This testimony of Dianne (who joined the Alive in Christ leadership team about a year ago) is a beautiful illustration of Jesus’s real love. I trust it will encourage and challenge you.
“You are not gay.” These were the first words my daughter heard me say when I learned she is attracted to her own sex. I was shocked and devastated. I spent many hours asking myself many questions. “How can this be? What did I do wrong? How could I convince my daughter she was not gay?” So many “if only” thoughts were running rampant in my head. A few weeks later I learned about “Alive in Christ” and attended their workshop at my home church. That was almost six years ago.
The first few years were difficult, as God revealed to me that I lacked compassion for people attracted to the same sex. Who am I to judge? How quickly I had forgotten the life Jesus saved me from. I came to realize that God was using my daughter’s journey to get my attention. I stopped analyzing her life and began to look into my own mirror. I needed to spend more time in God’s presence and experience His unconditional love. He wants my life to be a testimony to others, a beacon of His light.
To this day, I stand firm in the non-negotiables I set forth 6 years ago: my relationship with Jesus Christ will not be destroyed, my relationship with my daughter will not be destroyed, and there will be transparency between me and her.
My relationship with my daughter has grown deeper over the past several years. God is gracious, and He continues to teach me how to be compassionate without compromising my relationship with Him or my daughter. He has given me the courage to speak the truth with integrity.
My faithful prayer is that my daughter will fall in love with Jesus, just like her mom has. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 (NIV)