Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been

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I was able to want God because the Holy Spirit was after my affections just as much as he was after my obedience. She knew God was calling her, but not in the way she had expected. “God was not calling me to be straight; He was calling me to Himself. The choice to lay aside sin and take hold of holiness was not synonymous with heterosexuality.” It’s not that God would allow her to remain a “gay Christian,” but that there was far more to God’s will for her than a mere change of sexual orientation. “In my becoming Holy as He is, I would not be miraculously made into a woman that didn’t like women; I’d be made into a woman that loved God more than anything. If marriage ever came or singleness called me by name, He wanted to guarantee by the work of His hands that both would be lived unto Him.” Is this what it feels like to be a Christian? I thought to myself. Is it to have a quiet war inside of yourself at all times?

Unbelief will always contrast sin with God. Making it and not him glorious. Making it and not him worth living for. Making it and not him worth dying for. (152)In an interview with The Gospel Coalition, Hill Perry cited Mali Music, Propaganda, and Ebony Moore as "a few people who inspire me to be great at my craft." [15] Theologically, she names pastor John Piper as a major influence, and even based Art of Joy on Piper's book Desiring God, where Piper explains his concept of Christian hedonism. Hill Perry states that The SSA Christian that is called to marriage is no more of an apologetic for the power of God than the SSA Christian that is called to singleness. In both, God is glorified. (183) As a result, Perry has been forced to defend, explain, and clarify her position on working with those from other theological traditions, including some who ascribe to “false teachings.” Her affiliation with the women at the Propel event also lost her an upcoming speaking slot. Gay Girl, Good God’ is a peculiar story about the forms of sin and the walk to deliverance from immorality.

It is the identity that we ascribe to God out of doubt or faith in his Scriptures that will determine the identity we will give ourselves and ultimately the life that we inevitably live. To leave her, us, our love, made no sense apart from the divine doing of God. She was both my woman and my idol. She was the eye Jesus said to gouge out and the right hand he commanded me to cut off (Matt. 5:29–30). Though it was as painful as the extreme act of removing a part of the body, it was better for me to lose her than to lose my soul. I sat up in my bed and thought deeply about all that was happening in me. I’d known about God for so long, but now it seemed as if God was inviting me to know him. To love him. To walk with him. To be in relationship with him. That moment—that epiphany that my sin, left untreated, would be “the death of me”—wasn’t a matter of trying to be straight or even trying to escape hell. No, it was about God positioning himself before my eyes, so that I could finally see that he is everything he says he is—and worthy to be trusted.Perry tells her story in a winsome way. She writes on a hot-button topic with compelling grace and compassion. The overarching tone of the work isn’t instruction, but invitation; not “I’ve arrived,” but “I’ve endured and enjoyed––taste and see!” Passing the blunt between us, I shook my head. . . . “Is God trying to get my attention by making my life harder or something?” I said. Blowing out smoke between questions, said out loud but mainly meant for God to hear and relent. “I mean, does God want me that much?” As grace would have it, He did. (64–65)

Leaving this word-filled place with a developed understanding of me and a shallow revelation of God would make all of my efforts worthless. . . . This work is my worship unto God that, with prayer, I hope will leave you saying, “God is so good!” (3 –4) And it does that. I know Perry better, and have a better understanding of SSA, because of this book; but more importantly, I know our good God better. It caused me to revel in the miraculous––that God awakens the dead and opens blind eyes to the truth that’s in Jesus, that he’s gracious to relentlessly pursue those who’ve rejected him, and that he does the impossible in saving rebels. Underneath my gown, white with a train, was a fight none of the guests could see. . . . They thought I was walking on the aisle runner the usher had rolled out before I entered the sanctuary. I knew it was water. I knew it was the impossible” (138). Alford said she’s pretty certain that Kayla misses Whitefield Academy, which she had attended since the sixth grade. In the book’s final section she takes on some of the hard questions related to homosexuality and same-sex attracted Christians. She first makes it clear: “I am not implying that because these men and women are still tempted with SSA, that they bear the identity of what some would call a ‘Gay Christian.’” She takes on matters of identity, matters of endurance, and what she calls “the heterosexual gospel.”

On her Christian journey, she finds solace in writing. Poetry becomes a way to express herself to others. Years later, she meets Preston Perry at a poetry event. They share their testimonies and friendship. Soon, they develop affection for each other and eventually get married. Just as Eve let her body tell her what she should do with it, instead of God’s Word, which would’ve reminded her of what it was made for, I was inevitably prone to the same kind of unbelief. The same Bible that condemned me held in it the promises that could save me. I just had to believe it. “It” being what it said about Him: God. Jesus had the guilty in mind when He was hung high and stretched out wide. On it, He died in my place, for my sin. He bare-bodied and face set on joy, became as slaughtered lamb underneath the wrath of God. You would think His Father would have a better memory than that. Didn’t he know that that wrath was mine? It even had my name on it. But He knew. His justice wouldn’t allow Him to forget. His love is what He wanted me to know and remember, and I did. (p75-76)