Yesterday, July 16th, was the 15th anniversary of our gay son’s death – a death of despair. In memory of our beloved son Ryan, I want to share an excerpt from his journal, which he sent me during the last year of his life. These are the words of an LGBTQ Christian child who was taught that his own sexuality was a broken, wicked thing, and that the only way he could possibly be truly loved by God was to eradicate it.

For too many years I wasn’t listening to my son; I wasn’t mentalizing the incessant torment he was experiencing as a gay teenager who thought he had to change his very nature in order to prove himself worthy of my love, and of the God who created him. If you are struggling, like I did, to trust that God loves your queer child unconditionally (far more than you do), I hope that Ryan’s words can help you understand the literally impossible situation we put our vulnerable queer children in when we cling fearfully to an interpretation of six short passages in scripture that supposedly tell them they do not belong in God’s family. I pray that you will do what I neglected to do – listen to your child – and listen to your own loving heart – before it is too late.

Words from the Grave

“I’m tired of these thoughts of myself; of my own corruption; it never stops. ln fact the harder I fight it, the worse it gets. I battled doggedly against perversion and I pursued after goodness, but this was only to intensify my distress. However, I saw one thing more and more clearly as I struggled without hope of success against my sinful nature.

I saw that I am two different people. I long to be whole, but instead I am split in half by desire. One half wants the things that are wrong, and the other wants the things that are right. They both shout and complain all day long; neither half will be neglected. Their voices rip at my soul. lf you choose one, then the other tears you apart until you return to it. Until you radically give yourself to a chosen half, you cannot comprehend this pain, which grates away at your very will.

You can’t run from your own nature. It is just like trying to run from your shadow. As long as you exist, it will be there. This commonplace concept will then jerk you to your attention and make you sob in despair. You’ll realize that free will isn’t freedom… it’s a prison. Desire demands an answer. What do you want? Righteousness, or unrighteousness? Every single second, you are confronted with this choice.

You can’t have both; nobody can serve two masters. It is a brutal decision, and the fact that neither righteousness nor unrighteousness will allow their rival to be selected, only tops it off. There is no way out, and the screaming doesn’t stop.”

— Ryan David Robertson, Fall 2008