Friends lost upon coming out

Recently I had a wonderful reunion with the children of a dear friend named Lou. My friendship with Lou faded away once I came out and divorced. As we sat on a picnic bench over pints and finger foods, Stacey prodded into tender territory, asking how I’ve been with how an old church cut me off. I was thrown a bit off balance because I've been so careful to not speak of that experience with anyone connected to that church for over a decade. But then it struck me, its been a decade. I can tell my truth.

I can tell my truth.

It was really hard, I said. I lost a friend for no good reason. Tears welled in my eyes as I recalled the camping trips with our kids, boating, laughing, praying, building a community with other folks, that I had shared with her father as we had raised our kids together for years. All that just stopped.

I get it, I said. I used to be the same way, when someone in the church did something we didn’t agree with we would distance ourselves, lest we be seen as endorsing their sin. Plus I had withheld a part of myself from him, and the church and others for years. But I only came to terms with my sexuality after I left leadership in the church. And the struggle to that place was nearly impossible to share with folks whom I used to pastor. But even inadvertently, I lied to him and others along the way, and that is betrayal of a friendship. I get it.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s a shame. It’s stupid. And it’s a waste of lives shared together. I have other friends who have held the tension. I know they don’t endorse my way of living out my sexuality, but they love me nonetheless. It could have been that way with Lou. But he couldn’t move towards me after my disclosure and I feared moving toward him. We were never really good with feeling talk, but I wish we had both tried harder. He has since passed, and we never got the chance again.

Lou’s daughter and son-in-law saw the mutual hurt and loss from a distance, they made space for my version of it. And we were able to remember the best of a faded friendship and grieve the loss that a certain way of doing church caused.

I’m so grateful for Lou. I miss him. I wish we both knew how to stay close with disagreement in relationships better, for there is so much life to share no matter who we are or what we do.

I will walk with you for as long as you need to learn to be yourself, even if your friends don’t like all of you.