Homosexuality and my Dad the preacher.

I’m very nosey. I always have been, and I guess I always will be.

I stood at the door because I wanted to hear. I remember the doctor looking at my mom and saying, “Do you know your husband is a homosexual?” Mom said, “No he's not!” The doctor answered, “He is a homosexual. We also believe that he's HIV positive.” I never heard anything else the doctor or my mom said.

I didn't know what HIV meant. I didn't want anybody to know that I had eavesdropped because I knew I would be in trouble. I went to the library at school and slowly figured out what HIV meant. I knew what homosexual was because daddy had preached against it from the pulpit. I knew it was wrong.

My life spiraled out of control from there. I quit going to school at the age of fourteen. I wouldn't get out of bed. I started eating everything I could find. I gained about fifty pounds in one year. It's still a struggle to this day. I hated life and everything about it. I was admitted to HCA Valley Hospital because I couldn’t function.

I was mad at my dad for destroying my family. He had taught me homosexual behavior was a sin. He had instilled in me that homosexuality was wrong, and suddenly he was trying to get me to justify it. The first night I was in the hospital I began to pray and cry out to God. I was just fourteen. I was still very young. God met me there. Through that situation, I was able to tell my dad that I knew the truth about his sexual preference. He had to sit on a couch and tell me. I was the first one to hear him verbalize the fact that he was gay.

Through all of this, I had so much anger towards my mom. Somehow I needed mom to be mad at him. I needed to see that she acknowledged that he had hurt her. Instead, she showed me the love of God. She showed me that no matter what daddy did, she was going to love him, but she never condoned the sin. Daddy lived that lifestyle until I was twenty years old.

We received a phone call that he had full-blown AIDS. We had two weeks to process the fact that he was dying. Forty-five minutes to an hour before he died, the Lord Jesus Christ had mercy on me. God let my daddy wake up. My pastor was there, my sisters, and my mom. I begged him to repent. He did express repentance. Although he prayed with me I don't know if it made a difference. It did in my mind.

You just have to learn to love people regardless of what they do or what they say. You have to forgive, and that’s a choice.