Religion

People ask me all the time what I think of homosexuality. Is it wrong? Do I hate them? Are they going to hell? All of these comments are made in popular culture. The news portrays people who believe in God and go to church as hypocritical judgemental cruel people. So of course when I say I am a Christian, sometimes I get the cold shoulder. This is ok. I understand we all have pre-judgements in our lives.

My hope here today is to show you what I believe and at least you know one person is like this. In my life, I go to church for the encouragement and love and support I get from it. When I go to my church, I am greeted by elders, my pastor, my co-workers, and our youth. I am a youth leader at my church. It was always that way.


My church gives me a sense of community. If ever my family is struggling and can't pay our bills or if we just need dinners for a week when I had my c-section and couldn't move, the church came through. Where we lack, the church gives.

I get bored being home with the baby so I go to the church and organize and make up lessons for the weekend. We started a praise band and come up with new songs every day.

A few months ago we got a couple that came to our church seeking love. This couple was different from your average people that come into the doors there because they were lesbians. Also they were the new mothers of triplets! We were really excited and confused and unsure. We meaning my husband and I. We weren't sure how they would be received and what our church was going to do. Well so I went up to my pastor because he's like my friend and asked him what he thought about them. He said specifically, "Liz, I'm not the sex police. I don't go into your bedroom and make sure you are doing it right."
They want to know God's love, they are going to get it. Just like you and everyone else that walks through these doors.

It doesn't matter if I believe it is right or wrong. It matters that I believe Jesus died for my sins.
I accept him as my savior. It's not my place to try to figure out what I believe about that.
They are my friends and I love them and I cannot believe what I would have missed had I our church sent them away with judgement. My mom said that's even worse.

See that is the point of Christians today. We are meant to work on ourselves and only ourselves. We are called from there and once you have the Holy Spirit truly working in your heart and soul, things will happen from there and it will all make a lot more sense. It's not up to us to make sure someone else is living right. We must leave that to our Father above. People today are afraid to let go of themselves. They want to be in control of their lives. Guess what? You don't have to.

I love our church because every day I grow as a person. I am held accountable. I had a problem with gossiping and still slip back into it at times and I asked God to help me. Well anytime I would begin to talk about anyone in particular they would walk right up behind me. I wasn't able to get started. Now I learned before I even begin to make any kind of assumption or judgement in my mind, I just start praying for that person. That way I'm absolved of any sinful thought I was just about to have. Its really an amazing trick.

What I meant by the Holy Spirit working on you is that suddenly you start to see God's plan appear for you. What he wants you to do while you are here on earth. For me it is witnessing to people, and also being a prayer warrior. Sometimes with my free time, I'm able to help out different people in the church. We don't have a lot of money right now so all I can do is service.