In The Affirmative: With arms wide open

A painting by Wendy's wife Jo. Wendy says ‘This feels like resurrection day.’

OUR MOST READ BLOGGER since 2022 is back with the eighth of a series sharing more of her story. This month she reflects on how she came to know that God’s love is for everyone.

In the Affirmative is a monthly blog from Open Table member Wendy Young who shares her life, thoughts and experience as a queer Christian in Britain. We’d love to hear from you, too: Wendy invites readers to add their responses and reactions as we build community together. You can read the rest of the series here.

“I don’t think I can explain in words the turmoil I went through when I realised I’m gay and the church was telling me I was going to hell. It felt like I was in hell already.”

Recently my wife and I were out and about in Coventry and we went to pray inside the new cathedral, built right next to the ruin of the original which was bombed in 1940. Walking towards the entrance, we each pointed something out to the other: Jo loved seeing the bright blue sky through parts of the ruin and I noticed for the first time a row of fruit trees in joyous white blossom.

Once inside the cathedral, we sidestepped the person on welcoming duty. It’s lovely how eager they always are but we weren’t tourists, and we just wanted to sit and pray for a while. Peace and quiet, that’s what we were longing for. We wanted to hide from the hustle and bustle outside, in an oasis of tranquillity. We wanted to close our eyes and have communion with God, privately and undisturbed.

But in front, next to the lectern, a man was noisily unstacking chairs and lining them up with the 1,800 other chairs already in position. I felt annoyed. Last time we visited the cathedral, two women were having such an animated chat we couldn’t hear ourselves think! Don’t people know churches are holy and sacred spaces?!

Having given up on praying, I looked up to my left and noticed one of the many stone plaques on the walls. Carved into this one was a shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulders, his strong arms raised, keeping the animal safe from falling. The inscription read: ‘The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.’ (Luke 19:10)

It felt like the shepherd was asking me: ‘Don’t you know churches are for everyone, especially those who don’t know Me?’ In that moment I realised I needed to rethink my attitude to what was going on around me.

A few days before, someone in one of my WhatsApp chat groups asked what the most difficult thing about Christianity was for each of us. My response was immediate: ‘I don’t think I can explain in words the turmoil I went through when I realised I’m gay and the church was telling me I was going to hell. It felt like I was in hell already.’ I was referring to when I was a teenager and to the 20-plus years of rejection and hurt and heartache that followed, until I found a church with a difference: a community who know they were for everyone.

The WhatsApp question made me wonder momentarily why I hadn’t simply given up on Christianity, after what I had been through. The reply to that came quickly too: I believe with all my heart that Jesus is the Christ. That makes me a Christian, so the difficulty is not with Christianity as a faith but with what churches and Christians do with it. Jesus, the God who came to live among us as a human and died because of crucifixion, died with His arms open so wide that the weight of his body, coupled with the strain of the cross and the nailed wrists, could have caused his shoulder joints to dislocate.

Soon it will be Easter - school holidays, days off work, family get-togethers, too much chocolate… There will be Good Friday and Easter Sunday and as Christians we will know what words and phrases to utter to each other, as we have done according to our church tradition for many years.

But what if someone new walked into church on Good Friday and I had to explain to them why we were commemorating an execution? What if, on Easter Sunday, someone were to ask me ‘Excuse me, who “is risen”?’

If they had more than just a few fleeting moments, I hope I would take the opportunity to tell them how I ‘came to faith’ (more churchy jargon). I say I believe with all my heart that Jesus is God, so how did I come to believe this?

When I was a kid in South Africa, at my school’s weekly assembly one Friday, the person delivering the message was talking about submitting to God’s authority. My heart was pounding inside my chest, and I couldn’t understand why. I had been born and raised in this faith. As a young child, I knew all the answers at Sunday school. God’s salvation to all of humanity through the death of Jesus wasn’t new to me. Yet on that morning, something clicked and, for the first time, I felt the true meaning of this salvation.

This sudden acknowledgement carried me to the front of the hall. Before I really knew what was happening, I was standing among a group of my peers praying out loud. My experience was deeply visceral. (Please know I am not  saying it has to be like this for everyone. God finds each of us where we are and gives us what we need most).

What I was given was an undeniable encounter in the presence of God. It felt like I was small and alone and naked and completely seen and known by the God who created and sustains everything. All powerful. All present. All knowing. And with arms held open wide to draw me close. There was nothing else I could do but say: ‘Yes, I submit. My life is in Your hands, of course it is. Do with me whatever You please; You are God.’

That was 18 March 1994. On a crisp spring morning in Coventry 31 years later, a stone plaque reminded me that I don’t have the monopoly on time with God. God is for everyone.

This Easter weekend Jo and I will be visiting family. We plan to visit their local church on both Friday and Sunday, but during the whole weekend I hope that what we say or do might encourage someone who is not a Christian to see the open arms of God and think to themselves: ‘I want to be drawn close’. 

Wendy