[Part 2] Negative Self-Image, Body Dysmorphia, and Battling Feelings of Unworthiness

I don’t think, growing up, that anyone ever told me in so many words that I wasn’t good enough. I lived a pretty privileged life in which, like most children I hope, I was told that I could become anything or accomplish anything if I put my mind to it. While that is technically true, my high school math scores definitely showed me very quickly that it would be a much longer, harder road toward coming an astronaut, and maybe wasn’t worth pursuing.

When I was about 12, I attended a youth retreat, during which I decided that I wanted to

become a minister. When I was 14, I started to have all of the signs appear that I was probably gay. I tried to fight it, believing as many people had told me that God would not approve of the way I loved. I knew that whether or not I could fight those feelings, I was still very different from most boys and men I knew. I was not athletic. I was emotional. I was much more into music and theater and literature than football and trucks and hunting.

At some point, all the people who said that I was worthy of anything I put my mind to doing, or good enough or smart enough to become the things I wanted to be, started to scold me for behaviors which seemed different from their own.

When I turned 18 and I was in college, I found myself extremely attracted to another guy. I was trying not to be. I even broke up with him once because I was convinced that I needed to stop being gay for the Lord. I believed that I could. At 14, I had prayed, “God, please make me straight. Make me have all the feelings that my friends have for their girlfriends. I know that’s what you want from me.” After a while praying that, I started praying, “Okay, God, it’s clear you’re not going to give me feelings for girls, so at least make me stop having feelings for guys. Make me asexual. I don’t care. I don’t need to have sex, ever, if it’s something you find detestable.”

After a while, I knew that wasn’t happening. So, I started to pray, “God, if you aren’t going to make me straight, and you aren’t going to make me asexual, take my life. I don’t want to be an abomination in your eyes.”

When someone tells me that I “haven’t prayed hard enough,” or that “If I really had faith that God could change me, it would work when I prayed earnestly,” or whatever, I remind them that I prayed for death because I thought God wanted that more than God wanted me to be gay. I was willing to die in order to be pleasing to God. So don’t tell me that I didn’t pray hard enough or that I didn’t really believe enough!

Ironically, the same judgmentalism and dogma that told me that I was not supposed to be gay was the judgmentalism and dogma that saved my life, because the people around me had also told me that if I killed myself, I would go to Hell.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that one of two things had to be true: Either 1, God wasn’t listening to my prayers in particular, or 2, that God didn’t want to change me. Given my choice of career, you can guess which I believe to be true.

            I know that people in the LGBT+ community are not alone in this. No matter who you are, you can probably identify with feeling judged by Christians for something you didn’t choose and can’t control, and you may not have been told that you don’t need to. Whether what you experience is actually wrong or simply judged by others as wrong, God loves you, and we as Christians are called to love you.

            In case you ever wonder if God actually loves you, here is a logical conclusion for you to consider: I love you. I love you the way you are. God is love. God loves everyone much more and much better than I do. Therefore, God loves you the way you are. Maybe there are ways that we can both improve our behavior or whatever, but...

...think about Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman. Jesus may have told her, “Go and sin no more,” but Jesus didn’t say, “But I really want you to remember how terrible what you’ve done is for the rest of your life and feel guilty about it all the time, because you’re disgusting!” That's the message I was getting from Christians, not Christ.

Maybe I’m wrong about some things. Maybe my critics are wrong. Either way, Jesus died for both of us, God loves both of us, and the Holy Spirit can act through both of us in the world. If God can speak through a bush, God can speak through a gay guy.

-Rev. Gavin Warren, Pastor

Please continue in parts 3-5 of this blog series.