Writings: Nothing Separates Us from the Love of God

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

I’ve shared about my Great Aunt Lucy and her partner, whom we called Aunt Kaki. What I haven’t shared is that Lucy had a weird nickname; my grandfather, when he was a little boy, had trouble calling his big sister by her name ... when he said it, it would come out as “Oochie” or “Whichee.” So, in the end, everybody started calling her "Witchy." Aunt Witchy was a dear soul. She was a woman of faith, a woman of deep spiritual insight, a woman of strength and power. She was a very tall woman – she was 6 feet tall – and so large that when you’d go up to her, she would embrace you and you would feel surrounded by her love.

I can remember, when I was young and all the way up until my Senior Year in High School, we would make frequent trips to Minden Louisiana to visit them, to eat their wonderful country cooking and Cajun food, and to spend time with them. I could share just about anything with Aunt Witchy: any concern, any question, any fear, any need, any thought or dream ... I knew that she would always be there for me, no matter what. Witchy would listen to me, ask questions, never judge, always gave wise counsel, and then she would pray with me. And after she was done praying, I always felt better; I knew I'd been prayed for, that she had meant every word, and that everything was going to be ok.

I was very blessed to have Aunt Witchy to turn to while growing up. This was never more true than when, just before the start of my 9th grade, my parents discovered that I was gay. It had been a horribly humiliating experience. My parents were both very angry and upset with me, while at the same time very afraid for my salvation. Yes, they loved me deeply and didn’t want to see me hurting; their conservative upbringing, cultural, and religious background told them that I was either sick or broken, and they wanted to help and care for me in the best way they knew how. We must remember, this was in the very early 1980s when the understanding of human sexuality was very different from what it is today. With that different understanding, my parents did what they thought was right: they tried to get me “help.” They required me to go through an Exodus International program which was intended to "cure" gay people of our "same-sex attraction disorder." Through a process called “Reparative Therapy,” with individual and group counseling, several forms of aversion therapy, preaching, teaching, and heavy-handed threats of hell-fire and damnation, I was told that I would have to repent of my sin of homosexuality, change my sexual attraction, and to stop being gay in order to be a Christian. They were wrong … indeed, the whole process was wrong; no modern, reputable, certified, present-day psychological counseling program accepts it any more … in fact, it has been a couple of decades since it was resoundingly repudiated by the American Psychological Association.

But, in the early 1980s, that was what happened to me and to many other youth just like me … and, indeed, it still happens today in conservative religious programs. I was forced to go to weekly Reparative Therapy sessions, as well as to a summer Youth camp, where we were encouraged to tried and “pray away the gay.” During the midst of that horrible summer, our family made a trip to Minden to visit Aunts Witchy and Kaki; apparently, my parents had told Witchy about what had happened because, while we were there, Witchy took me aside, sat me down in private, and talked with me. She said: “Honey, it’s going to be ok. Sometimes people - even people who love you, like your mom and dad - won’t understand us. These kinds of things are hard for them. But I understand; and God understands; and just like I will always love you and will never stop loving you, nothing about you could ever cause God to stop loving you.”

I remember pouring out my heart and fears to Aunt Witchy: thoughts, feelings, and fears that I couldn’t share with my parents for fear of punishment, my pastor for fear of condemnation, my friends or my teachers for fear of ridicule, or anybody else because all were telling me that I was evil, wrong, and broken, and that needed to be “fixed.” I had been led to believe that my sexuality was something to be ashamed of, to hate and detest, to deny and punish myself for; it was certainly never something of which to be proud!

Witchy just sat and listened to me as I poured forth words and tears; she held me and she cried with me. And then she repeated: “I love you, Greg; I’m just like you; I’ve loved Kaki for years, and people don’t understand us either; they’ve always been in denial about us, but it’s true. And there's nothing disgusting, broken, or wrong about our love. And there's nothing disgusting or broken with you.”
From that day on, after every session with the Exodus program, I would make a long-distance phone call to Aunt Witchy and she would always remind me how much God loved me, that I was perfect just as I was, and that I didn’t have to change in order to be a Christian or to love God or for Jesus to be a part of my life.

One of Witchy's favorite passages of the Bible to quote to me during those days was Roman 8:31-39; because of that, it has long been one of my favorite passages of Scripture.

“If God is for us, who is against us?”

I remember her saying “If God is for you, honey – and he is – then WHO CARES who’s against you?” The passage continues:

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

NOTHING will ever separate us from the love of God. That’s true for everyone, no matter who you are or where you’re from; no matter what you’ve done wrong, or what OTHERS think you may have done or are doing wrong. That list which Paul recites – and Paul loved to compile lists like these – that list is pretty all inclusive.

“I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation….”

Is anything missing from that list? Nope. NOTHING will ever separate us from God’s love. We may turn out backs on God, but God will NEVER, EVER turn God’s back on us. People will fail us, reject us, preach at us, beat on us, and tell us to change into some fake, anemic approximation of what they think a Christian ought to be, but God’s love never fails, never rejects, always remains, always affirms, always wins.

© 2023, Dr. Gregory S. Neal
All Rights Reserved