Jarom's Story

Jarom reached out to me after coming across this blog and asked if he could share his story. I'm so glad he did. His story is beautiful, thoughtful, and so well written. As we've heard in this blog several times, LGBT Christians often feel cornered into choosing between their faith and sexaulity. Stories like Jarom's show how you can blend faith and sexuality in a way that works for you and live a happy, fulfilling life. Enjoy.

“By their fruits ye shall know them.” It was a simple concept for my teenage self sitting in high school seminary. Good things come from good sources. Actions speak louder than words. It made sense and resonated with me; the Gospel and my relationship with God—the “tree”—brought me peace—the “fruit.” And it was good. That was why I loved seminary. Nevermind that while I sat there, I clutched the side of my desk, doing everything I could to not think about or look at the handsome upperclassman two rows over. From before I can remember, I was told that that was wrong, the wrongest of wrong. That was a “corrupt tree” that would only ever bring forth “evil fruit.”

From an early age, I knew there was a God. I knew He loved me. I knew families were eternal and that mine loved me. I knew there was something special about the Church, its message of the Restoration, and the Book of Mormon. I felt all of it, deep within me, and it felt right. Though I have long struggled with the social requirements and canned platitudes of the Church’s culture, I was able to see past those things because I had tasted the good fruit that came with them. I loved God, I loved the Gospel, and so I loved the Church too.

I was also different, and I prided myself on the many ways I felt different. I thought I was so mature for having no desire to date in high school and before my mission, wisely choosing to avoid the inevitable drama. I would almost gloat that I would never objectify a girl by calling her “hot.” In fact, many of my closest friends were girls, likely because I was sensitive and empathetic. Just because I didn’t feel what other guys my age felt for girls didn’t make me weird. Just different. A few of my male friends I loved fiercely and deeply, sometimes so much it hurt. Sure, that was unusual compared to the casual bro-lationships I noticed around me—I was different. But then there was that annoying tendency to think guys were attractive. That was very different. So different it was weird. I wasn’t gay, of course. The Church taught me that being gay was a sin. I couldn’t be gay. I was just...different. Right? Still, I was frustrated that every handsome boy I encountered seemed to ignite these forbidden desires deep within me. I was terrified those feelings would sabotage my budding relationship with God.

Thus it was that the two halves of who I am at my core—my faith and my sexual identity—were set at war with each other, and I was the only soldier fighting on both sides. When telling myself I was different failed to comfort me, I used the blunt weapons of denial and repression to beat back my “inner demon.” It never worked, and I was inhumanly hard on myself for failing to “overcome it.” Self-loathing, shame, and a crushing, omnipresent fear became constant companions which I believed were the “evil fruit” of my actions. (That was true. I was just wrong about which tree they came from. They were not the natural consequences of being gay but of trying to suppress who I was.) I felt torn in two. I hated that I was constantly on edge, hated that I never felt peace by resisting my feelings, and most of all, hated myself for having those feelings. The worse it got, the more I submerged myself in my faith, finding hope for a God who loved me and a Redeemer who understood me. However, that balm of Gilead was always served with a bitter cup: where I found the Gospel, I also found doctrines, policies, and rhetoric that condemned my flawed nature and perpetuated my self-defeating cycle.

That went on for years, tormenting me throughout my mission and nearly my entire time at BYU. My senior year, I started attending group therapy, and I discovered others like me. That was when I abandoned the term “same-gender attraction” and first called myself gay, which was more liberating than I realized at the time. I had finally found others who understood me. We openly talked about it, removed the stigma and shame, related to one another, and even joked about it. “BYU doesn’t allow me to grow facial hair, so to avoid the appearance of evil, I’m not dating women. Can’t have a “beard,” right?” Our shared laughter was cathartic, a communal release of tense, held breath. But there was also a heaviness to it. While I had support and even found the courage to come out to close friends, I still couldn’t see a way forward. The war between my two selves continued, and I assumed it would my entire life. I would have to white-knuckle my way through it.

When I started medical school, things changed. Outside of the BYU bubble, I started to question and critique my beliefs more than I ever had. I had still been half-heartedly hoping to marry a woman (even though I couldn’t be bothered to ever date any). I decided that wasn’t an option. While I was relieved to finally let go of that fantasy, it left me face-to-face with the stark loneliness of celibacy, and I became more depressed than I had been in a long time. As much as I believed in and loved God, I began resenting Him, irritated at the oblivious, absentee parent who was arbitrarily making me suffer. While I felt close to Him, I also felt estranged from Him. Something about our relationship had never been quite right, like a puzzle piece forced into a space that fits on three sides but not the fourth. I waded through that spiritual angst and depression for several months until one spring evening I had an epiphany: If it came to it, I would choose to be with a man I loved, and still believe in, worship, and nurture my relationship with God. That was what I wanted––what I had always wanted––and suddenly it was possible. I could do both. I didn’t have to choose. The world opened up to me that night.

It was a new, uncomfortable but exciting idea. There were still many unanswered questions. I knew it would require sacrifices, but it also felt more right than anything had for a long time. Amazingly, God seemed okay with it. I slowly, tentatively moved forward, but before I did anything else, I wanted to update my parents. They had known I was gay since after my mission, but we rarely talked about it and only in veiled terms. I thought carefully about how I wanted to reveal it and decided I would just be honest. I especially felt confident about the phrase “nudged by God to date men”––it would assuage their fears that the University of Utah had turned their son into some liberalized, godless homosexual and hopefully give my decision some spiritual credibility. I thought it was fool-proof.

It wasn’t. It would be one of the ugliest altercations I had ever had with them. “Please, just trust me,” I finally said with feigned confidence two hours later, hoping to end the madhouse debate. Their faces darkened, and I could sense their frustrated skepticism, but they were silent. “I know what I’m doing,” I said resolutely, though I began to wonder if I really did.

Having dropped a bomb like that on my parents right before a family vacation, I was then stuck on a cruise ship with them as we toured the Mexican Riviera. On the surface, I enjoyed the white ocean sands and virgin piña coladas, but underneath I was a tangled mess of anxiety, distressed by our uneasy silence on the topic, the uncertainty of my future, and my second-guessing of what had felt so right.

One night, instead of tossing and turning while sleep eluded me, I crept out onto the topmost deck of the ship. The salty breeze rustled my hair as I leaned on the rail and gazed out into the abyss. Black ocean and starless midnight melded into one, and I was unable to tell where earth ended and heaven began. The eerie scene was beautiful, but its vast, unknowable expanse also fueled my rumination. So much is unknown. I need answers, but can I even trust myself? What do I do? The black nothingness of the sea and sky seemed to engulf me, setting me adrift in my own dark ocean of fear and doubt. Then lightning struck.

Standing alone in the darkness, I suddenly wasn’t alone. For just a moment, I felt another presence there with me, distinct from my own, yet so familiar. Just as I became aware of it, it surged over me like a storm wave. I felt peace and understanding, but there were other feelings too, things I would have never considered. I felt God’s unbridled, all-encompassing love for me. I felt that I am indeed gay, a fact He knows well because that is exactly how He made me. It was no mistake, no mortal flaw to be rectified later, no probationary burden to prove my worthiness. It is part of who I am—it always has been and always will be. I felt that what the Church had taught me about homosexuality is emphatically not what He thinks about it nor how He sees it. I was reminded of what I had been feeling before I told my parents and realized He truly had been “nudging” me along the entire time. Once again, but with more clarity and confidence, I felt that He has no problem with me dating men, falling in love, marrying, and raising a family. In fact, I felt that this should have never been an issue or question. He never intended that any of us be told that being gay was wrong. The suffering I and so many others have gone through was never what He wanted.

Reeling from this unbidden flood of communication and divine reassurance, I was amazed. It was in sharp, impossible contrast to what I had always believed about myself because of what I had been told. In shocked disbelief, I asked if everything I was feeling was true, if it was even possible. The answer was a resounding Yes, brazen and firm, yet gentle as the breeze brushing my cheek. Yes, it’s true, and with that, I felt that it was time to trust myself. I needed to stop waiting on others to decide what I believe and how I should live my life. That is all but a part of what I felt, there on the deck of a cruise ship a few miles off the coast of Mexico. Heaven touched earth that night.

That experience has become part of my testimony. Those were the same calming, empowering, exulting feelings that have accompanied other pieces of revealed truth about God, Christ, the Atonement, and the Book of Mormon. There was healing in that experience: the festering wound that had split my soul into two pieces began to mend. These two identities, gay and disciple, long sundered and embroiled in bitter conflict, were bound up with oil and wine. Whole. Intact. Spiritually, things have simply clicked into place since then. I’m closer to God, closer to others, and closer to myself than I have ever been. I am finally excited about life, finally able to breathe and live like everyone else. Growing up, my friends were always so annoyingly distracted by the opposite gender, and now I empirically understand why: I had never felt more alive than I did after the first time I kissed a guy. I couldn’t stop smiling the entire next day. Before, “I Will Always Love You” was decent poetry that I could diva-wail along with in the shower. Now, having finally had my heart broken, its words cut a little deeper and mean a little more. I feel closer to my family because they understand all of who I am now. My incredible parents have grown into gracious understanding and acceptance more quickly than I expected. One month after our argument, they called me out of nowhere to let me know that they love me, they understand me, and they are there to support me no matter what, and they have done just that. I feel very lucky to have them, and I feel closer to them than ever before. Each of these and so much more is a bough of good fruit that has come into my life from accepting myself and living authentically. Good fruit comes from good trees. This could only have come from God.

However, in tandem with renewed spiritual strength and emotional peace are equal measures of doubt and uncertainty. There is no end to the cognitive dissonance. What do you do when you feel one thing but the Church tells you the exact opposite? What do you do when a good tree brings forth evil fruit? I am no stranger to spiritual wrestlings, but they have taken on a different flavor as I have been forced to deconstruct and rebuild the basic tenets of my faith. Most of it I have kept and continue to love, but every now and then there is something that I have to work through. For example, as I’ve sifted through Church history and scripture and tried to make sense of the doctrinal mess around homosexuality, I’ve had to shift my paradigm about church leaders and redefine the word “prophet.” Less “Moses on Mount Sinai” and more “Jonah in the whale,” they are good, even inspired men who are slow to change and don’t always do exactly what God wants. And that’s okay. Though prophets can guide our initial spiritual journeys, I believe in the end God wants us to individually seek and understand truth for ourselves. When Joshua heard that many in the camp of Israel were prophesying, he told Moses to forbid it. Moses’s response has become one of my favorite scriptures: "Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers 11:29).

Most of the time, it works beautifully. In my vacuumized private spiritual petri dish, things have never made more sense, and I am ecstatic about where I am. However, when I emerge from the sterile idealism of my own convictions, things get less comfortable. It’s either a borderline homophobic conference address, or a tired argument from the CES Letter, or a retracted revision to BYU’s honor code, or a rehashed diatribe against the evils of all organized religions. It can be exhausting. In relating to other gay members or former members of the Church, though I find vast stores of empathy for and solidarity with them, I also find discomfort and confusion when our narratives radically diverge. Though the halves of my soul have mended, I still sometimes feel torn in two by the “war of words and tumult of opinions'' all around me. The rhetoric is so divisive: you’re either unquestioningly all in with the Church—no “cafeteria-style” activity—or you’re out and forever a bitter enemy to it. I don’t belong in either of those camps. I’m much happier in the middle. Still, stuck between these two sides, I am often left feeling like a bizarre amalgamation of two incompatible and unrelated species, like a chimera or minotaur: ugly, monstrous, unnatural, misunderstood. And I agree. I am a mythical creature, but lately when I look in the mirror, I’m a different exotic and wonderful breed: I’m a unicorn. And it’s okay to be a unicorn. (It also helps that unicorns are canonically super gay.)

This is where I am, and my story is far from over. For now, I know who I am and in whom I have trusted. I’m a gay disciple of Christ, a queer Latter-day Saint, a homosexual member of His Church, and a “fruit” of His vine. Though much is still uncertain, I’m learning to be comfortable with uncertainty, and I’m confident that I fit into His plan somewhere. I will stand my ground on this middle path I have created at the crossroads of my faith and authenticity where I will wait for further light and knowledge. In the meantime, I am happy and grateful to finally have and love both parts of who I am and to savor the good fruit they bring into my life.