Volume 2: Issue 6
May/June 1998
Surviving A Spiritual Crisis
Table Of Contents
Cover Story: Surviving A Spiritual Crisis:
I should have known I was
in trouble when the topic for this issue came to me so easily.
"Surviving a Spiritual Crisis." It was right there on the tip of my
tongue, weeks before it was needed, weeks before I even force myself
to think about such things. A bad omen indeed.
I had been rushing head
long, avoiding God at every turn, intentionally not listening. My
attempts to run from God have led me right to him. Now, I'm backed
into a corner, and God is speaking. God's voice sounds remarkably like
... Xena.
>My spiritual crisis began about a year and a half ago, when I fell in love.
That in itself is not a crisis, but the person with whom I fell in love, more
specifically the gender of the person was the cause of the crisis.
 My Story
-- By:
Dr. Rembert S. Truluck
During the years from 1952 to 1968, I wrestled quietly with my own
homosexual orientation without any counseling or helpful reading
material. The present great wealth of books and articles on
homosexuality did not yet exist.
I saw a statement in a
church bulletin that really caught my attention. It said, "I can't number
the times I have wished God would hurry up and answer my prayer with a
bailout in the middle of my muddle with a fresh sense of God's working in my
life. But there is one well-established principle in the Scriptures, and it
is dramatically demonstrated in Jesus' experience. You can't rush a
resurrection."
Jesus is always with us. The crisis comes when we have moved so far in our
hearts from Him that we allow so many others things to get in the way. It
is also very hard to love when a gay person is told that (s)he is an
abomination and that our hearts and souls are an affront to God.
As Jesus' "coming out" in Jerusalem launched a crisis in that city,
coming out of the closet will
inevitably precipitate a crisis in our lives, a crisis that might be
social, financial, relational,
professional, and even spiritual.
It may sound trite and corny to say this but my advice to people going through terrific physical trials is to rest in God, allow him to love you, don't focus on your pain.
Homospirituality:
The only thing that was real to me was the emptiness I felt inside and
the overwhelming need to be "normal" like other boys, a normal that
wasn't normal to me because no matter how I tried to be normal, the
messages I heard everywhere I went told me that I wasn't.
For me, my sexuality is a part of who I am. And while I believe
that ultimately love is no respector of persons, coming home to myself is
for me, coming home to she with whom I am most "at home."
Features:
Three congregations, Lord of Life Lutheran Church, of Ames, Iowa, First United Methodist Church of Omaha, Nebraska and University Baptist Church in Austin, Texas have been in the national spotlight recently as they struggle with the issue of homosexuality within the larger mainstream church.
Throughout the stories of the Bible we hear again and again the
admonition to welcome the stranger, to make a place for the foreigner. As
we, the people
of God, have failed repeatedly at this directive, I wonder if God isn't
raising up a new
challenge for the church. As we continue to raise up walls of race or
social status, could
God be raising a new sign with all these queer Christian groups?
Mom, I Need To Be a Girl is written by a the parent of a teenaged son who
soon became a teenaged daughter.
The face Focus shows visitors is in many ways a
perfect reflection of the way it communicates in its various
broadcasts: the far-right political message is so thoroughly
submerged in the "family support" message, that you'd miss it if you
weren't listening closely.
Whosoever readers give thanks and praise for God's blessings in their lives!
Readers sound off on what they like and dislike about Whosoever.
From The Pulpit:
We are exceptionally gifted at deceiving ourselves about our spirituality. You come to church, talk up a storm about what the
scripture really means and why so many others are wrong, and then you go home thinking you've been religious. But you're
deceiving yourself; you haven't been religious.
Bible Study and Inspiration:
Abraham followed God's high calling because he knew that his obedience
brings a great blessing to the entire world.
Okay, listen up now. I'm your Father AND Mother, and I don't play favourites
among My children. Also, I hate to break it to you, but I don't write. My
longhand is awful, and I've always been more of a "doer" anyway. So ALL of
your books, including those bible's, were written by men and women.
Holy Humor!
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