God of life, God of death? What is blasphemy?

It is staggering to me, the amount of turmoil my heart is thrown into when speaking of sexuality. I sat in a coffee shop in a Southern town just now with my parents. As is custom, the talk of religion and politics swept through our conversation. My father can speak so frankly about such things. About things changing, about Christianity being more and more outcast, pushed out of government. We do not disagree about this. It is true, but our reaction to it is so different.

What of Christianity falling out of social norms? I praise God for it. The blasphemy that cultural Christianity is makes my heart sink and my blood boil as it is. My father is outraged, while I rejoice at its decline.

And of homosexuality, as he speaks the word with disdain, as if it is unclean to even say. My heart breaks at this. And my heart sinks as a friend, Tina, the owner of the coffee shop we are patroning sits in earshot of us. My father declaring this abomination and that, how the homosexuals are taking over and everything is becoming perverted.

I am ready to vomit at this point, paralyzed in humiliation and broken hearted. Am I supposed to feel as my father does? Jesus wants wholeness and holiness and restoration for us all. Must I hate all that is not perfect? I would be gnawing my own arm off and pulling my teeth out and poking my eyes out and cutting my tongue out if this were true. Wait, isn’t that spoken somewhere, that I ought to be doing such?

It is true. I am to hate my own sin, to hate sin, to grieve for all that is imperfect. But to raise a stone? A word against another loved by God who does not recognize such love? Surely this is blasphemy? And so I weep, and so my heart breaks and I sit in a cold sweat, praying she does not hear his words. To speak them to her, to sit for long hours and live life together, to earn her trust in love, and then to speak in truth and grace- yes yes yes, my heart lifts at that. But to sit in chairs she bought, drinking coffee she invested in, in her shop that has held so many dear conversations for me- and to speak words that carry no love around her and towards her- no. My heart cries out.

I am stricken with grief and fear. Am I afraid of truth? Does the world whisper sweet nothings in my ear and am I aroused? I do not know, Jesus, I do not know. I know only that I want wholeness and life and you in all things. And this place, this earth is so broken, so infested with hate and death and I mourn for it. I scream out it is not your will, but I am silenced by angry mobs who shout your sovereignty. And I cry out that you are God and author of LIFE, and they cry back that I am prideful and lukewarm and misguided.

I do not understand. My God, my God I do not understand. Who are you in all of this?