors ready to take matters into his own hands not understanding the repercussions of his actions.

What would YOU do?

If your little girl decided that she could no longer be here on this earth because you weren’t listening to her telling you that she was really a boy, and her solution was to jump out of her bedroom window. Again, another family that I know that was there at just the right time to stop her.

What would YOU do?

If your little boy decided to open the car window while driving down a highway at 65 miles per hour to jump out because you didn’t listen to his pleas to be a girl.

What would YOU do?

If your child’s kindergarten teacher called you, informing you that when she asked the class to line up with girls on one side and boys on the other your little girl always lined up with the boys. When the teacher explained that she needed to line up on the girl’s side, she insisted that she was a boy.

Perhaps you would think that this is some sort of phase that your child is going through. You kind of ignore it and hope that it goes away. When they were persistent, perhaps you would take your child to their pediatrician. Maybe therapy would be recommended so you take your child to a counselor. This is what the families that I know have done. I can tell you that decisions are not made lightly as some would like you to believe.

What would YOU do?

If you were an adult and felt like you were in the wrong body. You are finally brave enough to tell your pastor what you are feeling, and you go through dozens of exorcisms because he tells you that a demon is living in your body. Can you imagine what that might do to your psyche??

What would YOU do?

If you were a man that felt like a woman your whole life. In your 40’s, your appendix needs to come out and the surgeon discovers female reproductive organs inside your body.

This last scenario brings us to the topic of intersex people. Hang tight…I’m about to get sciencey on you. (not a word, but it is now) (smile)

Here’s a breakdown of some of the intersex variations (there are over 30):

Chromosomal Variations:

Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY): Individuals have an extra X chromosome, affecting physical and hormonal development. 

Turner syndrome (45,X): Individuals are born with a missing or partially missing X chromosome, impacting growth and reproductive function. 

Mixed gonadal dysgenesis: A condition characterized by a unilateral streak gonad, persistent mullerian duct structures and ambiguous genitalia. 

Gonadal Variations:

Congenial Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH): A group of inherited conditions affecting hormone production in the adrenal glands, potentially leading to ambiguous genitalia. 

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS): A condition where the body does not respond to androgens, leading to atypical development of external genitalia. 

Other Variations:

Hypospadias: A condition where the urethra opens on the underside of the penis. 

Clitoromegaly: A condition where the clitoris is larger than what society considers to be typical. 

Progestin-Induced Virilization: A condition caused by exposure to exogenous androgens, most commonly progestin, during pregnancy. 

5-alpha-reductase Deficiency: A condition where the body cannot convert testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, which is necessary for the development of male genitalia. 

Now I am not saying that trans people are intersex. I do, however, know some intersex people that consider themselves to be trans. My reason for sharing is to point out that gender is on a spectrum. It isn’t as black and white as people believe. It used to be that if a baby was born with both a penis and a vagina (intersex), the penis would be measured. The doctor would operate and make the baby the gender that was more dominant (the penis would have to be a specific size to be made male and if it wasn’t then the doctor would remove it, and the baby would be female). They stopped doing this because they found that it didn’t always work out. The person would identify with the gender that was taken away from them. They learned to wait until the person told them their gender because in simple terms our gender is determined by our brains. I could get very sciencey here as well, but I won’t (smile). This is why children can say very early on that they are a different gender. Kids don’t know about body parts. They just know what their brains are telling them.

You may be wondering if transgender people have been here since the beginning of time, why is it such a big deal now. Well…we’ve made it a big deal. If you think back to civilizations before us, there were times when men wore makeup. And if you look at the way men dressed…well Jesus didn’t wear pants…just saying. Through the years and generations, our ideas of gender have gotten more rigid. Unfortunately, as I’ve said before in previous posts, it seems that politicians can’t seem to run campaigns on their own merit. Instead, they need to make something seem threatening and then come up with a solution to rid us of that threat. Transgender people have been put in their crosshairs.

Nothing exposes this problem more than my dear friend’s trans daughter’s experience. My heart absolutely breaks for the amount of hate that this girl has received. She has been bullied online with the most horrendous and vile words being spewed at her. It has gotten so bad that a group that she recently joined has had to hire security to protect her at their events due to the death threats that she receives. Let that sink in. How would you feel if that was your child?

I still have a lot to learn and I will continue to do so. My hope is that I gave you some food for thought. I’m not being dramatic when I say that lives are at stake. So having this bit of information now, if you see something hateful towards this community…

What will YOU do?

(if you would like to hear from actual families that have been on this journey, hop over to my archives page and look for my posts titled “The Voice of a Mom”) (and another note since people tell me I’m listening to fake news…I’ve met the people in this post)

Don’t read the comments…

/ Lesa / 6 Comments

That’s what my brain tells me. It is never good. But sometimes to jump in and offer encouragement to someone’s post because you know things are going to get nasty, those pesky comments get past that warning. You would think that being on this journey for 17 years (how is this even possible??) I would have seen it all. Sadly, I have not as people are getting more emboldened in their attacks online. I was going to say spewing hate, but I really think these people would say they aren’t being hateful. Instead, they are sharing the “truth.” 

The latest instance of this was when I came upon a post on the internet of a mom sharing a story about her son. In the story, she shared that her son likes to paint his nails. He also sometimes likes to wear tutus when playing. You would have thought this mom said her son likes to torture puppies and set children on fire. The comments were awful (the assumption of course is that he is or would turn out to be gay). Many quoting Bible passages while at the same time berating the mom. People were quick to jump in and tell this mom what this little boy needed. Including a good spanking and a male role model to show him what it means to be a man. 

This is something that I find really interesting. I believe I’ve shared before that my daughter was not a girly girl when she was little. She and her brother are very close in age and she liked the things that her somewhat older brother liked. Things like dinosaurs, toy cars, video games, Legos, etc. She wasn’t big into wearing dresses or playing with dolls. Not one person batted an eye at this. People would comment about how cute it was that she was such a tom boy. I wasn’t warned that she was being psychologically ruined by me allowing her to play with these “boy” toys. I wasn’t told that she needed to spend more time with me to show her how to be a proper woman. I have some thoughts about this, but that’s a whole other post (smile).

The story the mom was conveying was a cute one. Now some might say, “Well the mom should expect that…why is she sharing that on the internet?” And I would say, “Why can’t she?” She should be able to share a part of her family without being attacked. The inability for people to keep scrolling without saying something is astounding to me. I know how this feels because I deal with it as well. 

Let’s take a real-life example of what happens when folks follow the type of advice that these internet people think is so important….and life changing. It’s life changing all right. In this case, the person is an adult and is LGBTQ+

I know a young lady who recently lost her mom due to a chronic disease she had been battling for years. When she came out to her mom, she was very supportive. The entire rest of the family completely disowned them. They disowned their niece, granddaughter, sister because she was a lesbian. They disowned her mother because she supported her daughter. Zero relationship. You see, there are some church leaders that will tell you this is what you need to do. A form of “tough love.” By doing this, the person will see the error of their ways and turn back to God. My question is…what if they know God and never turned away in the first place?

When this young lady’s mom was in the last stages of her disease and the end was nearing, not one of her family members came to her bedside to say goodbye. Not one. What do you think that is like for this young lady to process? Not only did she herself lose her entire family, but she is responsible for her mother losing the same. Even to the point that they would not come see her as she was dying. And this is godly to them. She is the same age that I was when I lost my mom and my heart just breaks for her. 

I don’t understand people that hold up the Bible and behave this way. How do you think this young lady feels about God right now? Do you think she feels God’s love? Often it is us…His people…that show His love. If we show the opposite, then people feel the opposite and equate that with God. 

We sing a song at church called Reckless Love by Cory Asbury. My favorite lyrics in this song are these:

There’s no shadow You won’t light up
Mountain You won’t climb up
Coming after me
There’s no wall You won’t kick down
Lie You won’t tear down
Coming after me


These words are about God’s love for us. I find myself weeping every time we sing this song. I think of the people I’ve met along the way that don’t know this kind of love from God because there are people in their lives that tell them they aren’t worthy of it. I picture this young lady’s family as the wall that God must kick down to get to her. 

We got some snow last week and I snapped this picture of my neighbor’s bush. I think snow is so beautiful.  It reminds me of us…each one of us uniquely made. It saddens me that little boy in the post could have shame heaped upon him because of how he likes to express himself. His uniqueness. He is four years old. 

If God knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13)…if we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)…if He knows the number of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7) then He knows that there are little girls out there that play with trucks and dinosaurs and little boys that paint their nails and wear tutus…and I think He is ok with that. If YOU aren’t ok with that, then maybe you can just scroll on by and skip the commenting.

Be love out there…it matters.

Where do we go from here…

/ Lesa / 7 Comments

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. My mom was a die-hard Baltimore Colts fan. I don’t know if I ever confessed that I admired another team’s cheerleaders (smile). I think they were just talked about so much that it brought my attention to them. If I close my eyes, I can still see their uniforms and sparkly pom poms.

When that phase passed, I aspired to be one of Charlie’s Angels. I wanted to fight crime just like them. I also desperately wanted hair like Jaclyn Smith (smile). She had brown hair like me and I strived for many years to achieve her look.

As I got older and thought more seriously about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I did think about being a teacher. I had some old school text books and during the summer months my friends and I would “play” school. We took turns being the teacher and students. I’m pretty sure we roped my sister and younger cousins into being students from time to time as well. My favorite teacher was my Miss Smith, my 4th grade teacher. One of the assignments she gave that I loved was taking our spelling words and making up stories with them. She would always give us silly or interesting themes that we would have to build our stories around.

There were many adults that I looked up to as a kid. Some fictional, but most of them real people. I can’t say that I ever noticed the president, but I would say that is an office that should be occupied by someone that kids, and adults for that matter, can look up to. I would say that kids today hear way more than I did back then due to our constant news sources and social media. Quite frankly, it’s hard to get away from it.

I keep seeing social media posts making fun of people being upset about the election results. I’ve had family question me because I’ve made it clear I’m not happy about who won. This post is an attempt to answer the question…

Why am I upset about the election results? I think I need to start with why I didn’t vote for the person who won. There was talk way back in I believe the early 2000’s about him running for president. At the time, he said he wasn’t interested, but it piqued my curiosity. I thought…how interesting…a businessman for president. I thought…why not? So I did some research.

I was disappointed to learn that he did not respect his first marriage.
I saw interviews where he talked about his daughters in ways that were disturbing to me. He spoke about them in a way I feel was inappropriate for a dad to talk about them.
When I looked into the way he ran his businesses, I did not respect the way he ran them. I found that he cheated many people out of A LOT of money.
Then I watched Celebrity Apprentice. I liked that version because they worked with all kinds of different charities. I stopped watching, however, because I could not stomach the way he treated the women contestants.
Fast forward many years and he did run for president. I thought people change let me see what he is about now. We all know about the hot mic moment when he bragged about how he treats women.

I can go on and on, but I don’t want to harp on the things we already know. Things that his supporters said are jokes or hyperbole during his campaigning. I don’t believe this as he has shown me who he is over and over again. But the number one reason why I didn’t vote for him is something my mom taught me. My intuition. My mom told me to listen to my gut. When I see him, everything inside of me says “Run!” And I’m not trying to be funny.

But this is just me. You don’t have to agree with me. Other people listen to him and they see and hear a great man. Personally…I don’t get it. I hear divisiveness and personal attacks. This is America though and we are allowed to have our opinions and our beliefs. This is not the first time that someone I voted for lost an election. Why is this time different?

I believe there is a plan in place to try to take away the rights of my son and a community that I love. It’s called Project 2025. Now when asked, he said he didn’t know anything about it. I saw an interview with him before I even heard about Project 2025. Honestly, I’m not sure if it existed yet. But in an interview, when asked if he ran again for president what would he do differently. What would he do to get done what he couldn’t get done the first time? He mentioned that they didn’t have enough time to prepare. He said there were people who needed to be in certain positions to help things happen. He said there are people working on a plan so that this time they would be ready. He mentioned that the people working on the plan were from the Heritage Foundation (HF). Now we have this document known as Project 2025. This project was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation along with other conservative groups. When he says he doesn’t know anything about it, I simply don’t believe him.

I’m not going to list here what this project says about the LGBTQ+ community. You can do a simple google search to find it. It’s not surprising that since this comes from a conservative group that it is going after the LGBTQ+ community. These groups tend to think that the community is damaging the family. They are especially targeting transgender people.

Here’s the rub for me…other than I believe everyone should have equal rights of course. When we talk about these things, they are not issues. They are human beings. They are living their lives just like us straight people. If my son gets married, it will have zero effect on you and your family. None. “But the kids. What about the kids? Doesn’t it confuse them?” I will give my friend’s granddaughter as just one example. It was about two weeks before she turned four years old. She was at the playground with her dad and one of her dad’s female co-workers. They had a playdate set up for their kids. When they were finished playing and it was time to go home, my friend’s granddaughter asked her dad why wasn’t her friend’s daddy there. He simply said, “She doesn’t have a daddy. She has two moms.” She looked at her dad and said, “I want two moms! I’m going to ask for one for my birthday.” He thought, “Thanks kid!” (smile). That was it.

Being involved in the different organizations over the past 15 years has given me the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people. Many of them are transgender people or parents of transgender kids. I have known some of these kids since they were little four year old preschoolers, middle schoolers, and young adults. They have been allowed to be themselves and have blossomed into beautiful high schoolers, college students, and older young adults. They go to homecoming dances, study to be what they’ve wanted to be when they grew up, and work just like the rest of us. They are living their lives and it has absolutely no effect on yours. If a child comes to a parent and tells them they are not the gender their parent believes them to be, there are so many things that go into figuring that out. They don’t march them to the nearest hospital and chop off body parts. It’s not happening. And it certainly isn’t happening while they are in school. Could it confuse a child that sees this happen to someone they know? I suppose it could. That’s why we discuss these things. It’s why doctors are involved. These kids and adults for that matter have been used as pawns to scare people into voting a particular way and honestly it makes me sick.

Love monster from Pride

Look, I know that there isn’t one perfect politician. Not one. And because we are human, they have all made mistakes. Every one of them. But I want someone that has the highest ranking position in our country to be someone that if I had grandkids they could look up to. I would want my grandkids to be kind and loving people. I get that you have to be tough to get things done sometimes. I’m not saying that our leaders need to sit around and have kumbaya moments every day. What I do believe is a leader can be strong and direct and get things done without demonizing other people, attacking their looks, threatening to beat them up, etc. Someone that doesn’t have to create an enemy to get ahead or a vote. Someone that builds others up and not tear them down. I would like a leader running for office to say these are the issues I see that need to improve and here is what I plan to do about it. Period. This is important to me because as a leader they have people that follow and look up to them. If they behave in an unkind way, it gives people permission to do the same.

I refuse to lose hope in all of this. I think we are going to go down a tough road. I will fight for my kid and all the kids and adults I’ve met along the way. And if you are thinking…Lesa you are wrong about Project 2025. I would like nothing more than to be wrong about this administration coming after the LGBTQ+ community. I would celebrate being wrong on that all day long. And I would say to you in return…I’m glad you are so confident about something that has no effect on your life.

Where do we go from here? I really don’t know. In a lot of ways, we have to wait and see what happens. As we continue to process remember that you are loved…and it matters. And YOU matter.

If you are struggling with the outcome of the election, reach out. There is help out there.

Hometown refugee…

/ Lesa / 2 Comments

About two weeks ago, I was traveling to a doctors appointment about 35 minutes from my house. It was before the ridiculous heat wave we’ve been in and it was a beautiful afternoon. I jumped in the car and hit play on my 80’s music playlist. Driving along listening to my music I was transported back to being a teen driving on those summer days. Ahhh the good ole days (smile). Every few years, when I know I need to drive by the city, I will drive through the two neighborhoods that I lived in as a kid. The first neighborhood I lived in from the time I was born until I was 10. I remember seeing the “hill” that we lived on as an adult for the first time. It seemed SO GIANT when I was little and it is seriously just a mole hill. The second neighborhood I lived in until I got married. We did live with my parents for a year to save money for a house so I moved from there when I was 22. I like to drive by that house and through the neighborhood I spent hours walking around.

I hate moving. Well…the first time wasn’t bad. All we had to move was our clothing and wedding gifts. That move was a piece of cake. But our second move…ugh. At the time, our son was about to turn six and our daughter was four. Having two small children and showing your house at any given moment was not fun. (the toys…my gosh the toys!) There is also too much unknown with moving that my planning and organizing brain doesn’t like. You have to sell your current house to buy your second house. Everything has to be timed just right. If not, then you have to rent a place until you find your next place…I’m sweating just thinking about it. Our house sold quick. Like four days quick. Finding our next house proved to be a little more time consuming. Not fun…don’t like it!

We only moved 7.7 miles, but it felt so much further lugging all of our stuff there. The people we bought our house from were moving out of state and their timing didn’t work out as planned. That meant that when we did our final walk thru all of their stuff was still in the house. Let’s just say there were quite a few hidden things that were impossible to see due to that fact. Like how they had put some type of shiny treatment on the hardwood floors. The problem was that they didn’t clean the floor beforehand so there was grass and dog hair under the shellac type substance. That would have been bad enough, but we discovered that the large area rug they left in the family room hid the fact that they had treated the floors around the rug. There were several closet shelving units that collapsed when we put our clothing on them. They had clothes hanging in their closets when we toured the house…we have no idea what they did to them when they moved out. They had stained the kitchen cabinets, as well as the stair railing, leaving thick drip marks on both. Sadly I could go on, but I’ll stop there. Then there is the daunting task of getting all of your furniture moved in. It is stressful!

And that’s just the house and moving stuff part. So much more goes into it like stopping mail, utilities, cable, etc. at one house, and getting it started at the next house. If you move far enough and you have children, there is getting them established at the next school. At least we only moved 7 miles away. It’s a whole other ballgame if you move out of state. My son recently moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Just getting his car squared away was a nightmare. Here’s a part of his ordeal…

It took quite a few steps to get my car transferred to PA. I had 60 days from my move-in date to get a PA license, but only 20 days to get my tag and title transferred over (which required a new license). First I got my new license at the DMV, but they issued me one that was not Real-ID compliant so I have to go back before next May or I won’t be able to hop on a plane. The lady at the DMV told me they can’t print real IDs on site, it has to be mailed to me which could take 3 weeks and that would put me in danger of being fined for not getting my car title changed over in time.

I needed proof of PA insurance so I could get a PA registration, so I contacted my insurance agent and at first she told me I would need to get a PA registration to get PA insurance. I told her that sounds impossible, so thankfully in a few days she got back to me with a new insurance policy under the stipulation that I get my registration handled that weekend.

To get my car title changed over, I needed to go to an auto notary. Thankfully they are everywhere in PA, but they don’t like to list the notary fee on their websites—only the $50ish state fees. So the notary I went to charged me $300 (gasp) to verify the VIN on my vehicle and sign off on it. Then, I had 7 days to get a safety inspection on my car. I called around to a few mechanics and most couldn’t get me in until 2 weeks later. Best I could do was 10 days later, but thankfully I guess the government didn’t notice that I got my inspection late cuz I haven’t been fined for it (yet?).

The last thing I had to do was mail my old license plate back to the Maryland MVA. When I was looking up how to do that, I saw a notice that if you cancel your MD car insurance before the MVA receives your plates, you can be fined. My insurance was cancelled at least a week before I went to even send the plates, since it was cancelled when I got my PA insurance. Didn’t get fined though! (yet?)

Lots of bureaucracy and threats of fines!

I’m tired just reading that! I can’t imagine moving to another state back then with my two young kids…and two cars! I have lived in Maryland my entire life and thankfully have not had to move to another state. A few weeks ago, I did a post on Facebook that referred to laws changing in particular states and how it was creating havoc for people that I know. Someone snidely remarked that if a person didn’t like the “moral” laws in their state they could just move. Really??

I’ve mentioned before that I get questions about Maryland regarding LGBTQ+ friendliness from moms in other states that have to move to protect their transgender children. This is so sad to me. I can’t imagine having to move because the government is telling me how I need to raise and care for my child. With everything else that parents have to deal with these days (think social media and cell phones as a start), I can’t fathom adding this to the list.

Imagine you and your spouse needing to find another job. Uprooting from everything you know…all of your friends and family…and moving to another state hoping and praying that the state doesn’t change it’s laws and you have to start the process all over again. Maryland isn’t as friendly as it once was a few years ago. The school boards in several counties here have banned anything rainbow related. They have banned same sex couple teachers from having pictures of them and their spouses on their desks. One of the things I used to tell teachers who wanted to let kids know they were safe was to have something rainbow in their classrooms. As simple as that seems…it can be a lifeline for a child.

When having conversations with people about what’s happening, they often tell me that I am falling for the lies that media is telling us. I’m actually not. I know people who have had to move because of laws that have already been put into place, and I know people who aren’t sticking around to see if the laws that have been presented are going to be approved. They can’t risk it. They can’t risk not being able to get care for their child. If things weren’t so dire, they wouldn’t go through the hassle of moving.

As I mentioned, I like to go to my old neighborhoods from time to time. I like to do that because I can picture my mom there. She’s been gone for so many years, and these places bring me comfort. They make me feel close to her. I would really hate it if I had to move far away from these places. But I would do anything to protect my child. These families are not looking to ruin your family as some would like you to believe. They are trying to survive. They are trying to keep their children alive. Let’s stop vilifying them. May we stop pushing them to the point where they become hometown refugees.

My mom outside my first home when she was pregnant with me

I love these families…and it matters.

You are NOT who they say you are…

/ Lesa / 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor invited me to a healing service at her church. Along with the details of day and time and location, she shared with me that her church was welcoming to ALL. I can’t begin to explain the comfort I got in that little word all. This is a small Methodist congregation that meets at two locations. Since I was aware of the split in the Methodist church, I knew what she meant when she said they welcomed all. So I accepted the invitation.

I have to tell you I was emotional before the service even started. I grew up occasionally attending church with my great grandmother and it was a Methodist church. I got confirmed in the Methodist church when I was 15 and attended regularly after I was married and had kids. And although I attended several different denominations along the way and ended up at a non-denominational church for 20+ years…this felt a bit like coming home.

The healing service was very meaningful. After having several email conversations with the pastor, I decided that I would like to visit this church for a service on a Sunday. I wanted to support them since they are accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. I felt very comfortable going for the first time. Mike and I were commenting afterwards about how it can be unnerving visiting a church for the first time. Of all places, a church should be a place no one should ever feel uncertain about entering. Shouldn’t that be the safest place of all?

I have to say that this was the most welcoming church I have ever been to…and we’ve been to many. We were greeted before we were even able to get out of our car. Everyone was warm and inviting and it felt very genuine. It’s a small congregation and you could tell that everyone felt at home. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and I’ve decided that I will attend there at least once a month. Again…I want to support them because they are accepting.

A few weeks ago at the church I attend regularly, we sang a song called Who You Say I Am by Hillsong. Singing this song brought me to tears. I couldn’t help but think of the people I know on this journey, not to mention my own son, that have been called the most appalling things because they are LGBTQ+. People tell them who they believe they are. Not all of these people are Christians of course, but sadly many of them profess to be so. The part of the song that really chokes me up is this…

Who the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed
I’m a child of God, yes, I am
In my Father’s house
There’s a place for me
I’m a child of God, yes, I am

There have been too many times that I’ve seen my friends in the LGBTQ+ community being told that they can’t be Christian. I recently saw a pole that 50% of LGBTQ+ individuals consider themselves to be religious. Yet many of them don’t have a church that they can call home. In my Father’s house there’s a place for me. God has a place for them, but His people take that away. I know of someone who attended a church where the members started a petition to get them banned. I know someone else who was told by the ushers that there were no available seats in the sanctuary only to see person after person enter after them and shown to a seat.

This is hanging in my office. My favorite cartoon from The Naked Pastor.

Yesterday in church we heard about a recent mission trip that some from our church members went on to Roatan. They go to an orphanage called Sandy Bay Lighthouse. Currently they are housing 25 children who have been abandoned or orphaned. The person sharing told us that they sang this song. She watched as these children sang with all their hearts despite their difficult circumstances. I would like to think that’s because the people who run the orphanage have been showing these kids the love of God. We sang the song yesterday as a reminder of what the team witnessed in those children. I thought I cried a lot a few weeks ago. Man it was tough to get through. I was again reminded of all of the LGBTQ+ folks who long not to be “church orphans.” At the same time, I was thanking God for places like the church I visited. I just wish there were more of them.

So…I want to remind anyone reading this of who God says you are…from the song

You are…

A child of God
Welcomed
Free
Chosen
And most importantly…LOVED…and it matters