Met a new friend

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Met a new friend
I met an amazing guy here today and we have become friends, I believe. We are both quite spiritual. He is a devout Christian, which I have no problem with. Just wonder how he will react when he finds out I am gay. My track record with people like him is dismal. We shall see. He is a really good guy.
 
If your new friend has LOVE in his heart (and God is Love) he will love you and accept you for who you are.... but I, sadly, know exactly what you are talking about.
 
It always makes me smile when I hear about new connections, as me so often we are alone, even if we are surrounded by people. When men click and they become friends, it means 2 more people are not alone.
 
I feel a kinship on this site as we are all survivors. I have been on this site for less than 2 months and am surprised at myself that I have shared over 100 posts in which I have bared my soul more to this community than I have in "real life" to most people (A handful of people know my true history). While I feel a "kinship" and a camraderie on this site, I was surprised to learn that there are significant differences in how survivors interpret the impact of being raped and/or sexually abused. And, sadly for me, while I feel close to many posters on this site, no one here is someone I know personally - i.e. I do not know anyone from this site in my "real life". Conversely, in my real life, I feel pretty much friendless. I am blessed to be married, the father of two sons and grandfather of two grand daughters and one grand son. I have one surviving sister and one brother. I only recently told my sons and siblings about my CSA - I had temendous trepitdation about telling them - but I am so glad that I did and was so happily surprised that they believed me and still love me. Aside from this, though, no friends... I have work colleagues to whom I felt close, but no true friendships (I am retired although I work per diem occassionally - and everyone says how much they like me and commend me for my work, but still no real life friends). Anyhow, it is nice to meet new friends even if it is a "virtual" friend (someone we only know online). I consider all postings of support as well as testimonies of lived experience as signs of friendship. I know I am not alone in being an idealist - and the ideal I had for this site was that there should be harmony but have found out differently - and those differences allow us to grow in our mutual understanding and compassion for each other... However, it does hurt when others fail to believe us - especially when their disbelief is only due to the fact that we do not meet their preconcieved idea of how we should be who we are - and our sexuality is sometimes confusing to even ourselves and due to societal and "religious" influences, we sometimes reject ourselves and/or others -this should not be so - we should accept and love ourselves and, in turn, accept and love others. I start to hate myself when I see, for example, how long my postings (such as this one) become too long. Also, and more to the point, I feel I am only beginning to understand who I am as a sexual being without feeling guilt and shame about who I am. Thus, I firmly believe and strongly feel that we are compelled to accept and love others as they are - and to know that God loves us as we are - and this is often obscured by societal pressure and "religious" ignorance - even tragically sometimes, hatred/rejection by God professing people.
 
I don't think he will care. If he is a true Christian, he will love you and accept you for who you are. No judgement or condemnation.
 
I hope you are pleasantly surprised and you find out you have a new friend. Friendships are so important and especially if you can be open and honest about who you are. Good luck.
 
I met an amazing guy here today and we have become friends, I believe. We are both quite spiritual. He is a devout Christian, which I have no problem with. Just wonder how he will react when he finds out I am gay. My track record with people like him is dismal. We shall see. He is a really good guy.

Jaxson in this day and age it doesnt matter ones sexuality,
 
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Jaxson

Meeting and connecting with new people can be exciting. I have found my ability to see through how they think and believe has improved during healing. I find myself gravitating to people who are kind, compassionate and understanding. I find myself being able to move from those who are mean spirited, condensing and ready to cause trouble for others. Maybe it has taken me a lifetime or maybe the abuse had brought me to people who did not have these attributes. I believe no one is this world is unscathed as a a child. A child learns from their childhood how to treat people, prejudices, opinions. I do hope your new friend is accepting because there are good people of all shades, faiths, orientations, etc as there are bad.

Kevin
 
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My experience is the majority are. I didn't say they all were. I know better than that.
Public examples of both types of Christians are my choice for our next President: Mayor Pete Buttigieg who is a devout Christian and VP Mike Pence who professes also to be a "devout Christian" Which one of these two is loving his neighbor? - In my view it is Mayor Pete whose love is inclusive and not Mike Pence whose faith is exlusive - I am not judging these men, I am sharing my observations and saying that I hope that Jaxson's new friend accepts him and loves him as he is - just as God loves us... our desire is to be fully known and fully loved - and we are by God and, in turn, we are to be vessels of that love for all others.
 
I have never heard a Christian sentence out of Mike Pence, just this weird smirk when ever he speaks. Mayor Pete makes mistakes but like a man he accepts responsibility for them and logically spells out his agenda without compromising his devout belief, Mayor Pete is a man I am proud to point out to my sons as a good Christian man, a noble one, though with flaws like every human.

Just my opinion...
 
I have never heard a Christian sentence out of Mike Pence, just this weird smirk when ever he speaks. Mayor Pete makes mistakes but like a man he accepts responsibility for them and logically spells out his agenda without compromising his devout belief, Mayor Pete is a man I am proud to point out to my sons as a good Christian man, a noble one, though with flaws like every human.

Just my opinion...
Agreed - however it is well known that Mike Pence professes to be a Christian and, as such, is a good example (in my opinion) of the type of “Christian” to which Jaxson was referring - and furthermore most “Christian” denominations exclude (among others) gay people
 
From my experience there are a spectrum of Christians just like with any group. You have conservative, progressive, eastern, western and many other different sects. I'm sure what bothers people are those who think that they are 'in with' God and everyone else is excluded who do not agree. I've become more of a universalist over the last few years. This has come about for a multitude of reasons and experiences. One was going to a 12 Step addiction group where I saw people approach God from all different perspectives and received healing. There is room in heaven for everyone.
 
Our example fortunately is not man, any man, it is Christ, looking to any person to represent ANY faith will always lead to disappointment. For we all are human.

I am not one to get into a political debate, I believe God knows both the hearts of these menfor that I am grateful, but my hope is not in a political party and it certainly is not in Washington.

We are told where our hope should be, in Him.

Sawyer
 
Our example fortunately is not man, any man, it is Christ, looking to any person to represent ANY faith will always lead to disappointment. For we all are human.

I am not one to get into a political debate, I believe God knows both the hearts of these menfor that I am grateful, but my hope is not in a political party and it certainly is not in Washington.

We are told where our hope should be, in Him.

Sawyer
You are absolutely correct. Our hope is not in any man, our hope is in God, who, through Christ, lives in the hearts of all whose faith enables him to abide in God’s presence… and through such abiding allows to Christ to live in us and through us to do what? To spread His Love to others – that is the point.

The examples I gave of public men is meant to depict the difference between professing Christians whose works yield the differences which left the original poster of this thread to state: “He is a devout Christian, which I have no problem with. Just wonder how he will react when he finds out I am gay. My track record with people like him is dismal. We shall see. He is a really good guy.”

It is evident that the majority of Christian denominations in the United States indeed have a “dismal” record of accepting and loving gay people. This is not political. This speaks to the differences in the heart of one who lives in love (allows God to live in and through him) and one who has “hardened his heart”.

“Our hope should be in him” and this hope should be evident in our fruit – our deeds – deeds which accept truth, deeds of compassion, deeds that include others – not deeds that exclude others -
 
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