What Woke Me Up

Growing up in the safe, secure, enveloping womb of a loving, Seventh-day Adventist Church community, I was taught church beliefs and traditions from childhood. I attended Sabbath School each week and denominational elementary and secondary schools, and on into college. I married a minister. I was never challenged to question my beliefs, but was taught how to answer those who might do so.

It was some 19 years ago that I was suddenly forced to begin examining and evaluating everything I had been brought up to believe. The event that shocked me into doing so was the discovery that our youngest son is gay. This was particularly distressing and painful because, at the time, we were working at our church's world headquarters where my husband was the world Sabbath School director. The sense of shame, failure and fear was daunting.

The one thing I knew, which forced me to think outside the box I had not realized I inhabited, was that my gay son was a gentle, talented, loving and very spiritual person. All the previously unrecognized prejudices and misconceptions had to be confronted. Not only have I spent the last 19 years studying and searching for answers about homosexuality, but I have allowed myself to look at other questions and doubts stuffed into the recesses of my subconscious.

This has, at times, been a difficult and frightening process, but I can also say that my mind has awakened! It is so much better to know what I really believe and why, than to simply accept what others have told me. Ellen White, who helped found our church back in the mid-1800s, wrote that "we should be thinkers, not mere reflectors of other men's thoughts." (inclusive language was still in the future then!)

Most important to me, although I no longer uncritically agree with everything my church may stand for, I have learned that Christian fellowship need not depend on absolute uniformity of thought. In many ways, the church is like marriage - a place where we learn to get along with people who are different!