What Would I Do If My Daughter Told Me She Was Gay?
This post is not what it appears to be.
It’s actually about every kind of overwhelming sin desire you (and I, and our kids, and our spouses, and our friends) will ever experience. It’s about that thing that tends to grip our hearts and makes God seem distant. If we are honest, we all have one or more of them at any given time.
So be brutally honest and approach this as a fill-in-the-blank discovery exercise. If you do, you might find the next three minutes to be some of the best you’ve ever spent on a blog. Why? Because it shows you how to apply the Good News where it’s needed most.
You are the daughter in the story. The Father is the father.
This was written by Stephen Altrogge, from one of my favorite blogs, The Blazing Center.
What Would I Do If My Daughter Told Me She Was Gay?
by Stephen Altrogge
My oldest daughter, Charis, is four, so hopefully we’re a little while away from having any sort of sex talk. But at some point in the future I’m sure I’ll be talking to Charis, along with the rest of my kids, about sexuality, and there’s the possibility that one of my kids will experience homosexual attraction.
What would I do if Charis told me that she was experiencing homosexual attractions?
The first thing I’d do is give her a giant hug and tell her that nothing, nothing, nothing can ever change my love for her. She’s my precious little girl, and nothing is ever going to change that. I’d thank her for telling me about her feelings and tell her that she can always tell me anything, no matter how big or small. I want my kids to feel comfortable telling me anything, and to know that I won’t get angry with them no matter what they tell me.
I’d tell her that God loves her even more than I do. He created her in his image, and because of that, she is precious to him. He sent his son to die for her sins, which also proves that she is precious to him.
Then I’d tell her that if she follows Jesus, her sexuality is not her identity. Her identity is rooted in Christ. She is a child of God who has the Holy Spirit dwelling in her. Her fundamental identity is not her sexual desires, her fundamental identity is as a forgiven sinner, united to Christ, full of the Holy Spirit. That’s what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when he said:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
I’d say, “Sweetie, if you follow after Jesus, your identity is as a new creation in Jesus. These desires that you’re experiencing don’t define who you are. Jesus defines who you are. You are his. You belong to him. That is your identity. It’s who you are.”
Then I’d gently take her hand and say, “Charis, following Jesus is really costly. Jesus even said that we have to die to ourselves. He said we have to take up our cross and follow him. That means submitting every facet of our lives to King Jesus, including our sexual desires. If you’re going to follow Jesus, you’re going to have to submit these desires to Jesus. You can’t give in to them because the Bible says that any sexual expression outside of a marriage between a man and a woman is wrong.”
She might ask, “Will God take these desires away from me?”
“I don’t know,” I’d say. “But I do know this – he’ll give you the power not to give in to them. That’s the beauty of the gospel. Jesus forgives all of our sins and then gives us the power not to give in to our sinful desires. And it will be hard, and it will be costly, and there will be times when you will feel lonely, but Jesus is worth it. He is so worth it. When you hear Jesus say, ‘Well done good and faithful servant’, it will be worth it!”
“But why do I have these desires?” she might ask.
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