"When There's Love at Home..."

I don't know how often God sends literal angels down to man. We hear accounts of people being visited by angels in the scriptures and we wish that could happen to us. I think it does, just not in the way we expect. God may very well still send heavenly messengers to tell us things and to guide us, but I think that God prefers to use His children already upon the earth at this time as His means of guidance and as a way to bless one another. Basically, He uses all of us as His angels. November of last year, my mother was used as such a messenger. Some of you who will read this will know of my past life. You will know that I had a partner of six years who loved me deeply and who I really feel was my best friend. We would laugh together, we would go grocery shopping together, we watched movies and played games together. Things seemed to be perfect. They weren't. A lot of other things were going on below the surface that were against the principles that I had been taught growing up in the church of Jesus Christ. They went against the very things I taught people while on a two year mission for Christ and his church. Even fewer who read this will know of my struggles before I met my partner. Upon returning from a mission for my church, I was filled with all sorts of doubts and unhappiness. I struggled with the few options that I had for how to live the rest of my life. I knew I had attraction to men, but had a love for Christ and a small knowledge of his plan for me in this life that contradicted any sort of relationship with a man. I could not handle the lies, the sneaking around to be with men and then going to church on Sunday. I couldn't find balance and I could not figure out any way out in my head. I knew that suicide was not an option, so every night I would pray instead that God would take my life: A car accident, a drive by shooting, cancer, rabies, falling down the stairs, whatever it took to just get me a free pass out of this life and the awful reality of having to wake up every morning only to realize that I was still me. My father confronted me and told me basically what the scriptures tell me: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Bible: Matthew Chapter 6 verse 24) My father said I needed to make a choice and in a moment of frustration I yelled "I don't want to make a choice, I just want to die." I was taken to a hospital at that point to get some help. While I was there, I was given options for the life I could live. I was told "you can either live a life consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ, which will call for a celibate life" ('no way am I doing that' I thought), "you can continue living two lives and watch it slowly eat away at you as it has done" (clearly that was not the option for me), "or you can just live a gay lifestyle and see how that works out for you." I chose the third option. But I made a promise to myself. "Just because I'm going to be openly gay does not mean that I have to abandon good principles and good morals." The reason I tell this story is to further explain my original story. One day when my partner was at work, my mother called (or texted I can't remember) and told me about a website that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had just released talking in depth about the church and same-gender attraction. She told me if I wanted to, to give it a look and see if it was anything of worth. I don't think my mother knew that she would be sent from God as an angel. I don't think she knew that she was used as an instrument in changing my entire way of life. The website indeed was something of worth. The website (mormonsandgays.org) had videos that one could watch addressing gay and church topics. One of the videos I watched was a story about a man who actually had been a counselor at one of the church summer camps I had been to in my youth. I thought that was kind of funny that "hey, I know that guy!" and so I watched his video. In it, he discussed his struggle with same-gender attraction and how he is doing today. But the thing that really touched my heart was that he said he never gave up on those basic principles he had been taught in the church. Immediately that scene of me in the hospital flashed back into my mind. "Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I have to abandon good principles and good morals." I looked around at my life and realized just how far I had fallen. I had abandoned all good principles and morals. I was doing things that I never thought I would do and they were not pleasant things. I began to weep uncontrollably at the sad and broken man that I had become. For the first time in years, I went and prayed to God. I asked for help. I knew what I had to do and what it would mean for me and I was terrified. I would have to give up my partner and best friend of six years, the beautiful apartment we shared together, the friends that my partner and I had mutually shared. People would ask questions that I may not be able to answer. I would have to come before my parents and church leaders and confess all of the awful things that I had done in my life and, like the prodigal son, return home in shame and embarrassment at the ill-spent last six years of my life. In January, I left my partner. He took it better than I had expected. I told our friends of my decision to leave my marriage (my partner and I had a commitment ceremony even though we could not be legally wed). They took it better than expected. Then I moved back home with my parents. They took it better than I expected. Much better. There is a song that we sing in church titled "When there's love at home." It talks about how much better life is when there is love in the home. This I know to be true. I've experienced this love and it makes life liveable. In living a gay lifestyle, I have come to know many young men and women who are kicked out of their homes. How sad this makes me. How heartbreaking to think that a parent has so little love for their own child that they cut them off and want nothing to do with them. If you can not feel love at home, where can you feel safe? That thought is haunting. To know that there are those out there who can not feel safe. Who can not come home to a place where they know they will be loved no matter what the awful and cruel world does to them. Parents, do not be a part of that cruel world. Love your children because they certainly love you and they need you. I am so very grateful for parents and siblings who love me and who want me and care for me no matter what stupid mistakes I have made in this life. It is truly an example for me on how to love my future children. A final tender mercy on the topic of the love of family. Love came from my mother and father, this is true. But it also came from everywhere else in my family. My grandmothers both expressed how much they had prayed for me and how much they loved me. My sisters told me how much they loved me and wanted me to be happy in whatever situation I was in. And a loving aunt and uncle were there for me too. My aunt and uncle moved in with my parents to manage work affairs out here in Utah while waiting for their home in North Carolina to sell. For years, they waited for their home to sell and with no prospects and what seemed to be no hope in sight. I know that it was a true test of their faith and I'm sorry that they had to struggle with that trial so that I could be helped in mine. What I mean by that is this: God plans for everyone. I know that I needed my uncle to be at my parent's home so that when I returned home and needed guidance and spiritual help, he could be there to offer it. I grew very close to my uncle during this time. A very hard part of my life (a church council that I may or may not make mention of later, but suffice it to say this was a very pivotal and scary time for me) this hard part of my life, passed and it worked out. God knew that it would work out and that I did not need my uncle's weekly talks (though I still would love that) to get me through. Their home in North Carolina, which had been so long in trying to sell, finally sold. It happened very quickly and it was because God knew that it was time. That is one of the MANY tender mercies that my Father in Heaven blessed me with. Unfortunately it was to the stress and confusion of my poor aunt and uncle! But I hope that they know that though it was a time of uncertainty for them and a time of much heartache in waiting upon the Lord, it has helped me in ways they can not know. Family is so important. It is a strength. There is, and should always be, a bond there that can not be broken through trials and through disappointments. Fathers, love your sons. Mothers, be kind to your daughters. And brothers, be nice to your sisters. If we look on our family members as God looks on us (with a love that is so deep we can not even comprehend it) and if we look on everyone as we do our own family, I know there will be so much more love in this world. I hope that I can do that and I pray that we all can do that! Show love people!