Salvation was always such an important part of my upbringing. We were constantly begged, pushed, prodded and manipulated to go down the aisle. If I got saved once, I got saved a hundred times. When the preacher started talking about hell and the rhetorical fires started tickling my toes, I especially felt the tug to make sure I was sure about all this salvation stuff. The older I got, the more skeptical I became of the saved rhetoric. With all the oppressive language and actions that surrounded us, I didn't see anyone getting saved from anything. I actually began to wonder if getting saved actually made things worse. Then it started happening.
There was a man at our church I loved dearly. With seemingly magical powers, Brother Bobby captured my childhood attention and taught me about the love of God. Before then, I never thought that God could love me as an individual. Brother Bobby believed in me and taught me that God did too. I didn't think Southern Baptists could teach like this. I asked him one Sunday morning what made him so different and he replied, "Just like you, I am growing into who God created me to be." Months later, Brother Bobby was kicked out of our church for coming out as gay. Many years after, I saw pictures of Brother Bobby joyously smiling and holding hands with his partner. I knew Brother Bobby got saved.
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