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I am struggling with this piece. In my heart the story is poignant and beautiful. Moving it to words it becomes cumbersome and fearful. It is of course my lifetime of fear over the subject that makes this so difficult.

I am finally coming to terms with being gay. I find it incredibly awkward stepping out of a closet I have never set foot in. Perhaps I will borrow a term from the younger crowd and call this the “pre “. I don’t like labels and I never understood the need to announce it. Yet here I am announcing that I am looking into and stepping out of the proverbial closet.

Why? What insanity has caused me to do this? Aside from the fact many knew before I did. It’s so I can finally live.  So I stop trying to manufacture romances that will never work. So I can finally just breathe and laugh and say “Yup, it’s true, It only took me 4 decades to figure it out.”  I admit, I am very much afraid of all of this. I keep wanting to add a “but”or a “maybe”. Of course I can change my mind, but it’s exhausting to keep trying to create substance from illusions.  I need to know that whenever true love calls (You will note I am saying when and not if) I won’t miss it because it doesn’t fit my vision of what I think it should look like. I also need to stop going out to parties and dances pretending I am someone else (Insert funny night cap joke here.)

As a child, it was the words of hate shouted on the playground and reiterated through the mouthes of adults that helped mold my view of myself. Maybe not who I was, but certainly I heard and understood who I did not want to be.

I used to believe it was a choice. As a teenager and then young woman I chose not to be. Why choose to be something the world did not embrace. Something awkward. That was not the type of attention that was going to give me the feeling of belonging that I longed for.

Holding me back even more was the question of sin. I could never resolve what this God in my heart willed for me. As I look back I can honestly say this was my biggest hurdle. The God in my youth had loved me and held me through some troubling times. As a child there was no doubt in my mind of his existence. That relationship began to change in my mid to late teens. It was the beginning of my hidden walk of shame. I buried my uncomfortable secret deep within me. I began building the walls and donning the armour. I would not be this terrible thing and I would not let God down. Of course it did not work. I could never completely escape my truth. I had to let God go, which in turn meant turning my back on love and God.

After decades of living my life like it was a choice, I can finally say without question it is not a choice. This is who I am. I tried, and believe me when I say “Lord” knows I tried. I lived obliviously from 15 – 55 trying to find myself in everything but love. Fiercely competitive I loved winning, mastering sports made me feel good about me. Driven in business, promotions made me feel good. Building a business, that made me feel ever so good. I am self sufficient, I can help others, I am in control. Self will and strength. I was giving. Always trying to give joy and comfort and money. Passion to fill that hole inside me was incessant, except I never knew what to fill that hole with. Never knowing or understanding love beyond friends and family. Motherly and brotherly. I never saw the power and the beauty that were to be found in the highest loves and the most vulnerable loves. Life was ever so big to me, but romantic love seemed like a little side dish for the weak if so desired. I never saw my refusal to receive as an indicator of how unworthy I truly felt. I was running from the immense pain of my inner turmoil. No Eros and no Agape.

I was 50 the first time as an adult I realized I was attracted to a woman. It was not physical but rather a very deep connection on a soul level. I believed it was Divinely inspired and it was the impetus for massive wholesale changes in my life. First and foremost was reconnecting with the God In my heart. Second was the beginning of a journey to learn to love and honour myself. The healing that took  place in my heart and soul manifested in my physical and mental health. Shockingly so. The speed in which the changes came was unfathomable. Friends and family alike were staring in disbelief. It was nothing short of a miracle and I will never forget or turn my back on those truths again. I was being given a second chance and I was not going to let it go to waste.

We are all made of energy. Everything changed when I saw the connection and followed the source of joy. The bulk of the visual changes took 5 months. I was not focused on my looks, I was being carried in Divine love.

Inspired by all of these changes I wrote a book about my life and spoke about this event in a chapter titled “The Intervention”.  When I launched the book in 2016 I was still pretty sure that I was not gay and my feelings for that woman were solely for the purpose of learning to love myself. My feelings subsided as I knew they would. Needing to protect the anonymity of the woman who was an innocent bystander in my book I knew I had to talk to her about it. Whether or not she ever spoke of it made no difference. What mattered is I could now honestly say to those asking – She knows and that’s all that matters.

I began applying the principles of living from love and searching for my higher self in every situation. I desired truth and connection, yes I use that crazy term “what would love do”? What I often shunned as a weakness I learned to embrace as the worlds most powerful force. Love was winning the battle with my ego, fear was beginning to fade.

However, if you thirst for truth, the lessons never stop coming.  Just when I thought I had shed all of my heavy armour and was truly starting to feel whole and healed, it happened again. Another woman captured my heart sending me swirling into months of solitude and confusion. Leading up to that I had dated three different men, all of whom matched a different vision I had for what my soul mate might be like. None of whom were able to fill any sense of romance or excitement in my heart. How perfectly positioned it all was. Everything I thought I desired was placed before me. What sent butterflies from my soul was that which I still tried to deny.

I spent this past year soul searching. My biggest obstacle in being able to embrace being in love with a woman was not so much the opinion of society. It was and always would be, how could I resolve this with the God of my youth. I had to go back 40 years and understand the fear and the feelings or beliefs of right and wrong. I had to look at sin and my renewed faith and ask how do I resolve the conflict. Is this my ego or my soul? Is this real truth and knowledge or is it brainwashing and fear? I could not find comfort in asking others for there was only one place I would accept the answer from.

I sat in broken vulnerability for many months. Loves immense power was written all over my shattered heart. I had never felt so lost. I wanted to turn my back on it, so tempted was I to go back to my old ways. For all of its power and beauty, love hurt and I needed to make it go away. If I dismiss these feelings and make love irrelevant or this person a villain I don’t have to suffer this pain.  I was acutely aware of the hole within me. Acknowledging  I had to fill this on my own but to try and do it without the tools of the ego I had relied on my whole life. I had to learn to be whole completely on my own and allow myself to love. Numb would have been easier. Running, dismissing, ignoring and self medicating all offered themselves to me. I had come to far to give up and go back to my old ways. If I wanted a different result I had to do life different.  Somehow, even in sorrow I managed to let love remain.

A lesson in love

In the midst of my months of soul searching I made a visit to my favourite spot at the lake. There on a boulder next to my bench lay a little rock  with the words “Be filled” painted on it. I was so taken aback by the timeliness and perfection of the message, it made me cry. They were strong tears, tears of knowledge that the universe was sending me love. Sadly, my ego did not let me keep that rock. It instantly went to the thought that I should leave it for someone who really needs it. Like I did not?  I took a picture and left the rock. My refusal to receive mirrored my greatest obstacle to love. Love makes me vulnerable and I didnt know how to live with that. This powerful piece in the puzzle that is life. This opened my eyes to just how much fear I had attached to love.

Being filled is a life long journey. I once heard somebody say they tried to fill this God sized hole with everything but God.  I realized that my healing begins and ends with faith. Since I have now established deep in my heart that this is not a choice I can finally accept my Divine design. I was created this way. I thought about this God of my understanding. This mysterious loving power that had saved me and opened my eyes to love. I realized there is no way he would place me on earth and say…..Go live your life and love, but understand you will never be capable of knowing love without going against me. No God of love would do that. So I began to start trying to accept all of me without the guilt or shame.

Even though profoundly aware of my inability to choose who I fell in love with, I was still not able to let go and take this leap of faith. I had been asking and praying to God and my Mother in heaven for some type of sign to tell me it was okay. That I was on the right path as it related to love. That I may find love in this body in this lifetime. Dimes, feathers and eagle sightings were not enough. I needed more or I would never find peace.

In October I was at an event where a medium was sharing messages from spirit. Full disclosure, I do know her but she certainly had no knowledge about my prayers. As the event was winding down, and after watching her touch on so many uncanny truths with others. Out of the blue she said “Wendy, I have a message from your Mother. She says you are on the right path and Divine time is soon.”  The earth moved. To receive the answer for the question I had been asking God in quiet prayer. To hear it worded in the words I used. The magnitude of that moment is still holding me off the ground. I finally found peace, permission to know and embrace whatever love held my heart.

The freedom, and the joy and the relief have been cathartic. How bright does the light shine when you have lived in the dark for 40 years. When you have been searching and finally see what it is you have been searching for.

When you learn to love and believe in yourself for who you are, and not who you think you should be- You will know joy. I spent many years unconsciously trying to trade myself for a better version of me. I may not have wanted to be anyone else, but I did try to be the version of me I thought the world would accept. Not today. Today I am happily making peace with my soul. I feel more powerful in my vulnerability then I ever did in my ego. Although I can’t say I embrace the lessons of unrequited love, especially when I have waited a lifetime to feel butterflies in my stomach. I can say that I believe in miracles, Divine time, and destiny. I found courage, hope and love growing from the wounds in my heart. My life has felt blessed and magical ever since I chose to accept, to receive, to be filled.

My next book still in the works is presently titled Birthing God

Agape- Love and light

Wendy