What Most Surprised Me About Christians When I Became One | Rosaria Butterfield

when I became a Christian I was also still very deeply rooted in the lesbian community I had just broken up with my with my lover but my heart was not in it at all I was the faculty adviser to four or five student LGBT groups on campus like most research professors I had lectures to give and classes to teach in queer theory and quite frankly when I first became a Christian I was terrified because I fully expected the elders of my church to be standing in the back of my 300-person feminist theory class you know with placards like the kind I used to see at gay pride marches and I was really terrified about this and what I was really surprised by about Christians was that they gave me the grace to work out my relationships and they understood that I was not a blank slate and that this wasn't going to get all cleaned up in a day my pastor and my elders and their wives and my friends in the church treated me like a person who was working but but was not going to get all cleaned up at once and the other thing that really amazed to me about about Christians was that they were they were they were almost I don't know they were so sensitive to the fact that I had lost something that I valued you know nobody said to me well Rosaria that was sinful let's you know let's move on nobody said that at all I mean people knew that that my it was a sinful relationship but my my ex-lover was an image-bearer of a holy God and she did amazing things in the world and and and I was really going to not only miss her but miss the the the house that we had together that our dogs and our dishes and and the view of the lake from the window i I lost a lot and and I was amazed that my my Christian friends knew that that they they they grieved with me I was also amazed at how kind my my Christian my knew might these Christians were to the people I had left behind I was amazed that they understood that they lost more even than I did because they didn't have union with Christ they didn't have the hope of the gospel all they had was this woman who had been a an activist and a friend and a trustworthy person who became a betrayer and a danger and they were really sensitive to what their needs were and what their problems were and then finally I was I was I was really amazed at the way that Christians were not only just having me in their home because it was Sunday afternoon but the regular way that people's homes were open and the things that people were telling me that they were you know strangely enough learning for me I was amazed that people allowed me to take my place as an image-bearer of a holy God and as a newly crafted woman of God and to be a helper I mean they were small things and they were big things but I was allowed to bake bread for my pastor's wife I was I was involved and and embraced and that was really powerful but mostly what amazed me was nobody said Wow now that you're a Christian I hope we can just be done with all this lesbian stuff and we can just get on with the business of getting you married off and getting you all cleaned up and getting you you know safely packaged in a way that we can recognize no that was not what my church did my church was willing to meet we meet me right where I was at and nurtured me and loved me in the Lord from there and I learned that the biggest sin in my life was on not homosexuality I learned that Jesus that Jesus the blood of Jesus covered the sin not only of my enormous legacy of sexual lust and other things but also my tepid relationship to the Bible and and I just fell in love more and more with Jesus and with his church because of the way that Christians could stand with me and weep with me and walk with me and not think that suddenly I was going to be all cleaned up because you know what they weren't all cleaned up either

Channel: The Gospel Coalition

Views: 104,180

Keywords: the gospel coalition, the gospel, gospel, coalition, pastors, pastor, minister, ministry, Christ, Christian, Christianity, church, churches, faith, reformed, reformation, bible, biblical, evangelical, Jesus, God, spiritual, spirit, Holy Spirit, preacher, preaching, teaching, fellowship and hospitality, homosexuality, sanctification and growth

Id: WCpI2vGOiRs

Length: 5min 20sec (320 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2016