Limitless Love

I learned what it means to truly be loved unconditionally

You hear these stories all the time. The ones about parents disowning their child after they fearfully share their truth. The tales about parents who kick their children out of their home, cut them off from any financial help, or refuse to attend their wedding. The moms and dads who decide to love their child with limits, all because they’ve learned that their child is gay. 

Imagine if the two people who are supposed to love you unconditionally chose to love you with conditions. Just try to bear the thought of your own parents, the ones you perceive to be your ultimate caretakers, abandoning you in the midst of one of the most critical realizations of your life. 

For so many LGBTQ+ children, this is their reality. A harsh, yet very real life that so many queer kids, especially those from conservative christian backgrounds, are forced to embrace. 

The anxiety that accompanies the thought of having to tell your parents that you are gay can be crippling. It engulfs your every thought until the day comes that you finally muster up enough strength to share your truth. 

I came from a household where Christianity was not the center of my upbringing. My dad has his own personal relationship with faith, but it was not consistently present in our lives. My mom is one of the most open-minded people that I know, and she has been this way long before my coming out. And even so, with two parents who were seemingly open hearted and open minded, I was overcome by fear when it came time to share my sexuality with them. 

I never truly questioned whether or not my parents would still love me. I did however fear that they would love me less. I feared that my future life accomplishments, and the future marriage that I hoped to have, would be less important to them than those of my heterosexual sister and brother. I was overcome with angst as I convinced myself that my mom and dad would have more interest in playing a vital role in my siblings’ adult lives because they could relate more to their lifestyle. Coming from such a close-knit family, it shook me to my core to think that my identity as a lesbian would cause my parents to care less for me.

Having had many friends that came from very Christian backgrounds, I can tell you first-hand that they were horrified at the very thought of coming out to either of their parents. They knew the kind of judgement and scrutiny their sexuality would be met with. That wasn’t the case for me. Although scared beyond belief, I knew that my parents did not have any malice in their hearts for the homosexual community. 

My mother had always been verbally supportive of marginalized groups, specifically people in the LGBTQ+ community. I remember watching an episode of Oprah with my parents when home from college, about a gay child abandoned by her family. I can recall my mom saying over and over that she could not understand how a parent could throw their child out simply for being gay, while my dad shook his head in agreement. So even when I did not know for sure how my parents would react to their own child being gay, I at least knew they had empathy for children that experienced exclusion from their families. 

This is the difference between my experience and those of my friends who grew up in conservative Christian households. These friends were certain about how their parents would react to their truth, which ultimately led to a level of anxiety and fear that was paralyzing. 

My best friend in college is a great example of that. She knew she was a lesbian in high school already, and although she believed she was being subtle at the time, she knows now that she was not hiding it all that well. 

Whenever she’d display a seemingly homosexual tendency, she would wake up the following day to her very Christian mother spritzing holy water on the windowsill of her bedroom, in hopes this would protect her from what she feared to be true of her daughter. Because of this type of behavior and the lack of actual communication from her mom, she always knew that she would not be accepted for who she is. She had no doubt that when she was ready to come out, she would be met with torment and unacceptance. When she finally shared her truth about being a lesbian with her family, all her fears of exclusion were actualized. 

In an LGBTQ+ child’s moment of truth, a mother and a father’s reaction can enhance or destroy months or years of that child’s life as they come to terms with their sexuality, especially in opposition to their family’s faith. In our adolescence, we hold so much of our self-worth and self-confidence in how our parents perceive us. We want to make them proud and we yearn for their attention. And yet so many conservative Christians will abandon, disown, or stop loving their LGBTQ+ child due to their perception of the Bible and their interpretation of the verses that mention homosexuality. These are Christians who use the Bible as a tangible reason to love their children with conditions. 

Do I think that these conservative parents are bad people? No. Do I think that they’re incapable of loving their children unconditionally? Absolutely not. However, I do think that they’re allowing fear to hold them back from being the best parents they can be. I do think that these moms and dads are cutting down their own potential by choosing to lean into hate rather than love. 

A conservative Christian parent has the potential to change the trajectory of their child’s life the second they hear the words, “I am gay.” By no means do they need to abandon their faith in order to find it in their hearts to fully accept and love their child. In fact, in a number of different ways, the Bible tells them to do just that. In that pivotal moment, parents have the ability and the choice to solely focus on such verses as:

“Do everything in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14)

or

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2)

or

“My command is this; Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). 

The Bible is packed full of messages encouraging and demanding that we love one another. It is not packed full of verses that encourage judgement and justifications for hate. But unfortunately, this is how many conservative Christians have chosen to use the Bible, which in turn contributes directly to the downward spiral in an LGBTQ+ child’s life when forced to face this type of exclusion.

There is one verse from the Bible that I believe encompasses the most impactful message that all people, both Christian and non-Christian alike, should apply to their daily life. 

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8)

 Its meaning is simple; if we love each other deeply and completely, it washes over sin. It suggests that instead of focusing on the sin itself, we should always focus on the loving. 

I cannot begin to describe how lucky I am to be able to tell a different version of this story. My parents never questioned, not for one second, whether or not they would continue to love me unconditionally after I came out as a lesbian. 

My mother was the first to know. She asked me point blank if I was gay, to which I responded “Are you ready to have this conversation?” She snuggled up to me after responding yes, and I walked her through my journey to discovering my sexuality. She sat and listened with the most open heart a mom could have. She hugged me and apologized. She apologized for not being able to be the soft landing place that she knew I’d yearned for in the years prior to our conversation. She told me she loved me no matter what, and with those words the weight of the world disappeared from my shoulders. 

It wasn’t until a few years later that I told my dad. With all the admiration I had for my father, sharing my sexuality with him was incredibly tough. I chose to write him a letter, to which he immediately responded with a phone call. He wanted to be sure that I heard it directly from him, from his mouth, that he loved me with no question. He then sent me a letter back with contents that still makes me cry to this day. It is full of so much love and acceptance that it is now one of my most treasured belongings. 

The gratitude that I feel for my parents cannot accurately be described. It is insurmountable. Their unconditional love has molded my life in ways that, as a young LGBTQ+ adolescent, did not seem realistic. I am confident in who I am because I have their support. I married the woman of my dreams in the most beautiful setting, surrounded by so much love, because of their acceptance. My wife and I have never felt any less a part of our close-knit, large family due to my parents treating us just as they treat my sister and her husband and my brother and his wife. 

They beg us for grandkids and offer us marital advice, just as they do for my siblings and their spouses. My mom and dad have loved me fiercely and boldly without a second thought. I owe so much to them for never questioning my journey, ultimately allowing me to live as my truest self. I am often filled with overwhelming joy when I think back to my wedding earlier this year. 

In the years prior to me being openly gay, I was unsure that I would ever have a wedding. And when envisioning if I would have one, I always experienced distress, imagining whether or not I would have my parents’ full love and support on that day like I’d always dreamed. As I walked down the aisle with my dad, after having my mom zip up my long, lace dress, I was overcome with a feeling that is hard to put into words. I took a moment to revel in just how lucky I was to be enjoying what it feels like to be truly loved unconditionally. It is, and will continue to be, one of the greatest memories of my life. 

My hopes and wishes for future LGBTQ+ children and adults is that more parents will realize the magnitude of an impact that takes place when they choose to fully accept their child. These mothers and fathers have the opportunity to show their kids what it means to truly love them without limits. This is a rare and monumental moment for a parent, one in which they have the choice to lead with love or with hate. And I hope that they always choose love.

Published on “The Salve” through Medium http://medium.com/the-salve/how-my-religious-dad-accepted-my-sexuality