Since I’ve been back home the last few weeks, people have been asking for stories from the road of the Refocusing My Family tour. While I’ve loved all the people I’ve met and each unique story I’ve heard, one of my favorite stories so far comes from a trip I took in mid-November.
As a young girl, I was part of a girls group we fondly called the Green Gable Girls (a reflection of our favorite story, Anne of Green Gables). It started when I was in the second grade and continued all the way until I graduated high school. Over time, I have lost touch with a number of those girls for varying reasons, but since coming out, I’ve been able to rekindle a healthy adult relationship with three of them who have all been supportive of my relationship with my wife.
One of these girls and I didn’t reconnect until after my wife and I got married, but we had the honor of attending her wedding in the fall of 2016. While at the wedding, I saw my friend’s parents (who were close family friends growing up) for the first time since coming out. They’ve been nothing but kind to both Clara and I since getting reconnected and at the wedding, her dad even admitted through misty eyes, “I don’t understand, but I love you.” That right there opened the door for deeper conversation, and so, the rekindling of a friendship with them began.
We live in different states, so the start of our renewed relationship mostly happened via Facebook as we got acquainted with where each other was in life. But when when I booked a tour stop in their hometown, they offered to let me stay with them, and I accepted. I had no idea how healing that weekend was going to end up being, both for them and for me. In the week leading up to my visit, they wrote me and said, “We read your book and it has completely changed our mind on LGBT people and the church.”
Nothing could have been more encouraging or validating than hearing those words from someone who was a part of my former life and was acquainted with the world in which I grew up.
In the couple short days we had together, we spent many hours in deep, rich conversation about life and faith, we asked questions, we began catching up on the many years of life we’d been out of touch for, and they lent their support by attending both my events in the area that weekend. For me, this is my favorite tour story so far.
To see a couple of family friends from my youth become allies in my adult life, has perhaps been one of the most redeeming and rewarding moments for me since this journey began.
I’ve heard many powerful stories of how my book has changed people’s lives and families, and each one has touched my heart, but because this story is so personal to me and the journey I’ve walked, it has made it that much more healing for my soul.
I don’t have many stories like this, so for me, it was a bit of a Christmas miracle.
2017 has divided our country and its people in so very many ways. So many families torn because they stand on opposite political parties and so many harmful things done in the name of what’s “right” and “godly.” We need more redemptive stories like this one I’ve written about here. We need more relationships restored and more hearts healed.
But while we work (and sometimes wait) for those to happen, let me leave you with the inspiring words of this Christmas hymn…
This last Monday, I watched The Voice finale as each of the finalists gave stunning performances. But when Brooke Simpson sang “O Holy Night,” the lyrics to the second verse grabbed my heart and anchored me with a fresh dose of hope. The words reflected a much more accurate view of who I believe Jesus is and what the gospel represents (or should represent) in our world today:
Truly, he taught us
To love one another
His law is love
And his gospel is peace
Chains shall he break
For the slave is our brother
And in his name
All oppression shall cease
Oh how our world needs this kind of hope: a hope where the message that we speak is one of peace (not distension), where the law of our lives is love, and where all oppression ceases as a result of our radical and Christ-like inclusion of one another.
And so as we go into the Christmas weekend, may the lyrics to that verse anchor your heart as well, and may the miracle of Christmas through Christ’s birth make its way even deeper into our everyday lives in the coming year.
Because Love Makes All the Difference,
Amber Cantorna
*To see Brooke’s performance of O Holy Night on The Voice finale, click HERE.