Another Anonymous Comment

This was posted to one of my archived blogs yesterday:

This is a sad story and an even sadder situation that you as a group would think that the Almighty Saviour, that shed His blood for you and me, would except this sin that you have chosen for your lifestyle and to convince others that God made you this way. It is true that he loves you but it is still true that he hates sin, without respect of person.

I think I've said everything I can say about this sentiment, but it continues to rear its ugly head. And it's nearly always anonymous, which seems to suggest an interest in venting more than it does an interest in opening up a dialogue. Oh well. What can ya do.

We just added a new forum on jenaustin.com and I will post this comment there as well. (http://www.jenaustin.com/forum) Let's talk about it! I'm assuming it will take awhile to build a community around the forum, but it could end up being a great place for discussion. I hope you'll take a minute to create a login, and check back often. Go crazy nuts with your thoughts if you want.

For now, let me just say how happy I am to be part of God's gay Christian creation. It's a great, happy story! Blessings...

Thank you

Thanks for the positive feedback so far about the book and the store. It means a lot. Without you, this gravy train would derail! So thanks. We'll keep on keepin' on.

One of the messages that you'll find in the book, is that it is indeed possible to maintain an attitude of strength, grace, and security in God, even in the face of condemnation. There will always be people who don't quite get what it means to be both gay and Christian, and that's okay. It doesn't have to affect our faith.

I ran across a cool quote a little while ago as I was organizing some old papers. I don't know who to credit it to. It says:

"When life makes you have to put up with mean and hateful people, just think of 'em as sandpaper. They may scratch you and rub you the wrong way, but eventually you end up smooth and polished. And the sandpaper is just going to be worn out and ugly."

I love that. It's ironic, but a little friction usually ends up benefitting the target or the victim, while it nearly always destroys the agressor. As gay Christians, if we end up smooth and polished, we'll be bright shining examples that the grace of God wins over judgment and condemnation every time. That's a pretty cool promise.

Anyway, thanks for the love and support. We're all in this together.

Thank GOD! The store is done.

We were finally able to publish the store at jenaustin.com this afternoon, so if you're interested in the book, please visit the website or click on this link:

http://www.jenaustin.com/shop/

I think I may have stressed myself right into strep throat, but by golly the store is done! :-) My strep test today at the doctor was negative, but they sent it in to the dreaded lab to see if I have an unusual strain. Somethin's going on in there. Almost all of my caloric intake over the past three days has come in the form of Halls and Chloraseptic lozenges, coffee, and hot tea. Yum yum.

I know I first mentioned this book to some of you back in 2002, and I sincerely appreciate your continued interest and patience as this semi-painstaking process has moved along. This is only the beginning!

The latest

Haven't had a whole lot of time to post lately because all of my free time has been eaten up with configuring the store that will hold the book at jenaustin.com. My head may explode! So far I'm still in one piece. Just waiting on the SSL Certificate now. I'm still hoping to have the store up by the end of the week.

The latest 20Something study has been posted at http://coh20something.blogspot.com.

This covers the 4th Agreement, Always Do Your Best. Precisely! It's not striving to achieve perfection, but committing to an attitude of excellence in all things. It's sure to be a great discussion tonight.

The book has been released!

Coming Out Christian is available now!

We will have a store up at http://jenaustin.com/ very soon and that will be credit-card enabled, but if you would like to send a check now, please email me at jen@jenaustin.com and I will respond within 24 hours with an address to mail payment. We are accepting paypal right now as well.

The cost is $15 per book. Texas residents pay 8% sales tax, which is $1.20 per book. Right now, shipping is a flat rate of $5.00. (Unless you order 4 copies or more.) If you live in the Dallas area, arrangements can be made for pick up to avoid shipping costs.

At last! The process has been lengthy, but it all worked out at the right time. Thanks for your patience.

Barbaro is getting better

Prayer works. On people, on horses, perhaps even on little gnats if we all stopped long enough to toss up some words on their behalf.

There was an article on ESPN.com today that said Barbaro has actually been getting some fresh air lately, grazing outside his stall in the horsey ICU. He's been picking his own grass and stretching his recovering legs, albeit for just fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, but progress is progress. Of course, they have to say he's not out of the woods yet, but at least they aren't talking about putting him down in the next 24 hours anymore.

I wonder if Jesus healed any camels back in the day. I would be willing to be he did.

I'm going to tell my little schnauzers to keep on praying for their animal friend Barbaro, and then perhaps we'll all move on to gnats. But those are so small we probably wouldn't be able to tell whether or not the prayer was working. But I digress.

Continued wellness, Barbaro.

Stopping to smell the roses

I'm working a different shift this week and I'm under a mountain of things to do, but I'm pausing right this minute to stop and smell the roses, appreciate the good things, and practice a general attitude of gratefulness. I love God and I'm happy to be alive and have the opportunity to do good things. Sometimes I just need to say it out loud.

And Schafer, my co-worker at Mix 102.9, just brought me a Carmel Light Frappuccino from Starbucks. Much to be grateful for I say!

Baseball, brats, and balance

Since I started my new job with Mix 102.9 in May, I've been working every other Saturday or so, sometimes with a two-hour promotional appearance first, and then a 3-7pm air shift. I love my job of course, but it's always nice to have weekends off.

Nothing scheduled this weekend, so Angela and I are going to make the most of it. We're gettin' silly! We love going to Rangers games and they're out of town this weekend, so we're going to make our living room into a ballpark. We're going to set up some faux stadium seats (don't ask me how, but Angela swears she will come up with something innovative). We're going to make brats or nachos or something else that won't cost $7 but serves the same ballparkish purpose, and we might ask the dogs to walk through the crowd (or lack thereof) to bring us a beer. Pure silliness I say. Well, it won't be all silliness. Angela is learning how to be an official baseball scorekeeper, complete with K's for strikeouts and FC for fielder's choice, so there will be some serious work to do. I may keep track of pitch count and batting average. We're insane! And I've never been happier. We're blessed to have the quality time. And perhaps this type of innovative play time means we're ready to become parents. I hope we have a sports fan.

Sunday my webmaster and her partner are coming to our house to finalize plans for the store that will be up on jenaustin.com in the next week or two. For some reason, the thought of having a store there scares me. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the book being released soon (around Labor Day weekend), but with that comes a whole lot of responsibility and I don't want to do anything wrong with sales tax, etc. We have to set up the store and test it so it won't add sales tax to orders in Illinois, but it will add sales tax to orders in Texas, etc. I've been working on books for over four years, but the business part is new to me. But I know God has brought everything to this point, and although parts of the path are still unclear to me, I'm forging ahead knowing that clarity will follow. It always does.

Other things we're adding to jenaustin.com in the next few weeks: a new forum so ya all can take ownership and become part of the online community, a gameroom so you can kill time at work, and a new announcement section on the front page that will include my radio outings and charity appearances around Dallas-Fort Worth. So new things are coming. In the meantime I'm stressed! As this whole thing grows, I'm feeling increasingly naked and out of control. Which scares me even more, because that's evidence that God has me right where he wants me.

All the more reason to enjoy the baseball and brats this weekend! Thank God for outlets. And balance. Enjoy your weekend...

20Something 8-2-06

Tonight's 20Something study has been posted here:

http://coh20something.blogspot.com

This is the third study in a series The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. This is the one I struggle with the most--making assumptions!

Already this week I've made these ridiculous assumptions:

A co-worker thinks I'm an over-zealous goob. But he probably hasn't given me a second thought.

Another person I'm working on a project with hates me and that's why she hasn't gotten back to me. But she's just busy.

God is mad at me because I haven't written a real blog today or contributed energy to this space. But God isn't the one who is demanding this of me. It's my own pressure.

Time is wasting because the Store isn't up on the website yet. But everything will work out in its own time.

The assumptions we make, whether we're aware of them or not, change the way we interact with others. Don Miguel Ruiz helps us get to the bottom of things, so we can gain a healthier perspective and gain freedom from the silly little things that bind us.

20Something every Wednesday night at 6:15 at Cathedral of Hope in Dallas.

The Power of the Closet

Once I realized I was a lesbian, it took me about two years to tell my parents. Once my mom and I finally did have that conversation, she asked me more than once how certain I was. I remember the specific phrase, "Well, I hope at least that you won't close the door." I really didn't know how she would react, and this was better than many of the scenarios I had previously acted out in my mind. She didn't threaten to disown me and she didn't condemn me. In fact, she told me she loved me no matter what. I've been lucky. And blessed.

I just exchanged emails with a friend who is dating someone new and hesitates to tell her mom. She told her mom about her first lesbian relationship and that didn't go over well, and now that she has moved on she's finding that it's better to keep quiet about a new relationship; to her family at least.

Another friend of mine in Armenia told me in an email this week that Armenian culture has prompted her parents to find a guy for her to marry, and she is left to deal with those implications. She would be a whole lot happier spending the rest of her life with a woman, but her family (and the rest of Armenian culture for that matter) doesn't know, and likely wouldn't understand.

Some who have had an influence on my journey as a gay Christian would probably say, "You can't control what other people think. If they don't understand that's their problem. You just have to live your life." But I think that misses the point. Sometimes the reasons why we choose not to be completely honest are noble ones. We do it out of respect for those around us. We don't want to hurt them, and we find it more suitable to just keep quiet. It could even be viewed as a Christian self-sacrifice; we deny ourselves for the good of others. But where should we draw the line? At what point should we choose complete honesty?

The answer may be obvious. Once we start to see that we are sufffering by withholding the truth, it's probably time to spill it. There are times when I'm not completely honest about my sexuality. If I'm sitting at Jiffy Lube waiting for an oil change and someone in the lounge strikes up a conversation with me, I'm probably not going to volunteer that I'm a gay Christian. Perhaps I should, because God can always use that situation to open some eyes, but I usually opt for small talk and I leave without any sort of personal admission. No damage done.

It took me two years to come out to my parents because I didn't want to hurt them. But it finally reached the point where I was the one being hurt by not telling them, and I had to tell the truth. They needed time to work through the emotions involved, and since I knew I wasn't going to suddenly change, the time came to give them the opportunity to begin to heal. They didn't throw me a big gay party once they found out, but they did work through it and now they treat Angela exactly as they would treat any spouse of mine--like one of their own. Once the truth becomes known, God takes over and makes the best out of the situation. But the truth has to be out there in order for God to work.

Fear is powerful. It kept me in the closet for years, but it can be conquered. I'm still afraid in many ways (if I was face-to-face with Pat Robertson I might consider running the other way in a dead sprint), but allowing the power of the truth to be a guide certainly helps. In fact, as I continue to mature I'm sure that power will firmly plant me in front of people like Pat Robertson, and give me the strength to carry on a meaningful conversation. God works.

I certainly understand the need to keep quiet, but my prayer for those who choose it, is that the truth will also be given power and that it will become the vessel through which God can bring understanding and healing. Until then...