u gotta have faith..!!

My gay hairdresser by Paul Scanlon

Life teaches us that all too often the best things in life - its greatest breakthroughs, miracles and memories - seem to be deliberately placed just beyond our convenient reach. The greatest things in life are protected by just enough problems, set backs and inconveniences. This ensures that only those who really want to make a difference will be granted entry to where amazing things can happen.

My gay hairdresser
-paul scanlon

Recently on my day off I had my hair cut by a guys who doesn't normally do it. My usual hairdresser James was away so they offered me this other guy called Richard. After telling him how I liked it cutting, I relaxed and retreated into my newspaper. I didn't exactly have a 'please do disturb' sign on my life.
It's convenient keeping the same people in your life. After three years my regular hairdresser knows me. He knows a bit about my family, what I do etc, and I know the same about him. All that familiar ground makes it easy to just kind of catch up when he cuts my hair.
Richard, the new guy, asked me what seems to be the standard hairdresser question, 'what do you do?' This immediately made me feel uncomfortable and inconvenienced. You must understand that in England the 'C' word 'church' is like a dirty word. Statistics show that 98% of our population don't attend church and most of them seem 'anti' rather than 'pro' church.
To say I work at a church is usually an instant conversation killer, because it's a word that's totally irrelevant to most people. But I remembered my 15 Revolution commitment and told him I was the pastor of a church in the locality. He replied, 'Well that's interesting. I'm a Catholic and recently my parents invited me to their Catholic church'. He continued, 'I told them I couldn't go because, as they knew, the pope has just made a statement againt homosexuality and I am gay and my parents friends at church know I'm gay, so I didn't want to be an inconvenience.'
I realised whatever I said next was going to be important. He paused, then asked me, 'Do you welcome gay people at your church?' I paused, and almost without thinking the answer came from my spirit, then my brain caught up and realised that my answer was a flash of wisdom to help my own life. I said, 'No we don't welcome gay people, we just welcome people' (and by the way, a welcome doesn't mean that you endorse a person's lifestyle. Jesus welcomed all). He said 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Well we don't welcome categories of people, we don't have sections for homosexuals, straight etc, we just welcome everyone'. My point being that when Jesus died on the cross, he didn't spend the first hour for all the normal sinners, and then do the next twenty minutes for homosexuals, then the next ten minutes for prostitutes, then ten minutes for murderers and so on. He died once for all people! And yet we, the church, seem to categorise people according to lifestyles. To cut a long story short, I invited Richard to church, and the following Sunday evening he came. He was there for two reasons, firstly because I decided to be inconvenienced and secondly, I decided not to judge him. I learned a huge lesson that day, because I had been inviting James to church for three years, but he never came. The new guy was open to do something immediately that James hadn't been open to in three years. Often the least responsive people are the most time consuming, and the most responsive are the ones we ignore because it's too inconvenient to include them.

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last 2 weeks ago, was at church sitting down for usual early mass, but my head n heart was just not there.. said to myself that im loosing my faith, just want people to accept me more in this environment or more, everywhere else in the world.. where is the equality?? Priest preached bout love but didn't see that happening to the LGBT community.. i can snobbishly said that it was just me there that can see people differently n accept them for who they are, even disables..

a friend of mine Sue, recently shared this amazing story to me through facebook.. after i red this, i begins to think, wow, this story actually keeps my faith in away, through a friend from God... felt that it helps me alot.. i guess one of my prayer was answered from God cuz after that church mass, i did pray so that i can never give up on Him, love n my faith towards anything...

Thanx Sue & Jesus :)



-Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)



xoxo Agus