Don't Run From Pain. Let God Be Your Endurance

Finally, I have stopped running. I hate pain and misery with every fiber of my being. Consequently, I love love, again, with every fiber of my being. My eyes tear up when I watch a show where two people finally decide to hear each other and their hearts are filled with peace. I have known since I was a child that I do not belong on this earth, it is foreign to me. As such, I doubt that I will ever find my home. But God has and had a plan for me and I knew of it from an early age. I did not despise the plan, in fact I desired it, but I did not want it. I wanted to leave this earth because of the needless and human inflicted pain and suffering. 

I never considered myself a warrior, spiritual or any other. My heart was too frail. It was not built for willful misunderstandings, arguments and disdain. It was not created to endure anger and hatred, strife and malevolence. I often cried out to God that all of it was too much for me, and why were THEY torturing me so? “Also, why make me gay knowing who I am? I’m not a fighter, I am a peacemaker. The LGBTQ+ community is constantly under fire and it’s thanks to crazy people willfully misinterpreting the Bible and they do so in YOUR name. I cannot fight that, I am too weak.”

Time after time, just like countless others, I was bombarded with insults and injuries done to my fellow brothers and sisters from all walks of life and I just did not want to be here anymore. But there’s a gospel song that I kept close to my heart that says, “God kept me, so I wouldn’t let go.” Never have words been so sincere. I would have let go, but God kept me. Why would God force me to go through this? “What have I done to YOU? I do nothing but try and accomplish what is good and just and this is my reward?” Yes, I fuck up… constantly, but not willfully, it’s not in my heart. I am usually reacting to outside circumstances which make no sense at all.

Then, not more than a month ago, I finally stopped running. I don’t remember exactly how it happened but I know that I was crying out to God constantly. Suddenly, I said, “Fine. This pain and suffering is ever present. Whether I do good or not it is prevalent. I do not know why I have to endure it but if I must, God, then teach me to walk beneath your wings, and always with my heart actively on YOU.” And it was so. I’m not running anymore. The battle is going to come, and it is already here but God will keep me, as THEY have done these many years.

I have experienced the hand of man and it is death. We focus on desperately trying to get that job, or trying to make this much money or get that award. It is exhausting and soul crushing and I hate it. This isn’t to say that it’s not fun to want those things or even go for them. The world was created for us to enjoy and we create things that we enjoy. But my focus can no longer be desperation or surviving. My focus has become, “[when] I walk through the valley of the shadow of death [even then] I will fear no evil.” Whether I am abounding or whether I am in the straits, my peace remains with me because I know and I believe that God has me. And if it is time to lay for rest, may God’s peace be with me even then. 

God promised hard times multiple times throughout the Bible. It is necessary, I understand now, to go through them. Because it is then that you see the wickedness of this world and its corruption. But even if that is the case and the earth is filled with evil, the grace of my God fills it so much more. It was never God’s intention that I leave the battle. It was God’s intention that THEY take me through it. And that is what THEY are doing, and I am glad.