I am sure he loves me

I am Emma, I am from Uganda. I got to know God at the age of 11years old. I knew by then that I was different but I didn’t fully know about my sexuality so I never gave it any attention, I just continued loving God and at 12 years old that’s when I joined high school and in high school, it’s where u start knowing about sexuality. Those days, boys would joke a lot about gay things, they would call each other wife, boyfriend, etc.

I would say it was just an innocent joke to them, but to me who was gay though I hadn’t understood anything about being gay, those jokes were like eye-openers to what exactly I was. In all this, I had no one to talk to. I live and grew up in a country that values culture so much like many other African countries. Our culture doesn’t talk about sex in public not even at home, for example, my parents never told me about sex not even once.

I thought I was the only one with such feelings in this world, so I resorted to telling it all to God, I knew he will be fair with me and would show me a way forward but above all my secret would be well kept without rejection, I had that trust. I used to sing in the school choir, I never left my Christianity even though I knew I was different. One day at church, they preached about homosexuality and the message was that homosexuality is a sin.

I went back to my bed and wondered how I had become such a sinner. Even though I had not physically acted on my feelings, I still felt I was a terrible sinner. This is attributed to the person who preached and showed that it was one disgusting sin. Some religious leaders, priests or pastors still exaggerate up today about the issue of homosexuality, they do condemn, and the condemnation goes to the person who culturally and religiously is taken as shame.

After learning that, I decided to ask God to take my sexual orientation (which I believed to be shameful feelings) away from me. I prayed, fasted but nothing changed! So I reached a point and gave up on praying to be changed but that didn’t stop me from loving God and praying for other things. For many years that followed, I ignored the thoughts of being a sinner because of my sexuality.

I thank God that he saw me through those years of confusion and still protected me to act in an irrational way. I continued living my Christian life till when I was almost done with high school when I attended a fellowship and the preacher emphasized that God hates the sin but doesn’t hate the sinner. That was such a relief that from that day onwards I chose to love God because he loves me and left those complicated sins to him. His grace can save everyone from any type of sin.

The feeling of condemning yourself, looking at yourself as unworthy Christian and terrible sinner beyond all might not go away immediately but slowly, you start realizing that God’s love is greater than all sins and tribulations in this world.

I strongly believe the Gospel was well interpreted to the extent of differentiating the sinner from the sin, as God doe, Christianity would not have a room of hatred and homosexuality would not be a problem. Love would light our eyes to see the brother or the sister as children of God, seeing him and her fully not as pieces of imperfection.

I might not be perfect, but I will never feel condemned because I’m a gay Christian. I love my God and I’m so sure he loves me too.