Trigger Warning: This story contains violence and commonly used anti-LGBT phrases. This story is also purely fiction.

“Good morning Father, thank you for seeing me today. I apologize for the short notice, I just feel like I needed to speak to someone here”.

“What is it my child” the pastor at the table asked in a warming timbre voice.

“I am grieving with the loss of a child, and I need forgiveness” said the older woman.

“Well I can’t say you’ve come to the wrong place. What happened? What is your story?”

“Well, it all started 10 years ago. I had a husband and a son, the perfect family. My son always came straight home from school at 4:00pm and my husband would always come home from work around 5:00pm. My son was a straight A student! I was almost always so proud of him! He not only excelled in academics too, he was the quarterback of his high school football team, and even made it onto his school’s science team. He also was a social butterfly, always bringing friends back to the house, the good kind, the ones you’d take to church. Oh! That reminds me how he loved going to this church, St. Francis. We’d go every Sunday bright and early in the morning. I swear he’d even push me out the door since he was so excited for church”

“He sounded like a bright kid! What happened?”

“One Sunday our church was hosting a guest pastor, I forgot from where. But this pastor gave the most wonderful Christian speech, well, I thought so at the time. He condemned the murdering of the unborn, scorned those that were divorced, and even cursed the gays. ‘It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’ and ‘the definition of a marriage in the Bible is one man and one woman, that’s it!’ he would say. However, as we all clapped and praised Jesus in agreement, I saw my son’s face turn pale, and his body sunk more into the darkly wooded pew. I didn’t know what was wrong. After church at our coffee hour I tried to find him, however he was nowhere to be found. So, I assumed he went home, which was unusual, since he always was hanging around with the guys for an hour after church.”

“Anyway, that night, my now ex-husband, my son and I were as usual eating dinner. My son’s face was still white, I thought maybe he was sick; I could even see his hand shaking when he was having his soup. Then a couple of seconds after that he started to stutter, until I heard the words, ‘I’m gay’”.

“My world fell apart before my eyes at that moment, no grandchildren, no daughter-in-law, no marriage! I raised him in a stable Christian household, but he came out this way. God, why have you betrayed me? My husband’s face turned red in anger, and after a couple seconds broke the cold silence by uttering ‘Then you are no son of mine!’. He then reached across the table, grabbed my son’s collar, and slapped him clear across the face. I stood there in shock for the entire time”.

“I’ll never forget how much screaming there was last night. Between my husband shouting ‘Why do you choose to sin against God? Don’t you know that being gay is a sin! I will beat that sickness out of you, send you to shock therapy if I have to! No son of mine is going to be gay!’. My son’s face overtime began to turn to a dark purple color, made by the various punches and slaps to his face. He then turned to me at one point saying ‘Mama, why won’t you accept me! What happened to the Christian teachings of loving one another, and acceptance! Weren’t we all made in God’s own image!’. I shouted in anger from the hurt he caused me ‘You chose to be that way! How dare you put shame upon this family! Get out of my house! Get out!’”.

The pastor, sitting in silence, had one tear rolling down his face, from eye to chin.

“He then ran towards the front door. The last thing I heard him say was ‘I didn’t choose to be this way, but you chose to hate me!’ and I never saw him again. Those words still haunt me to this day. I cried for 2 weeks after this incident, especially when I knew I had lost my son, he was gone. I started going to church less and less. I started to feel ashamed of myself, ‘why didn’t I believe him’ I said to myself over and over. I finally after 3 months of this was able to come to the realization that I was in the wrong. I had cast out my son for something that God put inside him, something that made him special. And, he was right about our duty as Christians, to love one another as God loves us, no matter who they are. Even Jesus in the New Testament served the poor and outcasts”

“ So, I left my very conservative church, and when I did this, I lost my husband too. You see, my husband didn’t change one bit, and didn’t even feel any sadness when our son disappeared. After this, I just couldn’t look at him the same, so I left the only two things I knew (my church and husband) behind, and moved 3 states away.”

“Well, how did you find your way here then?” the pastor asked with a sympathetic tone.

“I was walking back to my apartment a week ago when I saw a familiar face by this church, something in me said that I needed to go there. So, I’m here”

The pastor sits in silence for a couple moments, absorbing the story. “Well, I…”

A deacon walks in suddenly, “Father, I wanted to ask you about the…”. He freezes, staring at the pastor, then the mother. The Mother looking at his face starts to cry tears of joy.

The pastor smiles and looks at the deacon, “Joe, your mother is crying. Will you please hold her?”