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Over the years, I've grown a pretty thick skin in regards to most things. I can let most insults just sort of roll off me, and sometimes even find it comical when stupid people try to provoke me with moronic insults. By the 800th time someone calls you a "bottom-feeding cocksucker," the words have really lost their sting.

Of course I generally want people to like me. I'm human, and like most humans I'd much prefer and adoring public than a hateful one. And more often than not, people do like me. I don't want to sound arrogant, but overall, of the people I meet day-to-day, more of them seem to take a liking to me than not.

When it comes to strangers...well, I can't say that I really, truly don't care what they think of me, because I do. A little. If a stranger or near-stranger is being a jerk to me it doesn't bother me too much. I don't know them, I don't respect them, and them not liking me isn't really going to impact my life one way or the other. Of course it always does make me feel good when someone tells me that they appreciate my kindness or they like my jeans. The other day a shop girl asked me out on a date, and although I had to decline, it always feels good to know that someone finds you desirable in some way.

But when it comes to people who are close to those I care about, I care a LOT about their opinion of me. What from a stranger might just be a kind word or a small ego boost all of a sudden means the world to me if it comes from a friend or lover of someone close to me. And what would normally be an insult I could laugh at just absolutely breaks my heart.

My mother is seeing this man. She brought him to visit Henry and I for a few days, I guess mostly so we could meet each other.

It was a disaster. He hates me, and I can't even really figure out why.

He told me that I was "the worst kind of fake Christian," which, okay, I'm willing to concede that much of my ideology won't be the biggest hit among traditionalists, and that's okay. I'm not looking for disciples. I have no plans to start a church based on my personal beliefs. My beliefs are based on truths I've come to believe heart and soul based on deeply personal spiritual experiences, and I don't claim to have all the answers, either. There are plenty of truths I'm still searching for.

But I hadn't really discussed the finer points of my ideology with this man. One of the first things he'd asked me was if I'd accepted Christ as my personal saviour, to which I replied yes, I had. He asked me what denomination I followed and I'd simply said that I was a lapsed Catholic but that my relationship with God had never been better. That was the end of the discussion. Or so I thought.

On the third day of their visit, my mother had a bit too much vino and had fallen asleep on the sofa. Henry and I moved her into the spare room and told her male companion that he was welcome to spend the night at our place rather than waking up my mum and taking her back to their hotel. This bloke asked if he could talk to me in the living room, so I put a kettle on for tea and sat down to talk to him. Which is when he told me that I was the worst kind of fake Christian. As politely as I could, I told him that in all fairness he really had no idea what kind of a Christian I was, and asked him why he would say such a thing to a man he'd just met. His response was, "Well, just look at you!" I told him he'd need to be a little more specific, and he went on to tell me that I was a terrible son and an effeminate, immoral, sorry excuse for a man. Then he said that it was an insult to God that I had the audacity to wear a crucifix, which was really the last straw for me. It was pretty much my father's dying wish that I inherit his family's centuries-old silver crucifix. I wasn't going to have some angry, bitter man who was trying to find his way into my mother's bed stand in MY kitchen and tell me that I was insulting God by wearing something that made me feel close to my dead father.

I told him that it was time for him to leave. He said he wasn't leaving without my mother. I told him that MY mother was welcome in MY home for as long as she pleased, but that I would not tolerate being insulted by someone who was neither friend nor family in my flat and that if he thought verbally attacking his new girlfriend's eldest son was some sort of shortcut to get into her knickers, he was sorely mistaken and that he had ten seconds to leave of his own accord before an effeminate, immoral, sorry excuse for a man forcibly removed him from this flat. He left pretty quickly after that.

My mother slept till morning. When she asked where her man friend had gone, I simply said that he had gone back to their hotel. They were scheduled to go home later that day. My mother hung around for a while after calling the hotel. I guess her Prince Charming told her he was going to a museum on his own. For the last couple hours of her visit, I debated internally whether or not to tell her what had happened the previous night, but I was worried she might misunderstand and think I was exaggerating just because I didn't like to see her dating, and I couldn't think of a way to tell her without sounding...well, exactly like a whiny little boy who couldn't deal with seeing Mummy with a man who wasn't Daddy. So as she was leaving, I just gave her a CD of my latest recording of original piano compositions and told her to ask her new man about the conversation we'd had while she had been asleep.

The next day Henry and I left for Rome, so I haven't really had a chance to talk to my mother since, and I'm not really sure what I should say to her when I do next speak with her.

But the thing that bothers me the most is that the things this man said to me...really hurt. I know I shouldn't care what he thinks of me. I don't respect him, and I try to only care about the opinions of those I respect. Whether or not my mother ever learns the details of our conversation, I don't see them staying together for long. My mother hasn't really stayed with anyone for longer than a few weeks since my father died. So I'm not really worried that they'll get married and I'll have to deal with the evil step-father. And even if they did get married, I only see my mother a few times a year (though it would make our visits decidedly less pleasant). Though as I said, that's really a non-issue as pigs will fly before my mother re-marries.

Mostly I'm just unsure of whether or not I should tell her what happened, and I feel like this stupid p***k, pardon my language, has single-handedly destroyed the self-respect I've worked very hard over the past couple years to achieve. How can someone who doesn't know me make such cruel, hurtful accusations? I know it shouldn't bother me so much, but it does. I had finally been making progress in my lifelong battle against self-loathing, due in no small part to my spiritual awakening that's been unfolding over the past couple years. My relationship with God, and with the very notion of faith, had become so fractured because of my inability to have any faith in myself, to believe that there was anything in me worth loving or saving, and the fact that such an insignificant person in the grand scheme of things could affect me so profoundly is just continuing to eat away at my fragile self esteem.

I know I need to pray for strength, for guidance...but the more this hatred for myself starts bubbling up inside me, the harder it is for me to turn to God, because why would God waste his time with someone as pathetic and worthless as me?

I know that we are all undeserving of Salvation and it is only because of Christ's love and sacrifice that we can receive God's grace. This isn't a matter of theology so much as it's a matter of psychology. My severely damaged psyche can only be soothed by God, yet it's the very problem that I need God's help to overcome that prevents me from reaching out to God.

I can't even look Henry in the eye, because it's more of a mystery than ever to me how and why such a good, intelligent, attractive man has wasted the past 15 years on someone so damaged and effed up. He deserves so much better, and even though I know rationally that he doesn't feel this way, I feel like I've caused him to waste his life tied to someone so useless.

I'm reminded of a passage in a book where a surgeon is trying to suture a ruptured intestine on a patient with acute scurvy. Scurvy eventually turns one's insides to something resembling the consistency of Muenster cheese, and every time the surgeon tried to repair the tear, the sutures would just pull straight through the Muenster-jelly intestine. I feel like my psyche or my soul or something that embodies "me" has scurvy and is turning to jelly, and as I try to repair the damage, my efforts just make the rupture larger and slowly but surely all that I am and all that I've worked for is disintegrating and falling through my fingers.

We're going to visit St. Peters Basilica today I believe. Maybe I'll be able to find God in the Vatican. Or rather, maybe He'll find me.

Sorry for the tl;dr

For anybody who actually bothered to read my long pathetic ramble, any advice beyond "pray" would be much appreciated. I know I need to pray. I just can't remember how right now.

• First, what about it was hurtful and cruel? the tone of his voice or the content of his message? if it's the latter, you are aware that the bible says no different:
  
  
  Quote:

  1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV)
  
  9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
  
  
  or as the NIV renders it:
  
  
  Quote:

  1 Corinthians 6:9 (NIV)
  
  9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. 1 Corinthians 6:9 The words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.
  
  
  
  So if he's cruel for saying that, then you're accusing God of being equally as cruel (all of God's word condemns it, not just New or Old Testament, but both), YHWH's law and his prophets speak the same. How can you accept Jesus but not what he said? (the part where he says he's not abolishing the law and the prophets [Matthew 5:17], that Moses' law is good and we do good by putting that to practice instead of our traditions [Matthew 23:1-3; Mark 7:1-13], and that we need to be born-again or else we won't enter the kingdom [John 3:3]? You're not a disciple of Jesus if don't deny yourself of your thoughts/what you personally think is right/what you personally hold in esteem (Luke 9:23, Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.) Ask yourself what / who it is that you're revering: God/Jesus (and thus his laws of righteousness and definition of sin) or yourself (thus your own feelings of what is right or wrong)? If the latter again, then your mother's boyfriend is not cruel for saying what he said. You're not actually being a Christian. To be Christ-like is to agree with and do the Father's will, have a foundation based on the law, prophets, Jesus and the apostles, as preserved by the Jews.
  
  To quote Paul:
  
  
  Quote:

  Ephesians 2:20 (NIV)
  
  20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
  
  
  To quote Jesus:
  
  
  Quote:

  Matthew 7:21 (NIV)
  
  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
  
  
  
  Quote:

  John 4:22 (NIV)
  
  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
  
  
  The fact that what you've been "building on" hasn't been able to stand affliction (a small bit of affliction at that, the comment of an "insignificant person" as you say) means you're building on a faulty foundation.
  
  
  Quote:

  Luke 6:46-49 (NIV)
  
  46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 48 They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
  
  
  The perspective of God that you've been operating on, and your journey with God in the path you've taken, is now breaking down because it was never accurate to beginwith.
  
  
• Secondly, we're supposed to have faith in God, not ourselves. We're not suppose to be sifting through ourselves to find aspects in our personalities that could be pleasing to God, but totally abandoning who we once were and allowing him to build us again from scratch (thus, being born-again, given a new nature, and a new heart that is submitted to his ways. That is the new covenant; if that doesn't describe you, you're not under it).
  
  
  Quote:

  Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NIV)
  
  31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
  “when I will make a new covenant
  with the people of Israel
  and with the people of Judah.
  32 It will not be like the covenant
  I made with their ancestors
  when I took them by the hand
  to lead them out of Egypt,
  because they broke my covenant,
  though I was a husband to[a] them,[b ]”
  declares the Lord.
  33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
  after that time,” declares the Lord.
  “I will put my law in their minds
  and write it on their hearts.
  I will be their God,
  and they will be my people.
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. Jeremiah 31:32 Hebrew; Septuagint and Syriac / and I turned away from
  b. Jeremiah 31:32 Or was their master
  
  
  
  Quote:

  Ezekiel 36:25-27 (NIV)
  
  25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
  
  
  
  Quote:

  1 Peter 1:23 (NIV)
  
  23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
  
  
  
  Quote:

  Colossians 3:5-10 (NIV)
  
  5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[a] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. Colossians 3:6 Some early manuscripts coming on those who are disobedient
  
  
  
  
  
• Thirdly, what the world calls "high self esteem" is actually pride; we're suppose to be walking humbly before God, submitted to his ways, not our own, remembering that we're all sinful in comparison to him and equally insignificant in his sight. We have no reason to think highly of ourselves above others unless we want to invite arrogance and a condescending attitude towards the people around us. All of humankind is sinful, needs to repent and be born-again, like Jesus said.
  
  
  Quote:

  Luke 13:2-5 (NIV)
  
  2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

There are times in our lives when God sends destruction, breaking away certain social ties, so we're forced to repent and rely on him only (even in cases like these, people still choose to not repent). In the process, whatever we placed our trust in is exposed as faulty (like a belief system) and not something we could constantly depend on for comfort (like people), the only one that'll be there forever and unchanging is God and his instructions.

In a nutshell: my advice, beyond praying (though praying is not something that should be overlooked), is to actually repent of everything he considers sin and put on the new nature he promises to give us. Stop trying to justify what he calls sin, thus staying in a life full of it; stop letting your emotions guide you. We're to live by every word that he spoke (Matthew 4:4), not guided by the flesh and the deceitful desires of the heart (Ephesians 4:22; Jeremiah 17:9; Mark 7:21-22) It's impossible to believe in Jesus and not repent. If you're not doing the latter, you never actually did the former. Because Jesus told us to repent and do the Father's will.


edit: about praying, since you said you don't even know how to right now, Jesus said to talk to God as if he were your heavenly father (Matthew 6:9), it's a conversation, a simple request for help, to help you, for him to be glorified and for his will to be done. Just speak to him. You don't need to be inside of a temple to do so. The sooner the better: once you place all your cares on him and genuinely believe he's in full control of the situation and is capable of caring for you and your friend/ex-boyfriend, you will have peace.

The reason why my posts always revolve back to homosexuality is because the root of the issue is your idolatry (putting other things on God's pedestal and letting them guide you, whether it's man-made traditions or your own perspectives of what is right, your own emotions, other people, et cetera). And until you repent of that, and recognize your sin for the sin that it is, he's not going to listen to your prayer and you'll continue worrying about things; not only that, but any uncertainty you may have, of where you are with God, will also subside once you repent and get biblical about your walk. That's why I recommend repenting of all sin (which includes indulging in homosexual lusts).



Also, I'm not (nor is the bible) talking about being "masculine" per society's standards, but about pursuing relations with other men; that's why I quoted the NIV rendition to drive that point home. That's what it means to be effeminate in scripture.



Repent of your sins, don't harbor any ill feelings for this man (he spoke biblical truth; pursuing homosexual relations is sin), and do ask our Heavenly Father for guidance for yourself and your friend; you will have peace / no worries if you truly believe he's in control over the situation and that his words are worthy of putting your trust in. What I'm suggesting is, certain people may be leaving your life (not only because it may be a sinful relationship in the first place) but because you're not trusting in his commands and need to learn to do so.

I don't really know what to say, advice wise, I'm afraid. I haven't been in any situations that are really similar to yours. And I don't know you too well, either, so I don't know your thoughts or anything.

Whoever was going out with your mum, however, shoouldn't have acted the way he did. For a start, he didn't have the right to try to lecture you. He barely knew you, as you realize, and probably had no idea that what he said had any meaning. I mean, clearly he didn't know about your father and the crucifix, for a start.

I'm not quite sure what you need to hear as good sound advise, but, if you'd like me too, I'll pray for you.

I can tell you must've taken some of Westboro Baptist Church messages. You accuse him of sinning? That's a lie. Being gay ain't a sin and if you don't believe me, then read the KJV bible. All those verses of homosexuality didn't start appearing until the NIV released them. Because of the stereotypes. When the bible says the effeminate wont inherit the kingdom, that means the soft wont inherit it. So I'd say that any regular weak house wife is gonna go to hell if she doesn't learn to be strong. That's what the bible says. And I got a step mom who knows how to deliver a clean house and have her own job cleaning houses. She also works out to stay in shape. What false idols does he worship? Faith in self is a metaphor. Basically he needed confidence. Confidence which you've probably killed. I'm praying for you because your not only hurting ones feelings, but your being hostile which is the opposite of Jesus Christ's message. It was love and that everybody has a chance to enter the gates of heaven if they repent their sins. Sure, if Sinful has sins, he's repented. But I'm gonna say this. He ain't worshipping a false idol and he ain't sinning by being gay. Wanna continue this? Do it over PMs.

Thanks for coming to my defense, mate, but reel it in a couple notches. Westboro Baptists are a far cry from the only Christians who take issue with homosexuality, so that's a pretty unfair accusation. And most Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin aren't half the wankers that the Westboros are.

And I'm still a sinner, regardless of whether or not my sexual orientation is a sin. Everyone is a sinner, and I'm certainly no exception.

Real Eyes and I are cool. She had no malicious intent, we just have differing ideology. I was just being a crybaby realier. lol