TO THE CHRISTIAN PARENTS WHOSE CHILD JUST CAME OUT

Dear Parent,

I imagine you are feeling an overwhelming mix of emotions: confusion, worry, fear, and maybe even regret. Please let me speak to those and may these words land on open hearts.

If you’re confused and worried you’ve done something wrong, please drop that narrative as soon as you can. It’s allowing your child’s coming out to be about you and I need you to know that it’s not. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with them. Their queerness was not built by anything you created. Your hands were not in it. Please release them from their fists, their position of prayer, or whatever expression of tension, and let that go.

You’ve done nothing to create this.

If you are worried for their faith, it pales in comparison to the worry they have already felt. Again, not about you. Your child has a remarkable journey ahead of them, where they will learn how endless God’s love is for queer ones. They will learn how beautifully they were designed in God’s image. They will learn how treasured they are. They will learn their faith is boundless.

I only hope you can join them on this journey.

If you are fearful of their physical safety, while rightfully valid, it’s not the time to go into hate crime statistics. Their emotional safety is the priority. Have you offered them mental health services for their healing on this journey (not because you think it will make them not queer)? Have you asked if they are considering hurting themselves? Have you asked how they are, because again – it’s about them?

If you’re worried about their safety, what are you going to do to make the world safer for them?

If you’re feeling regret, thinking of who you’re child could have been compared to what they are now, please read this next sentence as a gift.

They are the same child.

You are learning about them in a more honest, authentic way. Be grateful they chose to let you in. You are learning them more and that should be exciting to witness. You may think they have changed, but they will still laugh at your corny jokes and still need rides to dance class. They haven’t changed, but they are beginning to trust you and themselves more. How beautiful. How mature. How gracious. How fragile.

Parent, no one is questioning your love. We are questioning your next move. Move from your deep, endless love, rather than the finite fear.

Your child needs that.

Holding tight to hope,

Liv 

And in the spirit of letters, here is one I wrote for my 18 year old self.

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