As the New Testament repeatedly affirms, we are all sinners in need of grace. Repentance doesn’t become, then, a dreaded conclusion but a grand redemption. We come to a place of meeting and seeing a God who refuses to leave us to ourselves, and who promises to walk with us as we make those amends and repair the world.

I still call myself gay. That tells you something true about who I love. I also call myself queer. That tells you something true about the God I follow. Not because queerness is the center of the Gospel. Christ is. But the Christ I know has always been found among the people the empire pushes to the margins.

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With all these things, we love the Lord. And with all these things, we love ourselves. And with all these things, we love our neighbors; queer, gay, trans, and anything else. And we honor the choices they make with the bodies, the hearts, the souls, and the strengths God has appointed to them on this side of heaven.

Just imagine if the body of Christ were humbly receiving the dignity and worth conferred by Jesus and holding ourselves with this level of self-compassion. And then turning around and treating every person we encountered with the same. It would be earth-shattering.