Crucible
Written by Kiah — Wisconsin, USA
I am kneeling before a floral ottoman, my notebook open to a blank page. I write in red pen, scribbling a prayer in looping print. Then I whisper it, back bowed over the cushion like a pew. I am a child, desperately crying for an absent Father. I don’t pray often enough, and I never get a response.
I am standing in a church that is not my own. I have never been here before and I never will be again. The heavy choral robe cloisters, the stole uncomfortable at my throat. We are reciting the Apostles’ Creed. The bulletin flops spineless in my hand and I stare at the altar. I have not needed to read the words to this creed in years.
This hasn’t happened yet. I sit cross-legged in my bed, the Bible my grandmother gave me at twelve open beside me. How absurd! An adult reading a children’s Bible. At least I’m reading it. It is Saturday morning and the first thing I’ve done is open my Bible. Who is this girl wearing my skin? Why does she wield a highlighter and pencil? She hasn’t opened this Bible in years and never dared write in it.
Somehow, that girl is me. At twelve, she became aware of her queerness. I don’t know how it began, but I long to trace the daisy-chained events that landed me here until I reach the beginning. I would hold the memory like porcelain and tremble with its weight. I could crush it, change the timeline. It’s no use, though. This is always who I would become.
Realizing I was queer hurt; I was confused and isolated. I knew but one gay person and it was entirely irrelevant to the way I viewed him until my religion teachers began warning me of the dangers of premarital sex, lust, and homosexuality. The unholy trinity, if you will. God looked on, unconcerned.
I found solace online in fandoms, asked Google questions whenever I had them, and filled my vocabulary with the language of social justice and atheism. I was angry, proud, and naive. I reminisce abashedly, but I learned so much through the tension of that time. However, as I’ve matured, I’ve settled, finding peace in the rituals of Christianity.
Prayer, recitation, and devotion are reconnecting me to a faith I thought I’d never return to. I want to reclaim my Christian identity. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I was baptized the day I was born; this faith is essential to me. My queerness is also crucial to my identity, and slowly, I am learning how these puzzle pieces fit together. Initially, disparate pieces jammed where they didn’t belong; bungled prayers and unnatural devotions, relearning the rituals of faith. This friction may never disappear, but I will lean into it. 1 Peter 1:6-7 says, “You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” My faith has been forged in the fire struck between the flint of my religion and stone of my queerness, and through the trials, it will be made stronger than ever. My queerness is not a sin and the tension, the fire, is worship. While the people around me may not affirm me, prayer, devotion, and time alone with God does. I am His daughter, His beloved child, and no one can take that away from me.
