Dear 15 year old Timmy,

I just read a book that you would love and hate. Morally, you would be so utterly opposed to this young adult novel that I just read. You’re so young and naive and you think you’ve been wired incorrectly, that God did something wrong to you in the womb. You think you know how you’re supposed to be, to live, to act. But, you’re wrong. You’re attempting to live out a lie, a falsehood. You are, in fact, rejecting God’s good creation when you keep trying to change yourself, make yourself different than the way you were created. Oh Timmy, how can I make you understand?

Read this book. I know, two young men fall in love, and you’re going to be so intrigued and turned on by it, and at the same time you’re going to be disgusted with yourself for feeling that way and therefore, hate the book. But please, read it. Give it a chance. Give love a chance. Give yourself a chance to be a normal teenage boy. You’re growing up too quickly because you’re dealing with pain even grown people shouldn’t have to deal with. You’re trying to ignore and change and tamper with the very fundamentals of who you are. Please stop hurting yourself in the name of God.

I want you to know that there is hope. There is hope when love is shared. There is hope when you learn to love yourself. There is hope when you learn to let that love flow through your freckled face that hates the way the sun kisses you, through your strong legs that run your pain away, through your wrist that you try to keep strong and straight. There is hope when you learn to love the things about yourself of which you are so ashamed. There is hope when you learn to let out those things which are hidden, when you usher them out of the closet no matter what anyone else might say or think.

I want you to know how brave you are. You’ve got more bravery than you know. Let me tell you about all the times you will tell a family member, a friend, a professor, a complete stranger about your sexuality, about your future husband. Let me tell you about the hard conversations that you plow through in the name of love, because that’s what God does, plow through in the name of love. Let me tell you about all the change and growth and goodness that are in store for you. Let me tell you about how it will be so much easier and so much harder than you think. Let me tell you about how beautiful your wedding is going to be, and that you’ll marry a handsome, funny, charming man that you grew to love as more than just a college friend. Let me tell you about how hard it will be to introduce him to your extended family who only knew you as a ‘good little Christian boy’ (implying that Christian and gay don’t go together, which I have now come to believe they most definitely do). Let me tell you how you’ll read this book I’m giving you and it will give you courage to be more yourself than ever before.

You have it in you. And you have it all around you, little Timmy. You have love and compassion and passion and courage and bravery all bottled up inside you for everyone else. Drink deep from that bottle for yourself, for you’ll need it to face the world with all its love and hate. You have all that you need inside yourself and from those around you. You have some strong friends and family to lean on and you’ll find even more friends with an uncanny ability to love, ones that lift you up rather than tear you down. You have people who are going to celebrate with you and mourn with you like you’ve never imagined. Drink it up, because they are good, good people and they will love you well. You have a loving, passionate God who wants nothing more than to see you whole and well and it might hurt like hell sometimes, but cling to God, for God will give you strength. When you want to walk away, remember to always come back (I know you will, since I did), but just know that God loves and heals and mends and makes whole that which is broken. God won’t change your sexuality, because it’s not broken. But, God will mend your broken heart and will heal the hurt from the Church so much so that you’ll go to Seminary and hope to find leadership in a church some day.

I know high school is wonderful and shitty at the same time. That’s okay. I want you to know that it will take time, but life does get better. Just keep learning how to love all the parts of you that you’ve grown up learning to hate. It might take a lifetime to love yourself and be yourself fully, but it will be a life well spent.

I love you dearly,

25 year old Tim