People view the Bible and interpret it the way they think it was meant to be taken. Many think because God created Adam and Eve, only a man and a woman should become spouses. Others read parts of the Bible and believe the man should rule the home and the wife should obey his every order. When people interpret the Bible wrong, it grows hatred and abuse. Marriage is about the two souls whom God planned to come together finding each other and loving each other unconditionally. God places souls on Earth to find one another. He didn’t base it on gender or that one soul should be more powerful than the other. I believe people spend so much time trying to justify their hatred by using the Bible they miss out on so many opportunities to grow in faith and to live a fulfilled life of kindness, positivity, and love.
I am not by any means a diehard religious person. I’ve never read the entire Bible from front to back. I don’t spend every Sunday in a church pew. I believe you connect with God in many places, in many ways. I believe a relationship with God is a very personal one. My relationship with Him has involved doubting, questioning, crying, and screaming. God doesn’t love me any less because our conversations aren’t always calm and positive. He loves me harder on my weaker days, even when I haven’t wanted to believe He loves me at all. I’ve had many ups and downs with God, but he’s gotten me to where I’m to be and helped me to find my soulmate. I’ve never used the Bible as a reason to hate others that are different than me or to hurt others because our views don’t match up. I’ve just realized in finding myself, the me God always planned for me to be, how evil and corrupt people can be and how they can turn something like the Bible into a tool to spread their own agenda. I choose to use it to spread words of inspiration instead.
One of my favorite scriptures is 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. In this scripture, it says “If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing (NSRV, 1989).” The scripture doesn’t specify love from a man or love from a woman. It just states without love, I am nothing. I am nothing without my love. The scripture also states everything love is: patient, kind, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things1. It never fails. I’ve gone through a lot with my soulmate. Through it all, we have had the patience and kindness and we have believed in each other. We have hoped for the best, endured what life threw at us. Our love never failed us. The scripture also tells us what love is not: it isn’t envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way, it isn’t irritable, or resentful, love doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing, but it does rejoice in the truth1. The scripture is quite clear that love has no room for abuse because it will never insist on its own way. Love it about two people, give and take, compromise, and building on one another. Without one, the other falls. It isn’t about relying on oneself, but about trusting in the other to hold strong in the tough times and to be someone to lean on. Love rejoices in the truth. My truth might not be the same as someone else’s truth. My truth is I am a woman who fell in love with a woman. God tells me to rejoice in my truth and my love will never end. I do every day. I am thankful for God deciding this person would be the one to make me feel whole. God also tells me that out of faith, hope, and love, love is the greatest. If He tells me all of this, why would anyone hate me or my marriage? Why would anyone think God would want anything less than love for all humans? There are many who choose to only hear the truth they create inside of their own minds instead of the truth God wants all humans to know: Love Never Fails. My love will never fail.
1. NSRV. (1989). 1 Corinthians 13 NSRV-The Gift of Love-If I speak in the -Bible Gateway. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1Corinthians November 19, 2020.
