Refiner of Silver

I have a confession to make and after admitting here that I am fat and that I need WLS, one would not think this confession would be so difficult, but yet it is.  

I am a "Touched by an Angel" addict.

There, I said it and it's the truth.  I am incredibly delighted that Hallmark has brought the show back into syndication and I've been recording them each day, watching some and saving others for when I am recovering from surgery.  That show has always been like a dose of medicine for me and today I watched an episode that had me in tears.

Some of you know, that a couple of years back, my church had a huge split in the congregation stemming from several things and one of the issues that kept coming up was homosexuality.  I mentioned here a couple of nights ago in talking about Danny on American Idol, that I have had many gay friends in my past and I have very specific beliefs on homosexuality and I won't go into them in detail, but in a nutshell, I believe that homosexuals are born.  I can't believe it is chosen, simply because my friends have told me that they would never have chosen it for themselves, plus, I never made a "choice" about my sexuality, so why would I think they did? 

During the split, it was rumored that one man said to a woman who was dying, who had two homosexual children, that it was a pity she wouldn't see her children in heaven.  Now, I don't care how you feel about homosexuals, that was a cruel and insensitive thing to say to a old woman who was dying and there is nothing about those words that say "Christian" to me. 

The episode I just finished watching was called "The Violin Lesson" and it had to do with a son who was gay and had AIDS.  In a nutshell, his father could not accept the truth about him (he didn't find out about his son's sexuality until his son was already dying).  I was watching and enjoying the episode, having not seen it in years, way before there was ever a rumble within my church and then in two angelic revelation scenes, I was reduced to tears because I heard what I in my heart, have always believed as the truth.

The son (who was nearly thirty) was asked by angel Tess what he would tell God if he was able to and Tony, the son, replied "That I'm sorry."  He went on to say that he knew he was a disappointment to God.  Tess told him he was wrong, and that in God's eyes, Tony was God's beautiful child and that God loved him.  Tony disagreed and said that was not what he'd heard and he was told that the words he'd heard in the past (cruel words, like what was said to the dying woman) were not the words of God, but the words of people who spoke out of hate and confusion, but God is not the source of hate and confusion, but the source of faith and love.

Later, in a second revelation scene with the father, who is struggling to complete work on a flawed violin that he'd started on the day Tony had been born, Monica tells the father that God wants him to accept his son for who he is.  The father asks if God wants him to be happy that his son is a queer and the angelic response is that nothing God creates is queer; that God loves all of his creations; that neither Tony nor his father are perfect, but that you don't need to be perfect to accept God's love.

Why does this make so much sense to some people, while others work night and day, with angry, fearful words, to deny it?  Even if someone chooses to look at homosexuality as a sin, it is only one sin of many.  We all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but I certainly do not think that God holds certain sins in greater contempt. 

He is the Refiner of silver; the Refiner of our souls and he loves us for who we are.  No one is deserving of God's love; not a single one of us.  But he gives it freely to any who accept it and it doesn't matter to him what your story is, what your sins are, because he levelled the playing field for sins.  He has them ALL under control, not just one or two or the ones that are least threatening to fearful people.  God doesn't place those kinds of stipulations on his children; and we are ALL his children.  Would any loving father commit their child to an eternity of pain and suffering?  I think if everyone looks inside their heart when searching for that answer, it's a total no-brainer.