Written by Erica Phelps
Edited by Jessica Yi and Alloe Mak

We file in one by one, a line of small bodies taking their seats in the wooden pews. The sound of our shuffling feet echoes through the tall ceilings. We gawk at stained glass windows and statues of somber figures with their eyes turned to the ground. Above the altar, there is a picture of Jesus with mosaic hair and skin that glints gold in the sunlight. 

This is your God. Remember that He made you, that He sees you and shapes you. God loves you. God loves all. 

Growing up Catholic meant that in school, home, and church, I was raised under the philosophy that God creates all, determines all, and knows all. My conscience was developed by this omnipresent entity whose values I was to live by and abide by. God is good, and what is good is God’s way. 

I can’t say that the community I grew up in was strictly hyper-religious—many of my friends claimed to be atheists, and all the adults in my life seemed willing to accept the fact that many Catholic teachings and values were outdated. But still, that mosaic depiction of Jesus above the altar of my community church seemed to linger in the back of every moment of my life. I could say I didn’t believe in a God a thousand times, but those ideas and old-fashioned rules about what was good and what was not were always there. The environment that I was raised in made it impossible for me to ignore traditional Catholic values, no matter how silly or illogical I found them.

When I was fifteen, I fell in love with a girl. No one in my life had ever told me that being gay was wrong, but no one ever told me it was okay either. We didn’t talk about it. It was something that didn’t happen to girls like me. Girls in my community would love and be loved by men. But there I was, blushing in a schoolyard, pretending I loved her only in the way that my other friends did. 

I never believed in the parts of Catholicism that excluded people like me, but my religion appeared to play an unconscious role in any romantic feelings I had for any girl. In a Catholic community it was inevitable that someone internalized homophobic notions, and so I found that my religion—my friends, my family, my classmates—excluded feelings like mine. 

To reconcile this, I determined my own beliefs about God, apart from the traditional and harmful ideals of Catholicism. What I determined was this: God is everywhere, God is a force. God is in our hearts and in our actions. God is in the stars that we look to when we’re unsure that everything will turn out the way they’re supposed to. 

God is love. 

I am happy to say that as I grew and came to terms with my sexuality, I never once thought that I was a bad person. Odd, sure. An outcast to femininity, maybe. But God is love, and He seemed to have made me full of it. 

I never once thought I was a bad person, though I often felt like the world was trying to convince me otherwise. 

I’ve kissed girls and then watched them cry. I’ve held them and kissed their tears. I hate myself, they’d say. I wish I were normal. I hate this. I love you. I hate myself. I hate you.

I’ve had friends who would scowl, treating my gay-ness/bi-ness/other-ness like something alien. I’d be one of those girls. Not bad, necessarily, but not the way I should be. 

I’ve liked girls who’ve met guys and ran to them like our relationship was something to be avoided. I would watch them go, watch them smile, and felt that it was always going to be easier for girls to date boys, no matter how perfectly our stars aligned or how deeply I cared for them.

I’ve met guys and felt relieved. This was something we all knew how to navigate—no confusion, no anger, no impossible struggle to find a place for myself in a community and in a world that was not made for me. 

What I battled with was this: By the world, this God was given to me. And by this God, this love was given to me. And here the world was, crying when I touched it, like it stung.

I am grateful that I never once thought I was a bad person. How could love ever be bad? God is love and God has a plan, but if this was my love, then what could possibly be my plan?

I never once thought I was a bad person, but I spent much of my teenage years wondering why I felt this way and why it was met with so much emotion and disdain. 

I would think: why was I made this way? For what reason have I been burdened by this love? I didn’t choose this. If God exists and if God is love, then I could see no reason why I was the way I was. Every time I loved a girl I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t supposed to. 

I could never love a woman as well as a man, so why did I try? 

Why had I been excluded from the simplistic validation of heterosexuality? 

I have never once thought I was a bad person. I decided from an early age that God is love, and love is a force, and forces drive us, connect us, move us. Like stars, I believe in love. 

I look back at old pictures and see a girl who was confused and a little afraid. I wish I could tell her that one day she’ll find herself lying in the grass, and maybe she’ll think about a girl and maybe she’ll feel a flutter of excitement in her stomach or a dense sweetness in her chest. And that is all she’ll feel. 

God is good and
God is true.
God is love and
Love is you.