By Jarvus Ricardo Hester
Dear Mom, I’m Gay.
I didn’t always say it with peace. For years, those words felt like confession, not truth. I thought I had to fix myself to make God proud — as if Heaven was waiting for me to change before it could love me back.
Three times in my life, I went on forty-day fasts. Only water. I begged God to take it away — the thoughts, the desires, the parts of me I thought were wrong. But when the forty days ended, I was still me. Still gay. Still yearning. Still standing.
And one day, God spoke to me and said, “What did Jesus say about it?”
So I searched. I read and reread every red letter in that Bible, waiting to find where Jesus said I was wrong. But it wasn’t there.
Dear Mom, I’m Gay.
And Jesus never said I couldn’t be.
That moment changed everything. Because I realized I’d been listening to people who used Scripture as a weapon, but they weren’t echoing the voice of Christ. Jesus never condemned me — He just kept loving me.
That’s when I understood something deeper: being gay wasn’t a curse to overcome. It was a calling to embrace. A reflection of how God made me — on purpose, for purpose.
People talk about “free will,” but I’ve learned that when God has truly marked you for something, you can’t run from it. Jonah tried, and even the ocean couldn’t hide him from destiny.
I’ve tried to run from mine, too. But every time I looked back, every season of my life — Winston-Salem to Harlem, the church stage to the Apollo — I see that God was ordering my steps the whole time.
Dear Mom, I’m Gay.
And I am chosen. I am whole. I am walking in the will of God — not despite who I am, but because of who I am.
So to anyone who’s still searching, still fasting, still fighting — stop fighting yourself. God’s not at war with who He created.
You are not broken.
You are a miracle.
Dear Mom, I’m Gay — and I’m finally free.
