Just had to post and share this. Some friends told me they had to work double duty at a weekend event booth, because one of their members went off for SIX HOURS holding up a sign in front of a Preacher who she felt was sending the wrong message about God.
She shared this on facebook and social media, where it was going viral.
I think she should publish this as an editorial, it is so well written yet
stays true to her religious beliefs as a Christian. Very moving and sincere:
It has taken me several days to process and pray through the events of this past weekend. Today I felt the Lord prompt me to share.
Disclaimer: This is a very long post. (Come on, at least act surprised…)
-For my job, we had purchased a vendor booth at the Houston Pride Festival.
We loaded our supplies in early Saturday morning and then returned at 11 to get in position for the event to start a...t noon. When we got there, we were stopped at the entrance and were told no one could come inside until an inspection was completed.
We were five minutes into our wait with the thousands of other people when we heard a voice.
The voice was that of a preacher on a microphone who had set up across the street in a barricaded area. He began screaming while his colleagues held up signs condemning the people at the festival. He yelled at the crowd with all the passion of a Sunday sermon about how disgusting they were, he told them God could not stand them, and repeated more times than my heart could take, “Shame on you!” They preached hatred, fear and condemnation in ways I don’t even want to repeat to you.
I stood in shock for a few minutes and tears began to form in my eyes, my heart was broken. All I could say to my co-worker was, “This isn’t right. That’s not Him.”
I only vaguely remember the next few minutes because my heart was beating out of my chest as I heard God’s voice in my spirit say, “Tell them.”
So, I grabbed any pen I could find in the bag my co-worker was carrying before he had to go inside, took the giant sign I had bought for the show and ran across the street. I set the sign face down to the blank side and asked what to do next. Immediately, I knew God wanted me to write this, something we talk about at our church a lot….“God is not mad at you”
Terrified and shaking, I went in front of the barricade on the sidewalk and stood in front of the men shouting. I turned to the crowd and help up my sign.
What happened over the next 6 hours has changed my heart forever.
I became the target of the preachers.
They quickly began to address me, shouting condemnation at what I was doing, imploring the crowd of thousands over the loud speakers “Do not read the sign this woman is making” (I had found someone with a sharpie to make it darker and wrote over the words again.)
He told them that I was wrong, that God is absolutely mad at them. He spoke shame onto me the way they had done over the crowd.
How dare I tell them God is not angry at them?
As I stood in silence, the other preachers off of the mic stood behind me yelling at my back across the fence throughout the entire day condemning my actions, asking how I could tell them God is not angry with them when He clearly hates sin. Telling me that I was sending them straight to hell.
I tried to drown them out and as I stared off into the crowd, I began to think about my own sin. I thought about the fact that you could change the name of the sin on those signs they were holding to one of my own and scream the same condemnation. How without the blood of Jesus, the same would apply to me.
But oh, how we have forgotten about the power of the blood of the Lamb.
I would be lying if I told you that it didn’t get to me, their screams of hatred hurt my heart in ways I could never explain. I had to quickly message one of my church leaders for prayer and guidance to navigate what was happening.
Those long hours of being yelled at by my own “brothers” has affected me even into this week. But in a way I am so glad I felt it, experienced it because it is NOTHING compared to what these people have gone through in their lifetime, all at the hands of “little Christs.”
But do you know what was happening while they were yelling?
The people were coming.
These beautiful people started to cross the street to come over to me individually, others in small groups.
Young, old, male and female, atheists and struggling christians, parents whose children had just come out to them...
Most came to ask if they could hug me, others to thank me for the sign or to ask me for a picture, many yelling thank you from across the street with the most open and appreciative hearts. But a handful came weeping that day. Weeping before they even reached where I was standing. Weeping because they had never been told God loved them, weeping because they lived their whole lives believing the lie that their fate was guaranteed hell. Having constantly been berated about how angry He was with them, how disgusting they were to Him and how much God hated them. I could barely take it. The honor of hugging these people, of seeing their beautiful faces, the grief of knowing that they had been told and at times believed that God hated them. That my Jesus has rejected them.
My Jesus?
The Jesus that kept His hand on me through blatant rebellion and deep, intentional sin, the Jesus who delivered me from addiction, the Jesus whose kindness has lead me to repentance over and over and over again.
I tried to take mental pictures, to count, anything I could think of to help me remember their beautiful faces but I lost track after 50 in the stream of hugs and tears and I love yous.
Let me tell you, these were some of the most kind hearted people I had ever met in my life. They blessed me, they gave the best hugs, many brought me water throughout the day when they would come to talk, and everyone of them came with the biggest hearts I have ever encountered.
And all the while this was happening, the hatred continued pouring out of the speakers at deafening volumes. A certain christian man would even come over to stand beside me when I would have conversations with some of them and criticize, accusing me of preaching a false Jesus.
A few hours later, the city crew began preparations for the parade that night. Two police officers approached me and said they were blocking everything off but if I wanted to, I was allowed to stand in front of the boundary fencing. So for hours, while every other preaching protester was behind 2 barricades, I was left standing in the rain on the open, empty street able to hold the sign to be seen by the tens of thousands that continued to funneled through the entrance.
I couldn’t muster anything eloquent or churchy or theological that day, I just told each one as we embraced that Jesus loved them and He wanted a relationship with them. To some I heard the Lord tell me to apologize. Because we as Christians have stood before them as representatives of God and said, “He hates you.”
We have spoken for Him with words that are not His own. We have acted as spoiled, entitled children of God instead of humble sons and daughters, who have forgotten how desperately we need Jesus every single day. Forgotten the cost of our own sins.
We have told them that their sin is worse than ours, that they are disgusting, unlovable, abominations. We have screamed it from microphones, communicated it in dirty judgmental looks and quiet conversations asking them to leave our polite little church congregations. We have sang Reckless Love to each other on Sunday then lived out a “religious love” to the world during the week. We put things on people that Jesus shed His own blood to remove from them.
But how will they ever know the love He has for them? How will they ever know the power of the blood available to them when we act as though we can bag it up like some legalistic blood bank and only give it to those we deem well enough or worthy as if we are the dispensers of it?
Guess what? We’re not.
It’s His love, His blood to share at His will and the Bible says He does not desire that ANY should perish.
I wonder though christians, do we really desire the same thing?
-Update: Since sharing this experience online, I have received numerous angry messages from Christians about my “flippant disregard” for acknowledging sin. About us “God is all love” type Christians and the assumption that they know every single thing we believe regarding salvation based acts of love like this one.
To them I say: We hear you. We do believe that [all] sin is serious, we can quote scripture as well, we can (and would love) to have a civilized conversation with you about the subject of sin but quite simply, Love came first.
So, how about we address them in order?
To the LGBTQIA community: On behalf of every Christian that has mistreated you, we are so sorry.
We love you, God loves you. He wants a relationship with you and so do we.
She shared this on facebook and social media, where it was going viral.
I think she should publish this as an editorial, it is so well written yet
stays true to her religious beliefs as a Christian. Very moving and sincere:
It has taken me several days to process and pray through the events of this past weekend. Today I felt the Lord prompt me to share.
Disclaimer: This is a very long post. (Come on, at least act surprised…)
-For my job, we had purchased a vendor booth at the Houston Pride Festival.
We loaded our supplies in early Saturday morning and then returned at 11 to get in position for the event to start a...t noon. When we got there, we were stopped at the entrance and were told no one could come inside until an inspection was completed.
We were five minutes into our wait with the thousands of other people when we heard a voice.
The voice was that of a preacher on a microphone who had set up across the street in a barricaded area. He began screaming while his colleagues held up signs condemning the people at the festival. He yelled at the crowd with all the passion of a Sunday sermon about how disgusting they were, he told them God could not stand them, and repeated more times than my heart could take, “Shame on you!” They preached hatred, fear and condemnation in ways I don’t even want to repeat to you.
I stood in shock for a few minutes and tears began to form in my eyes, my heart was broken. All I could say to my co-worker was, “This isn’t right. That’s not Him.”
I only vaguely remember the next few minutes because my heart was beating out of my chest as I heard God’s voice in my spirit say, “Tell them.”
So, I grabbed any pen I could find in the bag my co-worker was carrying before he had to go inside, took the giant sign I had bought for the show and ran across the street. I set the sign face down to the blank side and asked what to do next. Immediately, I knew God wanted me to write this, something we talk about at our church a lot….“God is not mad at you”
Terrified and shaking, I went in front of the barricade on the sidewalk and stood in front of the men shouting. I turned to the crowd and help up my sign.
What happened over the next 6 hours has changed my heart forever.
I became the target of the preachers.
They quickly began to address me, shouting condemnation at what I was doing, imploring the crowd of thousands over the loud speakers “Do not read the sign this woman is making” (I had found someone with a sharpie to make it darker and wrote over the words again.)
He told them that I was wrong, that God is absolutely mad at them. He spoke shame onto me the way they had done over the crowd.
How dare I tell them God is not angry at them?
As I stood in silence, the other preachers off of the mic stood behind me yelling at my back across the fence throughout the entire day condemning my actions, asking how I could tell them God is not angry with them when He clearly hates sin. Telling me that I was sending them straight to hell.
I tried to drown them out and as I stared off into the crowd, I began to think about my own sin. I thought about the fact that you could change the name of the sin on those signs they were holding to one of my own and scream the same condemnation. How without the blood of Jesus, the same would apply to me.
But oh, how we have forgotten about the power of the blood of the Lamb.
I would be lying if I told you that it didn’t get to me, their screams of hatred hurt my heart in ways I could never explain. I had to quickly message one of my church leaders for prayer and guidance to navigate what was happening.
Those long hours of being yelled at by my own “brothers” has affected me even into this week. But in a way I am so glad I felt it, experienced it because it is NOTHING compared to what these people have gone through in their lifetime, all at the hands of “little Christs.”
But do you know what was happening while they were yelling?
The people were coming.
These beautiful people started to cross the street to come over to me individually, others in small groups.
Young, old, male and female, atheists and struggling christians, parents whose children had just come out to them...
Most came to ask if they could hug me, others to thank me for the sign or to ask me for a picture, many yelling thank you from across the street with the most open and appreciative hearts. But a handful came weeping that day. Weeping before they even reached where I was standing. Weeping because they had never been told God loved them, weeping because they lived their whole lives believing the lie that their fate was guaranteed hell. Having constantly been berated about how angry He was with them, how disgusting they were to Him and how much God hated them. I could barely take it. The honor of hugging these people, of seeing their beautiful faces, the grief of knowing that they had been told and at times believed that God hated them. That my Jesus has rejected them.
My Jesus?
The Jesus that kept His hand on me through blatant rebellion and deep, intentional sin, the Jesus who delivered me from addiction, the Jesus whose kindness has lead me to repentance over and over and over again.
I tried to take mental pictures, to count, anything I could think of to help me remember their beautiful faces but I lost track after 50 in the stream of hugs and tears and I love yous.
Let me tell you, these were some of the most kind hearted people I had ever met in my life. They blessed me, they gave the best hugs, many brought me water throughout the day when they would come to talk, and everyone of them came with the biggest hearts I have ever encountered.
And all the while this was happening, the hatred continued pouring out of the speakers at deafening volumes. A certain christian man would even come over to stand beside me when I would have conversations with some of them and criticize, accusing me of preaching a false Jesus.
A few hours later, the city crew began preparations for the parade that night. Two police officers approached me and said they were blocking everything off but if I wanted to, I was allowed to stand in front of the boundary fencing. So for hours, while every other preaching protester was behind 2 barricades, I was left standing in the rain on the open, empty street able to hold the sign to be seen by the tens of thousands that continued to funneled through the entrance.
I couldn’t muster anything eloquent or churchy or theological that day, I just told each one as we embraced that Jesus loved them and He wanted a relationship with them. To some I heard the Lord tell me to apologize. Because we as Christians have stood before them as representatives of God and said, “He hates you.”
We have spoken for Him with words that are not His own. We have acted as spoiled, entitled children of God instead of humble sons and daughters, who have forgotten how desperately we need Jesus every single day. Forgotten the cost of our own sins.
We have told them that their sin is worse than ours, that they are disgusting, unlovable, abominations. We have screamed it from microphones, communicated it in dirty judgmental looks and quiet conversations asking them to leave our polite little church congregations. We have sang Reckless Love to each other on Sunday then lived out a “religious love” to the world during the week. We put things on people that Jesus shed His own blood to remove from them.
But how will they ever know the love He has for them? How will they ever know the power of the blood available to them when we act as though we can bag it up like some legalistic blood bank and only give it to those we deem well enough or worthy as if we are the dispensers of it?
Guess what? We’re not.
It’s His love, His blood to share at His will and the Bible says He does not desire that ANY should perish.
I wonder though christians, do we really desire the same thing?
-Update: Since sharing this experience online, I have received numerous angry messages from Christians about my “flippant disregard” for acknowledging sin. About us “God is all love” type Christians and the assumption that they know every single thing we believe regarding salvation based acts of love like this one.
To them I say: We hear you. We do believe that [all] sin is serious, we can quote scripture as well, we can (and would love) to have a civilized conversation with you about the subject of sin but quite simply, Love came first.
So, how about we address them in order?
To the LGBTQIA community: On behalf of every Christian that has mistreated you, we are so sorry.
We love you, God loves you. He wants a relationship with you and so do we.
