Thank you for keeping your many fans updated with your new spot on the www!

It’s not news to you that you and I disagree on some of the aspects you mention in this post! From the beginning of our conversations, you have always let me know how you feel & you have done it with grace & respect, and I hope that I have offered the same to you!

I wish so very much that, back when I still felt welcomed & loved in my (Southern Baptist) church, I had known someone like you. I wish that I had had the chance to fellowship with just one person who told me that, despite my “abomination” , God still loved/loves me instead of what I did hear: that the only way for me to be welcomed into His everlasting arms was by trying to be something I am not & could never be. I tried denying the truth about myself & hiding my light under a bushel for the first 3/4 of my life & all I got from it was a wish that God would just take my so-called life away & do away with the pitiful, worthless shell of a creature that I had become. I tried “living” my life the way the world & my church had told me I must to be accepted, and it led to only ruin for me. The world may have loved me, but I hated deeply the imitation human being I was forced to be.

Anyway, I don’t mean to go into my story AGAIN & I know that it’s hard for me to not get overly-emotional about this subject considering that we’re talking about a subject so near & dear to my own heart, but I just wanted to let you know that I know you’re here. I also wanted to let you know how much I have always appreciated your respect. Any time I get to communicate with you, I can feel God’s grace coming through every word you write/say, and that fact opens not only my ears to your words, but my heart…a heart that has been battered & bruised ferociously by a Religion that has no time & no space for a proud, gay man, but a heart that still beats & still holds hope & still loves Christ in spite of (SOME) Christians.

I thank you for the continuing welcome I receive from you & I thank you for being open & honest & saying that you don’t have all the answers! In A LOT OF WAYS, you are a rarity. I’ve encountered too many Christians who mistake God’s infallible word for their own fallible understanding of God’s word, but not you. You are obviously open to letting God lead you & you are still open to learning & you still hunger after God’s heart, and even an outcast like me feels welcome here because, as the beautiful song goes, “surely the presence of the Lord is in this place…”

I hope to see/hear more from you as you take the Good News into all the world & as you gently remind those of us who still need reminding that God loves US, too.

Love & Blessings to you!

Clarence