In March, 2016, I was forced to resign from a conservative Church of Christ following a sermon I gave on the Confederate flag. My faith wandered until January 2018, when I had a powerful, spiritual experience. I was commanded by God to preach again. Almost two years later, in November, 2019, I started work as a full-time minister at another church within the same denomination.

 

In March, 2021 I was fired for “putting fear over faith” in the height of the pandemic. Though I pleaded with them to please bear with my conscience until the vaccine arrived, my concern for the health of my neighbors got me canned. I applied for dozens of jobs over the course of the next year. Nothing came. The loss of income forced me to rely on my wife’s family for survival. 

 

Six months after I was fired, I had several dreams that awakened me to my gender identity. Job’s youngest friend, Elihu, said dreams were one way God speaks to us that “man does not perceive” (Job 33:16-19). I’m autistic; my special interest is dream interpretation. I’ve been doing it since I was a preteen.

 

God helped me understand who I am through making me dream that I was a woman. I couldn’t go back to feeling how I used to. Praying was useless. Within three days of my egg cracking, I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done and came out to my wife. 

 

A lot of trans people don’t come out to their lovers for much longer. This is hardly a unique tale. I thought she, as the person I had promised my life to, deserved not to be kept in the dark in regards to something that, for me, was now very much in the light. I knew it would come as a massive shock; she deserved to prepare for her own future if she wasn’t going to want me as a part of it.

 

I was loyal to a fault to a very abusive person; I always believed God’s plan was for us to be together—that maybe she’d learn to love who I really was regardless of my gender. But, she wasn’t a fan of who I was even before my egg cracked.   

 

The second I told her, she proposed divorce. I was devastated, but I understood. We agreed to remain good friends, live together, and raise our children together. When sexual orientation gets in the way, there isn’t much that can be done. Not long after, she started an affair with her brother-in-law that she was trying to keep hidden from everyone. I confronted her about it and decided it was time to leave.    

 

I’ve been homeless since April 2nd, 2022. Though my voices and visions have comforted me through this experience and given me hope when none seemed to exist, I have found it difficult to care about finding a new faith community. God has never seemed particularly concerned. Churches are supposed to save people from homelessness. Mine made me homeless. I'm jaded to Christianity, but I've always known I have siblings with unstained garments.

 

Church isn't an option in the shelter; due to covid precautions, you can only leave for work or a doctor's appointment. After learning of the United Church of Christ, I've decided to give it a shot once I'm free of this place. I'm still very skeptical about returning. We'll see where it leads.

 

I kept it hidden that I was experiencing voices and visions the entirety of my second stint as a preacher—the non-instutitional CoC regards preachers those who claim to speak with spirits, heretics. They couldn’t have helped what happened between me and my wife (who thinks I’m just insane for having voices and visions), but I would’ve been able to survive on my own if the people I called “brothers and sisters in Christ” hadn’t betrayed me when I took a stand for what I believed was only righteous and loving—guarding the lives of our neighbors in the middle of the worst pandemic we’ve seen in over a century. 

 

I am homeless today because I believed that was the wisest way to handle an awful and trying situation. I often find myself doubting God’s purpose for my life. I returned to preaching because He told me to. He never warned me they’d fire me again. He always told the prophets when the people He was sending them to wouldn’t listen; He didn’t give me the same heads-up when it came to the church. 

 

Being homeless has taught me a million lessons about caring for the least of mankind that I was never going to receive through any other teacher. All the same, I'm hoping that I'm about tapped out when it comes to what lessons I can learn from this experience.

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God has limitless humor at his disposal, and sometimes, He’ll play the smarter older brother who talks over your head just to make fun of you for it later on. I was once a judgy, bigoted freak because of the faith I was raised in. But then, I became everything I hated when God, using my dreams, said to me, “how would you like to be born that way?” 

 

I finally understood.

 

I said, “I’d love it.”

 

But I knew it meant heartache was on its way. Being born is always an uncomfortable experience, and realizing who I am has made it clear to me that my true rebirth came through dreams, not a baptism.    

 

God hasn’t just saved me from my Self over and over again, He’s saved me from a killer. I have an incredible story to share with the world. It does not die in a homeless shelter.