Remember back when people started posting these signs in their store fronts and whatnot?
I’ve always had this sort of unease with welcome signs.
They have seemed rather redundant. You’re welcome in my home. I know that. You know that. Duh. Why do I need to say it on a welcome mat?
I guess I had never really seen it from the angle of someone who knows what it is like to be UNWELCOME.
In the course of my 37 years, I can identify probably less than a dozen times I have been truly unwelcome. Each of those times was probably for less than 24 hours.
Other than that, I have always been welcome.
I have been pretty enough.
Polite enough.
White enough.
Rich enough.
American enough.
Educated enough.
I have taken it for granted, and breezed by welcome signs with hardly a thought.
When the president came into office, and I started seeing more of these sort of signs around, I was happy. Content. I didn’t HAVE one, or anything. But I thought it was a cool gesture of solidarity.
And then, I found out what it was like.
I became unwelcome in the home of my father and mother.
I became unwelcome in the home of my siblings.
I was no longer anything enough.
It’s an unwelcome that has gone on, and on, and on, for 13 months.
Sometime last summer, I saw this sign in a window of a shop, and I began to cry. Something lost, rejected, and alone in me saw that sign, and knew it was for me. If something bad were happening, I could go in there, and I would be safe. Regardless.
My eyes began to see in a way I never had before.
Recently, someone I love “came out” to me. This person, raised like me, needed a lot of courage and trust to tell me this about themself. Nothing of the culture in which we were raised would make a non-heterosexual person feel safe, enough, welcome. I was deeply humbled and shattered to think about that, to wonder how someone like this could ever really walk up to a place and know, really KNOW, that the welcome was FOR THEM.
Being unwelcome. Being unsafe, it makes you scared. Anxious, nervous.
Sometimes I get notes from people, and they say something like “you are always welcome in my home”. Most of them live thousands of miles away, but it still means the world to me, it is a statement that I don’t take for granted any more.
A woman I had never met before, at my sister’s wedding, when I was excluded from the family picture, put her arms around me and cried with me, and repeated over and over, “you are always, ALWAYS welcome in my home”.
WELCOME is powerful, friends.
This week, I finally put this together. I have had the pieces of barn wood laying around for months, and the paint, and the plan, but I finally made it happen. And here we are.
My daughter was looking at it and asked “is even __________ welcome here?” It scared me. I was sad and afraid to put this sign up. But as I paused to really answer, I was able to say, “yes, _________ is welcome here… all are welcome here, they must be respectful and kind though”. She laughed.
Oh God. Help me to live with integrity and truth no matter how confusing and rough this path is.
Grant me humility to never stop learning, never stop growing.
Help me to stop. To listen. To see.
Let me know if you need one! I would love to make you one as part of my efforts earning money to pay my over due, and apparently never-ending legal bills!
Love your posts. So relatable. Coming out whether adultery or homosexuality (or any of the 10) are invitations to settle for less then God’s best. God’s kindness and lovedraw us back with such gentelness. Taste and see he is good. Invitations to fill in the gaps, consume with all he is. Good luck with all the legal stuff, I’ve been there.
I don’t think “coming out” is settling for less than God’s best. It’s being open and honest about who you are. I am so glad that Jesus sees and knows the hearts of his children and tells us we don’t have to make the judgements about other people’s lives.
I am always so moved by your posts. They are so heartfelt and raw.
You know, it’s such a delicate balence to love everyone while still being careful to honor God and His statutes first. Sometimes if we are not careful we can fall into the trap if condoning sin in our desire to show others that we love them. In doing this, we stop putting God first and compromise sets in. The enemy tells us that to love someone means to accept their sin, which is an absolute lie; but God tells us as Christians to speak the truth in love. That is really loving someone. To tell them the truth in love because we want them to be with us in eternity and will risk them getting angry with us for the sake of truly loving them. This is what true Christians do. This is not being “judgemental”… It is direct and extremely loving. I have not seen my brother in years. He too is gay and I love him so much and would always welcome him. But it would be a sin before God if I were to ever accept or condone his homosexuality. It would be wrong and selfish for me to do so. I LOVE my brother and want home with me in heaven. Also, when we condone sin, we ourselves are at risk of falling into that very sin. We are so very fragile. In this day and age, lovingly calling sin for what it is, is extremely hard to do. It’s hard to be separate from the world because it’s called “HATE” now days. We risk all sorts of accusations from both believers and nonbelievers alike. Western Christians don’t like being called “The bad guy”. We are very spoiled… The Lord’s sees how fragile and easily influenced we are. He also sees our fear of man. Especially when we ourselves are in so much pain. It is so easy for us to be led astray. We are so simple like sheep. We have to be so very careful because we really are in the times of the great “Falling Away” that the Bible speaks of where most people are “spiritual” yet are not following the Lord, but another spirit. I am so very sorry for what you are going through. PLEASE stay in God’s word so that you can withstand the wiles of the enemy. The word of God truly will anchor us and keep us from deception. When we speak the truth in genuine love to our brothers and sisters, or to any human being, we are reaching out for their eternal souls with the utmost of God’s love even at the risk of our own demise.
I hear your love for your brother. What I am trying to express here, is that welcome for the minority, for the overlooked, for the shunned, is central to my life philosophy, and I believe, to the teachings of Jesus. God is not going to judge you and punish you because your brother came into your home and had dinner with you. God knows where you stand with God. You are safe in the love of God. God doesn’t need us to be his little army of do-righters and judgers. He’s totally got that covered.
Jesus rebuked the ones who held up the law as the be-all and end-all. He sat down with the outcasts, the overlooked, the impoverished, the minority, the disadvantaged. He broke bread with the ones the religious leaders and people shunned and condemned. And he put no conditions on it. Interesting, huh?!!