Without going into detail about my life story, I at least want to start by saying I have had a 16-year experience steeped in fundamental evangelical Christianity. I thought, at age 20, that getting married to my best male friend would make me straight. I loved him as much as I was capable and I wanted a “normal” life. I knew that my family also wanted that for me. I got married shortly after I turned 21 but marriage made no difference.

Only 6 months into our marriage, I got pregnant with our son. I was delighted. I knew that I wanted to be a mother and I had high hopes that being a mom would be the ticket to being straight. I was very excited while pregnant to find that I didn’t have many sexual feelings towards women. But then again, I didn’t have many sexual feelings at all. My son was born and two years later, my daughter was born. Although being a mother was the greatest thing I have ever done in my life, I was not a man-lover yet.

When the kids were that little, I began looking for a church thinking that God would fix me if I pleased Him. I was invited to a very large fundamental evangelical church and thus began my 16 year journey. It was a sincere quest to be healed by God of my affliction of being born gay. It was the most well-guarded secret of my life and I was bound to be cured before any of my family and friends had to face the shame of being associated with a lesbian. It would be between me and God until I was healed.

I did everything I was told to do. I was a submissive wife, which screamed against my independant nature. I home schooled my kids with good christian curriculum. I worked as a volunteer in the church nursery, library and food pantry. I went on 4 mission trips (to Russia and Austria). I worked as a hospice volunteer and was a damn good foster mother to 18 different children. I took meals to the sick, babysat (free) for young couples to be able to go out on an occasional date … I did everything and more that I could think of to earn God’s notice and help.

The Bible says “for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. It is a gift of God, not of works by man so that nobody can boast” (my phrasing). I knew it would not be by my good deeds alone so I made sure to faithfully study my Bible and attend all church Bible studies. I even went through formal training to become a certified NANC (National Association of Nouthetic Counselors) biblical counselor. I wanted to find out what a biblical counselor would tell a christian lesbian like me to do. I knew if I actually went to a counselor, they would involve my husband and church and everyone would soon know my shameful secret.

Each day, I started with prayer asking God to give me a desire for my husband and asking for forgiveness for the lust that I had the day before. I prayed throughout the day, confessing my sins and asking for forgiveness. Each night, sometimes even on my face in tears, I begged God to take away the desire I had for women and give me satisfaction with my marriage. I had a good husband, but I was unimaginably lonely. I felt like the only person in the world and I was so scared.

Finally, after studying the Bible one day, I had a revelation. The Bible said that I was “fearfully and wonderfully made” — God had not made a mistake with me. He wasn’t going to change me because I was not broken. Still, I was living a sinful lifestyle. I was lying to everyone about who I was, including my husband, who I always felt deserved a better wife who could love him the way that a wife should love her husband.

When I finally told him, I knew what was to come. I was visited by two elders in my church. They questioned me about my confession and branded me an apostate, that is, someone who has “known truth but turned away from it or denied it.” One of them told me, as they were leaving, that the reason that God didn’t change me was because I didn’t pray sincerely enough. The truth, in fact, was that there was not a single day that went by where I was not begging for God to make me “normal.”

Sadly, my coming out led my church to announce my “sin” in a public worship service. The leadership felt it would be good to have my children attend to hear what God thought about their mother’s sin. Fortunately, I found out and had my Dad take my kids to his cabin for the weekend so that they didn’t have to be there. The church did proceed with “church discipline” and I was shunned, slapped in the face by a member, mailed letters by children and adults telling me that I was going to hell. Eventually, I was dis-fellowshipped by the church while they prayed for my death so that I could not continue to bring reproach on the name of Jesus Christ.

Since that time, I have felt a distance between me and the “church” but not between me and God. I know that I made the right decision and although I gave up nearly everything I ever had. I had to start over. I am now a 40-year-old in college, trying to get a job in this economy with no recent work experience beyond being a homemaker and no formal education. But I have not gone without a single thing that I’ve needed. Not one.

My teenagers have never given me a day of trouble over this. They’ve been so accepting and loving. I met and married the girl of my dreams and I have a roof over my head. I am living in the house of my best childhood memories – my grandma’s house. She passed away last year and none of us could bear to sell it so it is lived in (and loved in) as much as it ever was. Even the state and the feds are giving me a big hand with my school. My life is full of inner peace now that I can be myself. I really hate the fact that so many people left my life over my being gay, but so many new people entered it that my life is even richer and fuller than it ever was. Grace is covering me and for that, I am so thankful.