"When I follow God I find peace. 

That does not mean that I find happiness or comfort. I think I was well served by reading Dorothy Day's autobiography early in my conversion, because Day makes it clear that peace is not comforting or nice or easy. Peace is the hard work of dragging each moment into place like a giant brick. Peace is grueling. Peace is debilitating and you feel stupid and boring and dumb and worthless every time you drag another stupid boring brick up to its place. 

Peace is about finding your place. 

Your place may not be comfortable. It may not be pretty; maybe part of your vocation is to make this kind of Christian life beautiful! Maybe you have the painful crown of the pioneer. 

But Christ will move you past happiness, past comfort, into the hard work of peace."


--Eve Tushnet  from Wesley Hill's Tumblr

The painful crown of the pioneer.  Hm.  This quote just echos the thoughts that I had last year, as I laid on the floor trying to sleep, thinking, "It's not about my happiness."

Life's not about that.  Life's about displaying His glory.

Recently, a D-Camp (Discovery Camp, HCC's camp for middle schoolers) counselor, friended me on Facebook, telling me that he'd really like to talk to me, qualifying his request by saying that it must seem creepy.  I friended him, told him I've done way creepier things (xD), and asked what was up.
As I was hoping, he told me he was also a gay Christian.  He said he was really glad to have finally met another Christian who was struggling with this, and he found out about me from Stanley and Henry (a couple of Impact counselors).  We've been talking via Facebook messaging for quite a bit, and it's been good.  Although we've kinda stopped because he wants to continue things via chat, but I'm so bad at devoting time to chat... =\  hopefully we'll get to speaking again.  I really want to hear about his story and where he comes from.

He also knows Rosanna and Elfrey from UT, and I asked them about him briefly, but when they probed more into why he friended me, I kinda avoided the question.  Elfrey was totally like, "I think you're hiding something from us..." (haha.  xD) and I responded by telling him to just ask him.  I'm not really into outing people, especially considering that I hadn't asked him specifically if I could.  He did say that if someone asked him if he was gay, he would tell them.  Much like how I was just a year ago.  He says he's not totally open about it yet.  But he's come out to quite a few people, but I think in terms of his fellowship at UT, it was at the beginning of the summer, so Elfrey and Rosanna probably missed it (as well as Stanley and Henry, haha.).  Kinda curious to see how they all react when they find out.

It's been really good to be able to talk to people and hopefully provide some comfort/inspiration/resources for them.  =)  In terms of Rice, however, gay Christians have been severely lacking.  I wonder what--or rather who--God will bring into this new school year and into my life...

This has all made being a pioneer not so bad... and while I can't say it's all been good, it has definitely brought me more peace about my situation.  =)  Thank you, Lord.