If you’d met me a few years ago, you’d have met someone who loved God.
But I was afraid of Him too. I didn’t call it fear back then. That freedom began the day I realised something quietly revolutionary: God is not threatened by my questions.
I believed that asking certain questions might cost me God’s love — that pulling too hard on the thread might unravel everything. So, I stayed careful. I stayed quiet. I stayed small inside my own faith.
Now, I live very differently, not because I walked away from Jesus — but because I finally trusted Him enough to stop being afraid.
What changed wasn’t just how I read the Bible; it was how I understood God’s posture toward me. I no longer live as though faith is a tightrope — just one mistake and it’s all over. I don’t wake up wondering whether my sexuality disqualifies me from being loved by God. I live in the freedom Christ has already given — not the freedom I have to earn.
As I began reading the Bible with more context, and more attention to the humanity in the text, fear loosened its grip. I stopped trying to force ancient words into modern cages.
One of the biggest shifts for me has been realising what Jesus did — and didn’t — teach. He didn’t spend His time reinforcing the six hundred plus Levitical commandments or asking people to carry the impossible weight of trying to keep them all. In fact, He said plainly that the law was too heavy to bear — and that it was never meant to save us. It was there to point us to Him.
Jesus taught us what living out the Ten Commandments looks like. He took everything and wrapped it into one way of living: Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself. That was His commandment. He didn’t just teach it — He lived it.
If you want to see the fullest, clearest picture of what God is like, look at Jesus. I’ve learned not to start with ancient laws — but with Jesus Himself. He said something so simple: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
I no longer confuse fear with holiness or suppressing my sexuality with faithfulness.
I met Caroline online. We started chatting, and almost immediately something in me recognised her — the ease, the humour, the gentleness. When we finally met in person in Calais, it felt less like a beginning and more like stepping into something that had already been quietly unfolding.
We never looked back.
Of all the people I could have crossed paths with in this world, I met her — someone who has carried her own share of hardship and still chooses love with courage. Now we walk through life together, helping each other heal, grow, and become who we were made to be. I don’t believe that happened by chance. I believe God brought us together.
The love we share doesn’t pull me away from God; it roots me more deeply in Him. There is no splitting me in two anymore — no public faith and private survival. I am fully known, and I am at peace.
There was a moment — after a routine medical procedure here in France turned into a massive heart attack — when everything fell silent. I had been resuscitated twice. Lying there, fragile and stripped of arguments, I prayed the simplest prayer of my life:
Please show me the truth.
In that moment, all my searching came together with incredible clarity. There was no condemnation. I was free.
That’s the faith I live in now — a faith that doesn’t need terror to function. A faith that doesn’t require me to erase my sexuality. A faith that produces life.
Jesus has fulfilled the law he alone is the way the truth and the life, His teachings and example have given us a freedom and new way to live – Jesus is the only way. The law, the prophets will not fade away – not because they need to be obeyed but because they point to Jesus, the new and living way.
At the centre of my faith is this simple truth: Jesus lived among us, died for us, and rose again — not to burden us with fear, but to free us. His death cancelled out our sin; it opened the way for us to live in the kind of love He embodied. A love that draws us toward God, toward one another, and toward the wholeness we were always meant for.
His resurrection isn’t just a moment in history — it’s the power that keeps reshaping us into people who love with the same generosity He showed.
And if you’re reading this with a tightness in your chest — wondering whether your questions are dangerous, whether honesty will cost you everything — I want you to know this:
Jesus is not standing between you and freedom. He is the one leading you into it.
Living in France with her wife, Caroline, Liz Queyrel writes about faith, identity, hope, finding freedom after fear, and the resilience of LGBTQ+ Christians.