It’s been an interesting year for me, with more changes in the last twelve months in some ways than the previous fifty combined. My poem follows, summing up what it has been like.

This year I have taken the last step in coming out to myself,

To own who I am, heart and soul,

To say that who I am matters,

“To say my sexuality doesn’t matter is to say I don’t matter,”

and I won’t say I don’t matter anymore.

…………………………………………………………………………

We sometimes have our lives so tightly planned.

So I’m gay, I deny it no more.

Yet life need not change.

Jesus, Jeremiah, Paul,

Celibate all,

Devoted to causes that brooked no compromise.

So if the choice is about my ministry,

Have no doubt what I will choose.

I will devote myself to you,

The one true God,

And burn with desire to serve you whole.

And yet, I do no live in the world of the eternally abstract.

I live here in the world of sense and touch, of joy and pain,

And the choice is an artificial one,

For I must not choose between myself and my God,

My health and my life,

My service and the One I serve.

I choose to hear the voice within, as well as the word without,

As he calls me to himself in the wildernress,

Where the unclean belong,

Outside the city wall.

I will not chooce, but others will choose for me.

I will be cast aside, thrown out, expelled,

For refusing to make choices,

They themselves do not have to make.

But others may learn from my pain,

To own themselves before God,

To live and not lie,

To be free.

loved your poem Mr Pink Flamingo……thanks for posting

its warm…..heartfelt and honest……..maybe one day in the future others will grant you the non-judgmental space for you to be honest with them…….things are changing.

Thanks for this beautiful poem!

I relate to the line We sometimes have our lives so tightly planned as I know from past experience that when we try and control every detail of our daily lives we can inevitably suffocate our true desires and our true self.

I appreciated what you wrote very much and I can understand where you are coming from. How you are feeling right now, matters to us here.

May the Lord Himself lead you into a place of real peace about who you are and your situation as well, whether it be in the ministry or outside it. I left the ministry and the mission field 36 years ago, because I was gay. It was very hard leaving, because there was a huge mass movement going on in Indonesia at the time where 1000s were coming to Christ.

But looking back, the Lord has lead wonderfully and He didn’t make any mistakes when He created me. He has given me a wonderful ministry outside the church. I am learning never to under-estimate what God can do.

Praying for you my friend,

In Him

David

I dont know the figures but we do have a large number of people here on the forum who were previously in the ministry…….possibly pinkflamingo is the only one currently there. as things change it will become less and less likely that people will have to leave if they come out.

in the meantime i guess some of us have found that the gifts and calling of god are irrevocable (Romans 11:29) and that we continues to minister , serve and demonstrate Gods love to people in different ways outside the walls of the church. I know i have and something I never intended but woke up to several years ago.

I have come across so many people from church backgrounds who are doing wonderful things in the LGBT community……fulfilling their calling in a different context. The churches tragic loss.