Post by Susan Peabody on Aug 19, 2020 21:43:58 GMT
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” John 13:34
“But Ruth replied, Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth 1.
I joined the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the 1980's to help my daughter care for my granddaughter. I agreed with the tenets, but not with the traditions which included homophobia and sexism. Still, I was baptized and happy.
In 2008, I was a volunteer at a nursing home. This is where I met Sandra. She was beautiful, kind, generous and lived in pain because of broken back and the loss of her right leg.
Sandra and I really got to know each other over the next few months, and I was very fond of her. One day she was late for our meeting and I was nervous. When she finally arrived my heart skipped a beat. I loved to look and her and our goodbye hugs were so satisfying.
Within a few months I realized that I had crossed a forbidden and invisible line that I did not coming. I was in love with Sandra. I had romantic, but not sexual feelings, for my friend.
I was fifty six at the time and it just so happened that I had never had anyone love me. Even my mother often told me she did not like me. So I was thrilled when Sandra confessed that she loved me too.
We were so happy that I wanted to tell the world. My first stop was my pastor. I just assumed he would be happy for me. He was not. He told me my feelings were like Eve taking the forbidden fruit. My feelings, he said, were wrong and they were a sin.
The next thing I knew my daughter asked me to come into the church for a family conference. When we met I was told that I could never see my grandchildren again if I did not give Sandra up. I offered to keep the relationship a secret and my daughter said, “You can’t hide your feelings mom. You radiate love for this woman. You can see it all over your face.”
So here I was faced with a choice between the love of a woman and the love of my daughter. I chose Sandra and we were together until she committed suicide. But not before I was shunned by the church.
I am telling you this because I think what happened to me was unfair and it goes against the most important commandment Christ left for us. To love one each other so that others will know that we follow Christ.
Until the Seventh Day Adventists get back to this basic tenet they have lost their way. It is not loving to shun and ban people. It is not loving to judge people and bar them from communion. This is not what Christ wants from us.
Addendum
I miss Sandra to this day. She is the one I think about when I think of my soul mate. I am not sure why she was so special except to say we were so much alike emotionally.