The Beginning of My Journey as the Mother of Lesbian Daughters

My journey in this arena began in 2006.  As of this writing, that was 5 years ago.   At the request of my oldest daughter, Brandy, I am going to try to recount the process and struggle I've been thru over these years.  I also will write about the continual struggles I am going thru at this time.  Our prayer is that it may help someone else that is also in that journey.  I also expect that the Lord will use this to continue deepening my faith and walk.  And, I pray that it will also help some other people to be more welcoming and loving towards everyone, including homosexuals.

I am not proud of the way I responded when my daughter first poured out her heart to me and revealed her sexuality.  Brandy came crying to me, needing my comfort.  Instead, I rejected her.  I pushed her off my bed and said that she was destroying her life.  For the next several weeks, I experienced a turmoil that I never would've believed, if I had not lived it.  I would wake up in the mornings thinking it was an awful dream.  I became very depressed.  It took me several months to even begin to cope appropriately to this major change.

It’s difficult to explain to someone that hasn’t gone thru it, the difficulty of this type of journey.  I had a lot more expectations of how my daughters would grow up than I had ever realized.  The realization that these were not going the direction I had expected was somewhat similar to going thru a death of your child.  It was a death of some of my hopes and dreams that I had taken for granted.  I also had the fear that my daughter was going to be ostracized and hurt by those around her.  I had many fears and misconceptions about the gay lifestyle.  And beyond that, as a Christian mother, I had the struggle of initially thinking my daughter’s salvation was in grave danger.  And, as a mother, I believed it was my responsibility to repair this.  However, she was a young adult, and I couldn’t force her to go the Christian camp that addressed this problem.  I could however, try other means to change her, which in my repressed codependent, “I can change other people” mindset, I tried to do.  I told her if she refused to go to the camp, then she needed to move out.  She promptly moved out.  And, my depression deepened.

I had seen the benefits of support groups, with my progress out of codependency (or so I had thought).  So, I searched for a Christian support group for me regarding this particular issue.  I called many different churches.  Eventually, I found Where Grace Abounds and I began attending their weekly meetings.  I also read every Christian book I could get my hands on for this subject.   Initially, I wanted to understand  how best to influence my daughter to change.  I was also trying to figure out how to cope with this and not go crazy.  I eventually learned that the best thing I could do for my daughter, and for me, was to unconditionally love her.