Claimed Twice: A Story of Jesus, Visibility and Me

April 26th has always meant something to me.

It’s the day I said yes to Jesus. I was 17, broken and still reeling from a loss that shook me to my core. I was lost and I needed help. Jesus reached out to me. He spoke to me through friends, a TV show, and a fictional character during that time. He helped me come up with ways to mourn the person I lost.

I wish I could remember what the service was about that day, but I don’t. I do remember feeling ready. Ready to be His. After service, I walked down to that altar with no idea what my future held only that I wanted to belong to Him.

I didn’t know I was a lesbian.

Not then.

That truth would find me three years later, with all its ache and clarity and unlearning. But what’s wild — what still gives me goosebumps — is that April 26th is Lesbian Visibility Day.

The same day I surrendered my life to Christ, unknowingly aligned with the day set aside to honor queer women like me.

Tell me God doesn’t have a sense of timing.

Tell me He didn’t already know.

Part I: Echoes of Grace

I used to hear that queerness was incompatible with faith. That being gay meant turning away from Jesus. But looking back now, it feels like He was doing the opposite. Like He was already holding my hand, guiding me toward the fullness of who I am.

What if visibility isn’t just about being seen by others, but being seen by Jesus — long before we see ourselves?

In 2022, my friend Nicole described these intense, frightening episodes where she’d collapse and convulse. They sounded like grand mal seizures. Because of my medical knowledge, I was able to help her advocate for answers and eventually, she received a diagnosis of Frontal Lobe Epilepsy.

Two weeks after our friendship ended, I went to Q Worship Collective. I signed up on a whim, unaware of how much I needed it. That weekend became a pivot point — the place where I found a community that fully saw me. Where I began deconstructing and reconstructing my faith. Where I first experienced being queer and Christian not as a contradiction, but a calling. That following January, I went to a bigger conference called Queer Christian Fellowship. Once again, it was a place I needed to be. Somewhere to belong. That is when I met Jelly, and soon after, my now fiancée, Aura.

In May of 2023, I met Erin, my first martial arts coach. Early in our friendship, she had asked me why I wasn’t driving. I had told her it was due to my chronic pain. She then told me that she had seizures — what she called “staring spells” and didn’t get her license until she was 34. The seizures she described sounded exactly like the strange episodes I had been having since early childhood but had never fully understood. Because of her, I realised I might have epilepsy too. Two weeks after meeting Erin, I received my own diagnosis of Childhood Absence Epilepsy.

That friendship ended in December 2023. It was painful in its own way; marked by miscommunication, stubbornness, and regret. The echo of what had happened with Nicole was undeniable. Different people. Different circumstances. But similar lessons, delivered twice.

Looking back now, I see how Jesus used both friendships, first to guide me to a faith that affirmed all of me, and then to help me finally understand my health. The endings were hard. But they weren’t devoid of meaning. They were echoes of grace.

And I carry the lessons from both friendships into how I love others now. And how I love myself.

Part II: The Gap Between Knowing and Becoming

There were three years between that first altar call and my coming out. They were complicated years. I wrestled with theology. I battled shame. I felt invisible in faith spaces because I was different. 

But I was growing.

Becoming.

And Jesus never left me.

My experience with Him during that “in-between” season wasn’t simple. I was confused. I heard people say awful things in His name. That Jesus hates the gays. That I was going to hell if I married a woman. That my chronic illnesses were punishment for being gay, and that I’d only be healed if I repented and became straight again.

So I prayed to a brick wall. For years.

Even after I came out.

It wasn’t until Nicole and I parted ways and I attended Q Worship Collective that I began to see clearly. He had never left me. He had always been there. He spoke to me that weekend. He brought me out of the darkness and into the light.

After that I had to learn how to separate one Jesus from another. The one I had been taught through sermons, from well-meaning Christians, from my own fears — versus the one He was showing me He truly is. In moments of doubt, I started asking, “Does this sound like their Jesus, or mine?” That question saved me.

I had to unlearn the belief that my chronic illness was my punishment. I had to learn that while it absolutely motherfucking sucks that my conditions are part of His plan, they are. And I need to trust Him with that. I’ve started to understand how these diagnoses connect me to others. How they’ve allowed me to be the person for others that I never had for myself. While that younger part of me has never fully healed from not having someone like me in her life during the beginning of her chronic illness journey, I find solace in knowing that a close friend of mine did not get to experience that loneliness I did.

Part III: The Second Claiming

Fast forward to October 8th, 2023 — International Lesbian Day.

I was baptised again. This time, in an LGBT-affirming church.

Not only baptised, but playing drums in the worship band—something I had been doing since July. I led the rhythm as my community surrounded me in celebration and affirmation.

That moment felt like Jesus saying again:

“You’re mine. I never changed My mind.”

The first time I got baptised, I was 20. I did it because I thought I had to. To fully be His. I thought it would fix everything. It didn’t. I felt hollow afterward, and I wouldn’t understand why until years later. I did it out of force not desire. 

This time, it came from the heart. From a place of deep love and surrender. I was ready to make the public declaration that I belong to Him.

To be baptised as an out and proud lesbian, on International Lesbian Day, at the only affirming church in my hometown meant everything. The whole church showed up for me that day. Every member stood with me, committing to walk beside me in faith. Even my parents, who are not Christian, came and stood beside me.

It was emotional.

It was sacred.

I knew at that moment I had found my community.

Queer today. Queer tomorrow. Like God, some things don’t change.

Part IV: A Visible Life

Today, I live visible.

Not just as a lesbian. Not just as a Christian.

But as someone held by paradox, made sacred by it.

Some days, it still feels radical to say:

I am queer.

I am holy.

I am His.

But every time I do, I feel a little more free.

Living visibly means I choose to be my authentic self, no matter where I go or who I’m with. It means remembering that Jesus affirmed me long before I knew who I was. That truth cannot be taken from me — not by laws, not by politicians, and not by fear.

I am still learning to love my body. To love the chronically ill version of me. I’m doing what I can to nourish her, even if that means a boatload of medications each day. Even if it means I can’t always keep up with my jiu jitsu teammates. Even if it means taking more than one leave of absence from school just to function. Even if it means that my life gets put on pause (again).

Maybe the most powerful part of my story isn’t that I found Jesus.

It’s that He found me—again and again.

On altar steps. Behind drum kits. In hospital rooms. On the jiu jitsu mats.

In moments of fear and moments of fire.

He knew I was a lesbian when I didn’t.

He called me anyway.

Maybe even because of it.

And now, every April 26th, I remember:

I was always visible to Him.

I was always visible to Him.