Thank you Merianne for the information regarding 'Reconciling Journey' by Michal Anne Pepper.  We will pass this inofrmation along on the other group "Christian Lesbians".  I'm sure that it will be helpful to many women whom are struggling. 

Take care,

Tami

Hi.  My heart goes out to you.  I completely understand the struggle you describe between your sexuality and the Bible.  My faith, as I understood it, kept me from coming out and living fully, for years.  I have been struggling but have finally found peace in the fact that Christ is love and He is not conditional!  I am doing a great study that I highly recommend.  I ordered it off of Amazon.  Reconciling Journey by Michal Anne Pepper.  I am also working with a wonderful counselor. 

God bless your journey!

Merianne

This is only an edit to my posting above. I made a mistake in the first  paragraph, Last sentence. It read, "instead to the men" but should have read "instead OF the men". Lot offered his daughters to the mob, but why would he offer females if they were homosexuals? 

Ev. 

I'm  glad you feel better and we could be of help, that's what it's all about.  I forgot to leave the site address of Gay Christian network...it's "gaychristian.net"

  I'm sure you will encounter more people quoting Bible passages like Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26&27 and 1 corinthians 6:9 but these scriptures all have been interpreted without taking inconsideration of the context and time period which is very important.  So log on, ask questions and read some of the older postings...you will be surprised at what the Bible really says about homosexuality. 

I wish you blessings and hope to see ya around GCN!

Peace Ev.

Hi, Nonalani, 

I'm sorry that you're struggling with your orientation and  and the things you have gone through over the years. I felt compelled to point out something I noticed you wrote in your paragraph about Sodom and Gomorrah.  This may surprise you and most others but the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't about homosexuality but about inhospitality ,wickedness and idol worshiping of the people. This and other scriptures in the Bible have been misinterpreted by so many people that it has caused turmoil in peoples lives for no reason.   This is why it is crucial that we not just take peoples words and believe it to be gospel but do our own studying and research.   To know the true meaning of the Bible, you would have to be fluent in Greek and Hebrew to know  the original meanings of the scriptures and even then we would never know all of it full meanings because some of the books have been omitted when the bible was put together. If the sin of Sodom were because of homosexuals, why would Lot offer his two daughters to them?  If anything he would have offered another male instead to the two men which were really Angels. 

The reason you feel wrong about your orientation is because of what society has told you about the Bible and it's instilled in you which is conflicting to what you feel inside.   You can't helped who you like/love.  I'd like to encourage you to check out this site call  Gay Christian Network and join the forums.  You'll find many others who have gone or is going through what you are going though.  There are people there who have gone to X-gay ministries only to find that it doesn't work and there are people there who have dissected the scriptures and revealed it's true meanings.   So check it out...I am positive you will find relief. 

Blessings Ev.    

Nonalani,

My heart goes out to you with regard to both your struggle and the pain that you have endured. 

Nonalani, I believe that Christ loves us unconditionally, not because of our "works" but because of His grace.  Has He not known you from the foundation of time? (the Bible states that He has).  Did He not know your whole life and all the struggles that you would go through?  I ask my self...if Jesus were to come today and He were to visit me what would He do? I look to the Bible to see....and what I see is that He loved.  He loved those who were fallen and who were struggling.  The Pharisees (all those good people in suits and ties looking very godly) hated Him and hated His followers because they did not follow all the rules and regulations.  They even attempted to condemn Jesus for healing someone on the sabbath because the rule was that you could not work on the sabbath.  Jesus loved...The Pharisees hated Him because He hung out with the drunkards and tax collectors (all the unseemly people of the day).  His disciples were everyday guys who argued and did not always get along.  His closest female friend Mary was a prostitute. 

In the "hall fo faith" it names David and Moses and Rahab, etc.  David was a murderer and an adulterer.  He and Bathsheba committed adultery yet God forgave them and allowed them to remain together until she passed away from old age.  Moses was a murderer.  Rahab was a harlot (it does not say that she used to be a harlot, but that she was a harlot at the time).  If we are to believe that Christ came to set us free and that He loves us unconditionally and that we are saved by His grace, we must believe that He understands our struggles and our humanness and all that has happened to us.  I believe that we are saved by God's grace and mercy.  If we believe, we are saved. 

The Bible also states that God hates divorce and God talks often about adultery however, many years ago my ex-husband (I was married when I was very young) began to attend the church I attended.  I was his ex-wife and he came with his second wife.  Soon he divorced her (adultery) and married a third wife and began attending with her.  He basically had 3 wives in the church.  Yet, he was able to lead worship and lead other activities in the church.  The church allowed him to be a leader.  Why? Back in the 1950s you would have been thrown out of most churches if you got divorced. You were considered a terrible sinner.  Now divorce is commonplace in the church.  My hope is that someday the "church" will understand that we are all sinners (whether we are adulterers, liars, homosexuals, etc.) and that we have all fallen short.  But luckily, we are all saved by grace.

I have asked myself the same questions that you have asked in this post.  My girlfriend and I have struggled with these questions as well because we were both raised in a strict Southern Baptist church.  But I must believe that God has saved me through His grace and has set me free.  I pray you well on your journey.  Thanks for sharing your heart and struggle. 

I was sexually mollested by my father who with my mother adopted me at around the age of 3.  It went on for about 8 years.  During this event in my life-my father - I'd prefer not even calling him that...Terry made me do things with another girl.  I'm not sure if it was things like that that made me comfortable with a woman in an intimate settng or the fact that I am so disconnected from men and disgusted by their pervertedness that causes me to find a comfort that I can only find with a woman.  I made a lot of poor choices growing up and ended up going to prison for 3 1/2 years of my life from age 19-22.  This is the first time in my life that I heard of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  I soaked it up because it was the first time that I felt someone loved me for me and accepted me for me.  But there was that thing about homosexuality-Sodom and Gamora- that I realized my lifestyle choices were wrong, I tried my best to not become involved with a woman while in there but I ended up giving into my desires and since then I've been on a 6 year journey where I don't understand how I am able to look to God for guidance and love when I am doing the very thing that He hates.  My girlfriend tries to make me think differently by explaining to me her point of view and she basically says that man wrote the Bible and therefore not everything in the Bible can be trusted to be true 100%.  If God loves everyone then that means He loves us as we are.  I am having a hard time with this.  I know that this is a big cause for my loss of peace and self love that I had when I was walking the Christian walk.  Can someone please help me to understand what is really going on.  Am I going to Hell because I would rather be with a female than a male?  Am I going to be kept from God's acceptance and love because I do not feel that I am put here to reproduce and live the Patridge Family lifestyle?  The longer that I am in this relationship with my girlfriend the more I realize how much I do not like being with a man in an intimate relationship. I was never comfortable and never connected.  I am so frayed like a rope that's been cut from the source, just unwinding and not understanding how to keep it all together.