MY STORY

After experiencing a profound spiritual experience at the age of 19, I embarked on a two-decade-long journey of biblical and religious study, which eventually led me to serve as a pastor for many years. However, as I approached my 40s, I was faced with a major life decision. You see, I had known from a very early age that I was gay. Prior to getting married, I told my wife-to-be of my dilemma. As we were both very new to our Christian journey, we believed that “God would fix me.” After almost 20 years of marriage, countless “trips to the altar” to beg God to make me straight, I finally had the realization that God loved me just as I was. I left the pastorate as the denomination we were a part of believed that being gay was a sin and therefore I would not have been able to continue in that role. My wife and I divorced. To alleviate the feelings of sorrow and shame for the pain I was causing my family, I turned to alcohol. During this time, I met someone and fell in love for the first time in my life. We were married and life was amazing until it wasn’t. After 8 wonderful years together, Kevin died next to me of an accidental overdose of prescribed pain medication.

I thought my life was over. My drinking went to new levels and each night I would pray that I would not wake up the next morning. I felt that the God I was taught to believe in had abandoned me.

That suffering, that “dark night of the soul,” led to my getting sober and the beginning of a spiritual journey that has completely transformed my life.

The last decade has been a winding road of deconstructing and unlearning much of what I believed to be true within the walls of churches and religious teaching. I have found a God of my understanding rather than adopting another’s understanding, a God that is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. I see all of my life-experiences as gifts that have led me to where I am today. The alcohol was only a symptom of a “thinking disease.” We were created by the thought of God, by whatever name you choose to call God, and as “begotten” of this divine Creator, we too create with our thoughts. Our thoughts shape our reality. Proverbs 23:7 says that “as a man thinks, so is he.” Ralph Waldo Emerson is quoted as saying “We become what we think about all day long.”

My thinking has changed, and as a result, my life has changed.