About Karen

“Coming Out Again with Confidence” is what I did on May 30, 2005, and I have never questioned my lifestyle since. I grew up in a small town, in your typical small town family, and like many small town families, we attended church every Sunday. Like your typical small town girl, I dated a guy in high school for a short time, the general boyfriend/girlfriend type of thing—nothing serious. There was another guy other people said I dated, but I let them think that because it was easier; as far as I was concerned, we were only friends…I was not into guys. In my late teens, I discovered I had feelings for women, I am sure those feelings were always there but in a suppressed state. I was asked out by several women while I was in high school, but my first official date and girlfriend happened around the age of 19.

Back then, the acceptance level of living a gay lifestyle was nowhere near as accepted by society as it is today, actually the opposite. In addition to the social pressures of acceptance, I also loved God and I grew up with the teaching that homosexuals will go directly to Hell—“no passing go” and “no collecting $200.” This put a conflict inside of me for over 30 years. Although it did not stop me from dating and having intimate relationships with women, I continually had a simmering layer of turmoil brewing on the inside. How could God send me to Hell for loving another person even if they are of the same sex? Isn’t that what we are supposed to do—love one another? That seemed to be contradictory and hypocritical to me.

I wanted so badly to find someone who could explain the Truth about God, homosexuality, my feelings, and what the big deal was to love someone of the same sex. I asked friends, teachers, ministers, and worship directors, both gay and straight. The answers I received were varying: “No, homosexuals don’t go to Heaven,” “Yes, we go to Heaven,” “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care.” None of the answers I received completely satisfied the ongoing questions that kept running around in my head. I was looking for the Truth; I wanted to know the why’s or the why not’s, not the simple “yes,” “no,” “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care.” The bottom line answers were not calming that ever-existing, low simmering, turmoil on the inside of me.

After a while, I came to realize that people were not answering the questions to my satisfaction and I needed to get my answers another way. Taking the matter into my own hands, I decided to go directly to the source: God, and ask Him all my questions. If He could not answer them, I had no hope for a resolution; I knew I needed that incessant nagging turmoil to stop.

The only place I knew to start was the Bible. I was surprised to discover that as I began to find the answers to my questions, I found more questions to ask. I was determined to find every answer to the “why’s or why not’s” until I was completely satisfied and that nagging simmer was gone. This is how my journey to find the Truth about homosexuality started and this is how “Coming Out Again with Confidence” became a reality in my life.