WRITTEN: June 28th 2011

Today I spoke about my brother Randy and the very last phone call we had.
It was odd…talking about it.
As I pulled out of the parking lot and went about my day I couldn’t help but think of my parents.  
Being raised in a strict Southern Baptist home you have to understand the heartbreak they felt when my brother “came out.”
The feeling they had somehow failed as a “Christian” mother and father.
However, the love and support they had for Randy trumped any church authority on shunning him into any kind of “repentance.”
I know they struggled with the whole “can he be gay and still die and go to Heaven” thing. I can remember hearing my mother cry as she prayed for God to “change his heart” and my father’s conversations with elders of the church on weather or not he had done something to “make my son this way.” 
For years my brothers gay lifestyle was the white elephant in the room. Boyfriends he brought home for dinner were “just friends” and whenever we would run into old church friends they would ask about all my brothers EXCEPT for Randy, as that uncomfortable tension would begin to rise while avoiding to mention his name. 
It wasn’t until a year after Kenneth’s death I had a dream.
So real.
Very vivid…
I was with my Mom as we walked down a familiar street along with Randy. The sun was so bright and every bird was singing louder than usual. 
All of a sudden it was complete chaos. 
It was darker, people were running, the sun was gone and eventually the three of us were running. 
Faster and faster as we struggled to hold on one to another my brother Randy was lifted as he ascended so high, so high he was almost through the very clouds above me. The look on my mom’s face was complete horror and I was completely confused. I was begging him not to go, to come back where he is needed and loved. All of a sudden my mom stopped. She stood completely still. I screamed for her to hurry and help when Randy looked me right in the eye..”I need to go…If I see Kenneth I’m outta here, he will need me.” “What if you don’t?” I shouted…”Then I will stay.” One more leap into the clouds and he was gone. 
Devastated, I was devastated.
However my mom was at complete peace. She touched my face and said “It’s okay…They are BOTH there.” 
I woke up in a complete sweat and ran to my mother’s room as I told her the dream she began to cry and tell me that Randy had the HIV Virus for the past 5 years and it had now fallen into Aids with his last battle of the flu…I called him.
We wept together as he began to ask if this was God punishing him for his lifestyle, his relationship with Alan…Immediately I said “No way…God would NEVER do that.” 
My brother lived a surprisingly healthy life for years while trying to “change himself.”
Even moving thousands of miles away from Alan and joining a group of “ex-gays” at a local church. 
He cried all of the time.
Most of our conversations were late at night and he would ask why he still felt these feelings, why God wasn’t “making him better…” 
I had no answers. 
Eventually Alan went to North Carolina and they lived there, together, in a relationship and for the first time in a very, very long time my brother was…happy. We still had our “talks.” The day he died he said “Maybe I have it all wrong Tommie-Girl. The bible DOES say For God so loved the world not the straight and sinless…” I admit I winced a bit and replied with “I don’t know…” We went over scripture and he asked once again if I had ever thought God was punishing him as he began to get sicker and sicker. My answer was still an adamant “No.” I said “Randy…what if you died today…” I didn’t even finish before he took a deep breath and said “I speak with God all of the time, I read my bible, I sit in my room and beg for God to forgive me and I always feel Him. His love, His acceptance. I can truly say there is NO DOUBT Tommie-Girl, noooo doubt that if I died today in Heaven I know I’d be.” That was the last conversation we had.
Ever…
Alan died instantly. 
Randy was on life support with absolutely no brain activity. 
My Dad had died that previous year, my Mom was out of her mind with sickness and grief…and here I was, totally confused.
I grew up in a church where they taught homosexuality to be a sure way to never see the face of God. 
And now…here was my brother.
Openly gay. 
Only being KEPT alive by a machine they were now asking the next of kin to turn off…Only to send him into an eternity of what? 
Peace?
True restoration, healing, love….
Or…
My God…
Our sister had given the final word to “let him go” after discussions, tears and reasoning with our soul’s on weather or not we were doing the right thing. 
I can’t even express how tormented my spirit has been for years wondering where Randy is today. 
Listening to Jay Bakker and his affirming views on gays has gotten me so angry at times I’ve wanted to kick him in the balls.
You wonder sometimes… why God doesn’t answer your pleading of answers to the most difficult of questions. 
I NEED to be as good of a Believer as I can.
All of the “traditional Christians” are fading into the wind and I have been told to STAY STRONG, KEEP THE FAITH but I’ve been so angry and bitter and confused as to why God would make me send my brother into hell? Complete bullshit I have said MANY a night with thinking He has just forgotten about me, until I remembered, the dream. 
That amazing, beautiful dream. Those outlaw preachers and Jay Bakker saying things I was so against but now had perhaps been my answer all along. I’ve had Pastors tell me absolutely not, it was an emotional dream, God doesn’t do that anymore, homosexuality is wrong, BOTH of your brothers are in hell, deal with it and get over it. 
But what if….
What if we have had it wrong all along? 
Maybe I am looking to set my tormented soul at ease,
it’s quite possible.
Or maybe God heard my brother, his years of weeping, begging for forgiveness and maybe…as a God of grace…restoration….mercy….
He forgave my brother.
Moses never got to step foot into Canaan…however…is he not with God?

Selah~
The Lord is near to those who have been brokenhearted,
He hears the cry’s of those who have been crushed in their spirit…Psalm 34:18,19