Approaching 50 years old this last February and only now beginning to feel the true weight of my years, I was beginning to rejoice that the libido had finally taken a back seat.  To everything, apparently.  I felt liberated, really.  I could concentrate on being more useful to the ex-gay cause, to helping men who truly wanted to know what the struggle was like, and to work on being a more Christ-like encounter for those who would come and criticize that whole idea of struggling against one’s “natural” sexuality was a fool’s errand to begin with.

Such noble thoughts.  Um.  Yeah.

So, then, almost as if on cue, May rolls slowly along and the sunnier days…well, they get closer together.  (It’s not like it ever not rains here, the sunny days just get a little closer together.)  I find myself getting out into the power wheelchair nearly every day this month, just to get out and be in the sun, go down to read a book in the park, to breathe air.  For reasons nobody is sure of, I’m losing weight and feeling better — nearly 35 lbs. this month alone!  And….

…suddenly, hellOH Mr. Libido.  Where have you been?

Seriously, things that would have repulsed me a month ago now seem…um…impossible to NOT think about.  Sort of like the proverbial dare: “I dare you to NOT think of a pink elephant” and suddenly all you can think about are pink elephants.

Yeah, like I said, it makes the hubris even funnier.

I find that the difference this time isn’t visual.  There’s very little that turns me on visually any more.  (Okay, he adds, “…so far…”)  It’s the memories of times gone by, of men that caught my heart before, during and after they caught me physically.  Those are the memories that return.

I suspect that the break here is fear.  Lately all I hear, see and read in the news is the tussle over Medicare and Medicaid, said fight will have a huge impact on the way I live.  I already have an incredibly difficult time making it from paycheck to paycheck; the adjustments that are being bantied about will most likely send me back to a nursing home.  And I tell you from five previous years experience in one of those hell holes, old age is not for sissies.

In the light of having one’s life threatened so often and so publicly, yes, it is horribly easy to take one’s eyes off Jesus and watch the churning water around one’s feet as he attempts to step out of the boat and follow his Lord.  Who WOULDN’T crave the comfort of physical pleasure?  Of connection?  Of a heart pledged towards another?  It would make so much sense to do so, but it is a response that takes one further from God, not closer.  And it is His comfort, His plan, and His path that will get me out of this mess alive.  It is being closer to Him that will calm the waters and fill the hole in my heart that longs so much for a connection to another heart.

So your prayers are coveted as we start posting…and dealing…again.

I get weird commentary both on this blog and in my emails and I take it all with a pretty good sense of humor.  But lately, there are have been comments from other Christians, Christians who know my stand, and who have contacted me about their stumbles with something that, so help me Yoda, sounds something vaguely like pride.  And man, I tell you, when other brothers who have been walking faithfully start to question your objections to sexual sin, you gotta sit in the corner for a while and contemplate if you’re doing any good in this world whatsoever.

After some deeper contemplation and prayer, mostly around how to respond to such outrageous communications with grace, I am back full-time.  For every deceived or pride-poisoned heart out there on the battlefield, there are other brothers out there who are trying to figure all this stuff out.  How do I reconcile my sexual orientation with my deep desire for a relationship with God?  I’m just one of you, trying to figure it all out.  In these intervening months I’ve grown more peaceful as I’ve studied — really STUDIED — God’s grace and love.  Not surprisingly, I’ve grown more peaceful with my leftover schrapnel of gay orientation.  I’ll be sharing on that grace in the next series of posts.

Oh, before I go, a caution:  if you’re here to argue that my position on “the gay world” is “delusional” or “hurting” others, just don’t, okay?  Or we’ll also review the difference between responding with grace and responding with timidity.  I guarantee you none of the latter.

Yes, a million times, yes.  What this guy says is everything I believe on the matter.  Why write about it when I can point you here and say yes, let’s do this:

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/commentary/11639266/page0/

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fac360.blogs.cnn.com%2F2010%2F10%2F05%2Fa-christian-response-to-anti-gay-bullying%2F&h=60101EANPy9uq7jaGYZb4eEcUPQ

I’m tossed by the utter epicness of the failures in my life — the work I’ve done, the work I’ve yet to do, my relationships, my self-control, my, my, my, me, me, me — and sitting on the ground, staring up at the pile of fail, I tremble.

In that sadness, I’m confronted with the even more epic nature of God’s grace and love and mercy.  It is breathtaking to behold.  It is easier for me to list the number of times that I’ve taken the path of darkness, the ultimate wide road, and indulged in darkness that would leave you bug-eyed in the telling than it is to acknowledge that each and every time, in the middle of all that, He  was with me.  Waiting.  Loving me.  Manipulating my world with the skill of a million virtuosos, shaping even the darkest things in such a fashion to bring me to the reality that He already knew: that my heart would give up and surrender to Him.  It would come down to weighing the mercenary, self-delusional nature of the gay world, the false and phoney ephemeral love based on the fleeting feelings of other men verses the love that would not let me go.  The love that did not cherish my simple foolishness I considered wisdom, but whipped out the Damocolean Sword of Scripture and cleaved me and my Gordian Knot of bullshit entirely in half.  To the bone.  To the heart of everything.

Even faced with that incomprehensible love, how rebellious my heart!  I would trade in my birthright for a bowl of someone else’s stew!  Fill my hunger now and to hell with eternity!  Don’t give me the strength to endure, fill my swollen belly with more, more, more!  Don’t make me give, I don’t have enough.  What happens if You leave me?  Gimme!  Gimme!  And the heavens fill with the sighs of a weary God and He holds me close and tells me more about how much love is really contained in the word “no” than my rebellious heart will ever admit.  He tells me, a man who thinks instant gratification takes too long, that the word “wait” was made just for men like me.  And while we sit by the fire and wait for blessing to come, He teaches me about rest.  About knowing.  About the things that it takes to be a man after His own heart, not mine.  Like a baby grabbing for the bottle, all I know is that I need and want THAT.  More than anything.  My soul screams “yes!” and everything I am sets course to obtain it.  As it should be, He says.  And trust Me, He says.  I will answer that soul’s scream.  You will become the man that you and I both desire you to be.  Satisfaction will be yours, for the price of obedience.

In the face of the reality that we are all eternal beings, that there is so much more to come, He bids me to look over the landscape of failure with eternal eyes.  What looks like failure,  what looks like addiction to the flesh that will never break, becomes one long apprenticeship.  I’ve tested all the corners of my own power, all the corners of my weak and selfish faith, and I have experienced firsthand the comforts of failure.  He puts his hand on my shoulder and whispers the truth:  “You are not done.  And I am not done with you.  I will give you the strength that seems so far away.  Trust in me.  I know your deepest desires.  I know what you truly and passionately desire after.  I am all those things.  Be patient.  Rest.  Wait.  Prepare for a long journey ahead and take that when it is done, You and I will be together.”

Suddenly, bed calls like a long-ignored lover.

Their donation page is here:

http://seattleaidswalk2010.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=423354&supid=303595856

If YOU are doing an AIDS walk, let me know and we’ll set up a special notice page for you, too.

God bless, guys.  I’m going to be praying you make over your goal!

Knowing then that these are my brush strokes and maybe not yours, I think I’m most comfortable with this:

There is a particular kind of holy love that transcends, a kind of love that requires the prerequisite course of suffering.  Not merely the sufferings of a lost love or a minor financial setback that is easily overcome with rest, prayer and a pint of butter pecan crunch, but the kind of suffering that knocks you to your knees and leaves you gasping for air, your life falling around your ankles, forcing you to consider just how blind and helpless you truly are in this world and how much you truly, desperately need the grace of a Savior.  Jesus responds so quickly and so completely to that kind of suffering.  (I Peter 5:10 (ESV):  And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.)   I think those who have had to rely on that love, that life-sustaining grace during the most inhuman, pushining suffering recognize it in each other; it commonly displays a need to get past the superficial as quickly as possible and get down to the most important life matters: the ones where the hand of God is the most readily identifiable.

Between mouthfulls of teriyaki chicken and rice and veggies for fuel, it was almost immediate that this sort of love calls after its own. There was a connection that there was warm, deep and immediate.  The first thing you notice about Rob and Linda is that they are engaged a thousand percent in a conversation.  None of this watching someone waiting for a break in the conversation so they can talk.  They are engaged and curious about you to a level that you don’t ordinarily encounter in relationships.  Their hearts sadden over your hurts, cheer your joys, and are genuinely happy and surprised to hear the details of how God has shown up in your life. 

They are perfectly matched as a couple.  Where one speaks, the other fills in important details as they’re necessary and forgets about the details that never really matter.  (Linda’s job in these conversations is as a “bookmark”:  since the conversation topics were fast, furious, intense and interwove multiple threads at a time, it was common to hear “Where were we?”  Linda most always knew.)

I must confess, there is a situation that worries me, and it keeps them on my prayer list big time.

They are round the corner of their first year of Ryan’s passing and while their hearts are healing as time passes, they are still deeply engaged in the process of grief.  There is such social pressure to not act unseemly about your losses, your wounds.  A year?  Shouldn’t you be through all of it by now?  These are the questions that the Friends of Job would ask; attempting to insert the will of God into your life, claiming he wants you whole and healed right this second when you are far from that condition.  Well, if you can hurry up and “find closure” or “get over it already” then how much did you love that person in the first place?  It may be that they will never get over Ryan’s passing until they hold him again on that side of Heaven.  That’s okay.  The Robertsons will teach Heaven how to celebrate on that day, I am certain.

I want to get this done and posted and there are so many details not in here: the light on their faces when they talk about the remaining adult children attending Biola University; their plans for the future and how Ryan’s life (and death) changed them toward helping the local HIV/AIDS community with their needs — there’s so much more.  And I haven’t scratched the surface.

So…you do it.

By now, if you’ve gone through the blog and read Ryan’s story, you know of the miracles that have taken place and why the Robertsons’ story is so special to me.  It is a beautiful, shining example of God’s love, grace and mercy shown bright in the middle of insane, painful life circumstances.  I believe that not only do the Robertsons now truly understand what agonies are unique to the believing man or woman who struggles with same-sex attractions, but their belief, their example of being the best possible example of God’s tireless love for His children should be held high as an example for others to follow.  I mean, if there is a group or organization out there that wants to effectively share the love of Christ to the LGBT population, you want them to be leading it.  (Personally, I’m still working on a way to clone them.)

Is there anything more you want to know about the Robertsons?  About this story?  About Ryan?  What they’ve learned?  If you have questions about any of this, leave them in a comment at the bottom of this post.  You have until the last day of September to post your questions.  At that time, I’ll invite the Robertsons back for dinner and they’ve agreed to answer your questions on video.  They are reserving the right to turn down any questions they so choose.  As Rob put it, they are the gatekeepers of God’s story here and I think it’s an entirely reasonable request.

So ask away, folks.  Just post a reply to this post and we’ll ask them at dinner in October.

But on the exciting news front, later this month I’ll be having dinner with Ryan’s folks, Linda and Rob Robertson.  It’ll be good to break bread with these folks and get a chance to know them and their family better.  These folks have genuinely changed my life’s approach to so much, it’ll be good to share that with them as well.   Your prayers for this time with the Robertsons would be appreciated, that God would come and sit down with us and share dinner and conversation. 

I’ll report in when done.

UPDATE:  Looks like 5 p.m. on the 24th of this month.  (For those of you who pray with specificity…)

UPDATE THE 2D:  Life being what it is, we had to postpone this until the 10th of July.  I had a good, blessed talk with Rob last night and it was an hour that flew by like greased lightning!  I have a feeling we’re going to have to schedule lots of time for future visits!  Your continued prayers for both them and their family would be much appreciated as they swim this particular channel of grief together.  Thanks, guys.

PRISONER OF HOPE

Stay close to me
In the shadow of my wing
In the shadow of my wing

Though the waters taste of poison
The wounds are all you feel
There is singing all around you
And the promises are real

Hide your face
Let the wind run out of breath
Let the wind run out of breath
Make you bleed from the heart
And ache from the mind
The saints are singing at your funerals
Strength for you to fight

Prisoner of hope, it won’t be long now
Prisoner, I hope you can be strong now

Fall into me
I’ll turn your ashes into flames
I’ll turn your ashes into flames

Prisoner of hope, it won’t be long now
Prisoner, I hope you can be strong now
Prisoner, I hope you carry on now
Prisoner, your love, it can’t be held down
Prisoner of hope, it won’t be long now
Prisoner, I hope you can be strong now
Prisoner, I hope you carry on now
Prisoner, your love, it can’t be held down
Prisoner of hope, can’t be held down
Prisoner of hope, can’t be held down