My name is Pauline and I am a pastor, life coach, counsellor, a lover of all things Japanese, a mischievous aunt, and most importantly, a child of God.
Oh, I also happen to be lesbian. What I mean is I tend to be attracted to and fall in love with people who are of the same gender as me. Being drawn to and wanting to spend my life with someone of the same gender was not something that I consciously chose. Like most straight people, it was something I just realized about myself as I was growing up and I knew quite early on that it was more than just a phase.
One thing I did choose (well, it depends on your theological understanding of choice) is to be a Christian. I wasn’t born into a Christian family but I got to know about God while attending a mission school. I received Christ into my life when I was 13 because I wanted to know this God of love personally. Spirituality has always been important to me and as I was growing to know God more, I was also discovering my sexuality. From all that I had heard and read, I was sure that God could never accept or love me because of my gayness so I ran away from God. It was my mistaken understanding of God that caused me to build up a wall in my heart against God. Even though I was the one pushing God away, at the back of my mind I knew God was always there with me.
Just before I entered university, a friend invited me to a Christian concert and that night, I could sense God’s Spirit dissolving the wall I had put up. Halfway through the concert, I heard a small voice speaking into my heart, “I love you.” In that moment, I realized what it truly meant that God loves me. I always knew intellectually that God loves all of us but I finally experienced what that meant in a personal and specific way. That moment also helped me to understand what grace was. Why would God, the Creator of the universe, bother about someone like me — someone who had run away, built a wall and pushed God away? Yet God cared enough to reach out to me to make sure I understood that I was loved regardless. In that moment, the wall in my heart melted away completely and I could sense my life being transformed. I decided then that I would take my spiritual life seriously and committed to growing spiritually when I entered university.
I got actively involved in an evangelical Christian ministry in university. I was discipled, trained and mentored, and over time I starting serving in various ways. I discipled, taught Bible study, led worship, organized camps, went on mission trips and served on the leadership team. As I sought the Lord about my future, I sensed God leading me into fulltime ministry, and I spent 4 years as a missionary in Japan after graduating and working in a local company for a couple of years. After I returned to Singapore, my church sent me to Singapore Bible College for theological studies.
Just that throughout all those years of growing and serving in Christian ministry, I remained lesbian and I couldn’t understand why God didn’t change that part of me even though I prayed, fasted and begged God to. It was interesting that every time I prayed to God about this issue, deep down I always experienced an abiding and inexplicable peace that somehow I was okay with God. And that God was somehow okay with me. But I couldn’t make sense of it and it devastated me to think that I must be a contradiction, an anomaly, a creation gone wrong. I was very close to my family and I could usually talk to them about anything. Well, all except this. I couldn’t imagine how my parents would react if they knew I was lesbian. It would break their hearts. So I wrestled alone with my faith and my sexuality. Both were undeniable facts of my life and the belief that there was no way to reconcile the two made me wonder if I could continue existing. How could God accept a contradiction like me?
Things finally came to a head when I was trying to get over the breakup of a relationship that lasted 3 years. The pain and utter loneliness I experienced at that point in my life almost broke me. I was hurting badly and there wasn’t a single soul I could confide in. I usually tell my mum everything but how could I tell her I was gay and grieving over a broken relationship? I wasn’t out to any of my friends. Well, the one friend that I did come out to several years before had a really hard time dealing with the fact that I was in a same-sex relationship and she almost severed all ties with me. So other than God, there was no one I could talk to. I remember crying in my room everyday and washing my face just before dinnertime, hoping no one would notice anything was wrong.
During that dark time, the one thing that kept me going was knowing deep in my soul that somehow God still loved me and for some reason, I was not a contradiction to God. It was an inexplicable peace and assurance that came from deep within. Surprisingly or maybe rightly so, it was in Bible College (and a conservative one at that!) that I started reconciling what it meant for me to be Christian and gay. When I began my full-time theological studies, I was shocked at how little I actually knew about God and the Bible. At that point, I had already received plenty of training in leading Bible studies and I had been training others. So it shocked me that what I thought was black-and-white Christian doctrine was not as simple as it seems. Over the centuries, Christians have debated over major theological issues such as God’s sovereignty, predestination, the atonement of Christ and many others. History has shown us that such heated debates and disagreements sometimes led to disastrous consequences. So it is good that as the body of Christ, we have finally conceded that we need to co-exist peacefully as believers even if we shared different convictions about certain issues. For me, it was in Bible College that I truly understood that God is so much bigger, deeper, wider than our human minds can fully grasp. As Isaiah said, God’s thoughts and ways are truly higher than our thoughts and ways. And as Jesus says, above all, God’s greatest command is that of love. I spent laborious hours studying Scripture and it was through this process that I came to fully accept that I am Christian and gay.
It has been an arduous journey and at times, so difficult I almost gave up. But I can tell you honestly that now, I am more joyful than I have ever been. I’ve grown to accept, — even cherish — being different. Growing up lesbian made me question and seek to understand God’s love and truth at its roots. It helped me explore the depths of God’s love in ways that a straight person may never have felt the need to. Being lesbian opened my eyes and heart to those who are considered different — the oppressed, the out-of-the-ordinary, the outcasts.
I am the same person that my Christian friends have always known me to be. I am the same person who served in the mission field with them. I am the same person who played in the worship team with them. I am the same person who attended Bible College with them. I am the same person who laughed, prayed and cried with them. I still love and serve God in whatever way God leads and enables me. Like many Christians, I believe in waiting for the right person, and contrary to what many people tend to think of gay people, I don’t believe in sleeping around because sexual intimacy is special and sacred. I trust that when God brings the right person into my life, we will challenge each other to grow in love and service. I pray that we will love and serve God, each other and the ones God brings into our lives more deeply and meaningfully. My relationship with God has always been and still is, of utmost importance in my life. The only thing that has changed is I am no longer so fearful of people’s rejection that I cannot speak my truth honestly and live out my life and calling courageously. I attribute that to God’s loving and transforming grace, and the people God has sent along my path to encourage and inspire me.
I know now with deep conviction in my heart that I am as much God’s beloved as you are. I am not a contradiction. I am not a “creation gone wrong”. I am God’s beloved, fearfully and wonderfully made. And so are you.
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