Deliverance

Passover just ended–a holiday thousands of years old celebrating the deliverance of the Israelites after 400 years of captivity in Egypt. Think of that, multiple generations and thousands of people who were born, reared, and died in slavery, never knowing freedom. 

Joseph of Egypt is part of this story of captivity. Joseph was a good man. He boldly refused the advances of Potiphar’s wife. He had spiritual gifts and interpreted dreams. He gained the trust of the Pharaoh. And he saved his entire family. But to me his goodness is most evident in the way he forgave. His brothers tried to kill him and then he saved them. After his family had safely relocated to Egypt during the famine, he testified that God had sent him to Egypt to preserve life (Genesis 45:5). Joseph is a man that I admire in many ways. 

And yet it was Joseph who was tasked with storing up grain during the seven years of plenty. When the famine started, he managed the distribution of food to the people. When I was younger, I thought he just gave the food away, but that’s not what happened. First, the grain was sold, and then all the money ran out so the people traded their cattle for food. Then when the cattle were gone and the money was gone and the famine was still raging on, the people approached Joseph and begged, “Shall we die…? Buy us and our land… and we… will be servants unto Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:19). And so the Pharaoh, through Joseph’s work, gained land, power, and wealth, and a country of servants. 

Joseph inadvertently created the circumstances that led to the enslavement of his people. 

400 years later God sent Moses to deliver the Israelites. On this first Passover, each family was instructed to kill one of their own lambs and put its blood on the doorposts of their house. Since there were families who were too poor to own lambs, they were commanded to share with their neighbors. They obeyed and were freed. Deliverance came through the power of God and as they helped one another. 

This is what it looks like to feel alone and hopeless

I spent many years in a different kind of captivity–the captivity of shame and isolation. In 2007 when I was a 23 year old BYU student I was all alone. There were no openly LGBTQ students. Not one. All I had was the internet. I found a few anonymous blogs written by BYU students like me that brought me a lot of comfort, but I couldn’t talk to them. And so I scoured Church resources for answers and guidance. I read that same-sex attraction was an affliction that wouldn’t exist in the next life. This led to me wishing that I could die to end my “affliction.” I thought it would be better to be dead and straight instead of alive and gay. I know many Latter-day Saints who have felt that same way. 

And yet God delivered me. I came out to friends and they loved me. I came out to my family and they loved me, too. Like many of the Israelites, I was too poor to do this on my own. I needed my neighbors to help me love myself. And just like on the day of Passover, it was divinity that ultimately saved me. As I prayed and fasted and pondered and pleaded, the answer I got from God again and again and again was, “I love you. I created you. You are my son. You are a gift to the world.” God’s love is what ultimately delivered me from shame and isolation. 

11 years later I was back at BYU. In the years I had been gone, courageous students had formed a community for LGBTQ Latter-day Saints like me. And they welcomed me in. Now in my 30s I no longer hated myself and I wasn’t alone. But there was still captivity–the captivity of ignorance. My friends and I were surrounded by people who didn’t understand us or our stories. They feared us, judged us, and many of them wanted nothing to do with us. 

Then in March 2018 BYU hosted a campus wide LGBTQ panel. More than a thousand people attended. Every seat in the auditorium was filled and students began sitting on the floor. A custodian started telling people they couldn’t block the aisle and would have to leave. I watched an administrator approach this worker, explain who he was, and his high position. Then he said firmly, “They need to be here. They can all stay.” And thanks to him they all stayed.

The panel consisted of an L, a G, a B, and a T. I was lucky enough to be the G. Towards the end of the panel, the moderators invited anyone in the room who was LGBTQ to stand. I looked over at my friend Charlie who wasn’t out publicly, wondering what he would do. I watched him timidly stand, together with about a fifth of the audience. The room burst into applause. Tears poured from my eyes because I remembered what it had been like to hate myself and feel so alone. And now my queer friends and I were being recognized and honored. At that moment it felt like the Red Sea had parted and we crossed through together on dry ground. I felt delivered. 

When the Israelites were delivered from Egypt, they weren’t delivered into an easy paradise. They were delivered to a desert. A desert with disease, bland food, and contention. A desert they wandered in for 40 years. A desert where all the previously enslaved people died, and only their children saw the promised land. 

And yet in those continually trying circumstances they praised the God who had delivered them. They sang a song of thanks that the Lord had shown them mercy, redeemed them, and guided them. Miriam and other women grabbed instruments and praised God with song and dance (Exodus 15:13, 20-21). 

In the desert they weren’t left alone. They were guided by a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. I have felt this same guidance as I’ve wandered in my own desert. Sometimes that guidance is a whisper inviting me to do something small like calling a friend. Sometimes I’m reminded of something I read or heard that I need at that moment. Sometimes I’m almost shouted at to do something big like start a podcast or write an article. Sometimes the guidance is simply an invitation to forgive someone who has wronged me, or a reminder that I need to apologize and make things right. When I look back on my four decades of life, I have experienced a pillar of fire and a cloud guiding me constantly towards deliverance. 

In the Book of Mormon, Nephi often invites the reader to remember the captivity of our mothers and fathers. Looking to the past reminds me that God is a God of deliverance. God delivered those in bondage in the past, and God will deliver me in the future. 

When I look at the last 40 years of history, I see so much captivity in the LGBTQ community. The AIDS epidemic, nearly universal rejection of queer people by their families, electroshock therapies. The world is so much better now and we have been delivered in my ways, and yet things are still so so bad. We are still in a desert.

I yearn for the day when we as queer people will be treated like anyone else, with equal rights, equal protections, and unquestioned as respected members of our communities. And just like with the ancient Israelites who celebrated the first Passover, we will be delivered as we support each other and look to heaven for help. 

Another Joseph was sent by God to preserve life, but also unintentionally led to my captivity. Joseph Smith restored a church, my church, that has fed me, saved me, and taught me to connect with a God who delivers me. And yet, some teachings of this church fed my shame and isolation. So much good and so much pain. 

When I get discouraged, I lean on the words of Joseph Smith because they inspire me to act and trust. He said, “Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed” (D&C 123:17). 

Today, as Passover concludes and Easter begins, I am reminded that God is a God of deliverance. And that the deliverance I pray for every day will come.