Natalie Weiss

As previously published on October 8, 2020 on LAUNCH without fear.

So let’s talk a little bit about motivation. Energy. Excitement.

I have a YouTube video playing on my TV right now. It features squirrels and chipmunks. And Bob Ross (my cat) loves it. Bob’s been watching it pretty much since I put it on fifteen minutes ago. He’s making these little noises and jumping up and batting at the TV. I don’t know if he knows it’s not real. But he keeps watching.

I am staring at a screen too. Batting at keys. Trying to figure out if this is real or not. Trying to decide if that even matters. Trying to understand what it is that motivates me to keep doing this when I don’t know if these words will ever make it in front of another’s eyes.

Bob just jumped behind the TV. He’s trying to find the chipmunks. He wants it to be real.

I do too.

——————————-

The one thing that comes out of my confession to my parents is an unspoken agreement to never, ever talk about that conversation again.

So when, I don’t know how many months or maybe even years later, my family sits at the kitchen table and my sister says she had a dream that I was gay, I just chuckle nervously and no one says a word. At least, no one says what we could’ve said. I could’ve said, “Well, actually, that’s true.” My parents could’ve said, “We knew that already.”

But I am still in denial, as are my parents. I am still ashamed, as are my parents.

And so time passes. Coming out to my parents – if you could call it coming out – is a gut check. I ponder what the promise I made to God really is, and if it really is my duty to keep doing this – to keep making this sorrowful confession, especially to people who might turn their backs on me. Again, I don’t know it at the time, but I am defending so many things, vitally important things – friends, a sense of belonging, a higher purpose.

If you’ve ever studied psychology, and maybe even if you haven’t, you’ve probably heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Basically it’s this pyramid-shaped diagram, but it could very well be depicted as a ladder, because everyone starts at the bottom. Basic needs. Physiological things like food, water, and air. Once these needs are fulfilled, you move up to the next level of the pyramid, the next rung of the ladder. And you have to fulfill security needs, like safety and stability, before moving up to social needs. After social needs are fulfilled, you climb to esteem needs like self-worth, and, finally, you arrive at self-actualizing needs, where you are this self-aware person working on personal growth and in general just being awesome.

I have been lucky enough to have always had my basic and security needs met. But I have struggled with that social rung a lot through my life. In elementary school, I had a group of guy friends, but once puberty hit and a few of them moved away, I found myself alone. According to Maslow, at least, if you don’t have a social circle, you can’t work on things like self-worth. I do find some truth in this. It is really difficult to believe that you are a worthy person – worthy of love, success, stability – when you don’t have a ton of external validation coming in.

But, back in middle school and high school, my youth group fulfills these social needs. What we proclaim to believe – God loves us so much that He sent His only son to die for us – pretty much takes care of any esteem needs. And so I am able to work on self-actualizing needs. It may be the only time in my life that I ever made it to the top of that pyramid.

But things change.

I harbor the secret truth that I am attracted to girls. No one else becomes privy to this knowledge. I do not talk about it again for eight years. But when I talk about it again, it will be with a different attitude, with a different understanding. And the things that happen in between fuel this transition.

My best friends are a year older than me, so when I make it to eighth grade, they are now freshmen. I am in the junior high youth group. They are in the senior high youth group. This is the first problem.

Despite this, I am still on fire for Jesus. With the help of some friends I meet at school, I co-found a Bible study at my middle school. I had to talk to the principal and everything. I still can’t really believe that I did that.

I imagine this revival happening at my school, set in motion because I started this Bible study. It’s an ego trip veiled by good intentions and Christianity. Except the revival doesn’t really happen. A few kids come. A teacher tells me that she gained a lot of respect for me after finding out I helped start the study. But I am just a thirteen year old trying to imitate my youth pastors.

The next thing that happens is the youth pastors I so admired leave the youth group in quick succession. The husband and wife who led the junior high group pursue their dream of being missionaries. The man who led the senior high group feels called to adult ministry and starts to phase out of youth ministry. We are being taught by parents. Guest speakers. People who come and go. I don’t fully understand it at the time, but the church itself is having its share of issues. There has been in-fighting in the past, and I think maybe it has started up again. Events that the church had been known for in the community start shutting down. Things are not good.

But still, I hang on to hope that everything will smooth over. I still have faith in God, in the Christian doctrine, and it may not be as strong as it was when I started that Bible study, but it is still strong.

Things are not smoothing over. But I have a friend – my co-founder of the middle school Bible study – who has been going to a different youth group. She invites me to this weekend retreat the group is having. It is the summer before our junior year of high school.

There’s another girl there that I’ve known since our freshman year. She’s been struggling with her sexuality too. But I don’t know this. And she doesn’t know about me.

We do this trust exercise where I am blindfolded and this girl has to lead me through the building. It’s some big production to symbolize the love of God. Honestly, I can’t remember the finer details. But I do remember that girl leading me through. I do remember feeling something between her and me. It was an emotional evening, and I also felt God’s presence. In another environment, with another group of people, maybe I would’ve recognized the feelings that I was having for her.

Because at this point in my life, heading into junior year, I’ve accepted that I just need to not think about my sexuality. I am still a strong Christian, and this weekend retreat revives that fire within me for God. I am going to be a youth pastor. I am going to change the world for Christ.

Nothing is going to stop me.