When Love Refused to Let Us Go

It was around 2 am when I found myself staring at a group photograph of the God's Beloved Community at Kitchissippi United Church. I did not sit down with an agenda. I was not planning to write. I was simply looking. Yet something happened to me in that quiet hour. Goosebumps spread across my skin. Tears came without permission. What I was seeing was not just a picture. It was a gathering of lives that had survived being told they were unwanted by God.

Every face in that photograph carried a history. Some of those histories were heavy. Many were painful. These were people who had once sat in other churches and heard sermons that did not bring life, but shame. They were told that their bodies were wrong. They were told their love was evil. Some were told there were demons inside them that needed to be cast out. Others were told that God hated them because of who they were attracted to. These messages were not spoken in secret. They were preached loudly. Confidently. Wrapped in scripture.

For many, those words did not just wound their faith. They wounded their sense of self. Some tried desperately to change. They prayed through the night. They fasted. They begged God to fix them. Some blamed themselves when nothing changed. Some decided that if God hated them, then faith was not safe. Slowly, quietly, they walked away from church. Some walked away from prayer. Some walked away from themselves.

There are people in God’s Beloved who once believed that giving up on God was the only way to survive. There are people who believed that disappearing was easier than living under constant rejection. There are people who learned how to smile in public while carrying deep loneliness in private. Faith was not lost because God failed them. Faith was lost because people spoke cruelty and called it holiness.

And yet, somehow, they are here.

God’s Beloved exists because love refused to let them go. It exists because there was a decision to create space where people are not asked to explain themselves before they are allowed to belong. It exists because healing does not begin with judgment, but with welcome. In this community, people are not told to hide parts of themselves to be worthy of God. They are not reduced to labels. They are called by name. They are listened to. They are trusted with leadership. They are allowed to breathe again.

What happens when people who were rejected encounter gentleness instead of fear is something holy. Slowly, faith returns. Not the fearful kind. Not the kind that trembles at every sermon. But a quiet faith that says maybe God was never the problem. Maybe God was grieving with them all along.

This work matters deeply, especially now. Many members of God’s Beloved are newcomers and refugees. Some fled countries where being openly LGBTQIA+ is punished with violence, prison, or death. Some escaped families who turned away from them. Some escaped churches that chose power over compassion. Canada offers safety, but safety does not erase memory. Many still wake up at night hearing the voices that once told them they were cursed.

And while some have found refuge here, many LGBTQIA+ people are still in Africa. Still hiding. Still being beaten. Still being arrested. Still being told that God hates them in the very languages they learned to pray in as children. Our silence reaches them. But so can our courage.

This essay is meant to speak beyond one church. It is meant to speak to seniors who have lived decades hiding who they are. It is meant to speak to parents who love their children but are afraid of what religion might demand of them. It is meant to speak to the young person in Africa who thinks death is the only escape from shame. It is meant to say clearly that God’s love is not limited by fear, culture, or tradition.

Jesus did not avoid the rejected. He moved toward them. He sat with them. He ate with them. He touched those religion warned him about. If the church is to follow Jesus honestly, then the church must follow him there.

God’s Beloved is not asking the world to lower its faith. It is asking the world to remember its heart. It is a reminder that theology without love becomes violence. It is a reminder that faith should heal, not destroy. It is a reminder that people do not need fixing before they are worthy of grace.

As I looked again at that photograph in the early hours of the morning, one truth settled deeply in me. Those smiles were not pretending that pain never happened. They were proof that pain did not win. They were proof that love, when given space, still resurrects what shame tried to bury.

If our voices travel far enough, if our compassion is loud enough, then perhaps someone, somewhere, will look at their own life and realize they were never abandoned by God. Perhaps they were simply waiting for a church brave enough to love them back to life.

This story is also carried by people who chose not to look away.

It is carried by me, Daniel, who has watched faith break and slowly mend again in real time. It is carried by Rev. Jenni Leslie, the minister at Kitchissippi United Church, who has consistently stood in the pulpit and in private rooms saying with her whole life that love is not conditional. It is carried by Denise Bonomo, Chair of Council at Kitchissippi, whose leadership has helped make sure that welcome is not just spoken but practiced, protected, and sustained. It is carried by the entire Kitchissippi congregation, who did not flinch when loving boldly became costly, and who chose courage over comfort again and again.

It is also carried by Grant Gilliland and his wife Rev. Laurie McKnight, members of Trinity United Church, who are not members of Kitchissippi United Church but have nevertheless opened their hearts, time, wisdom, and strength to support God’s Beloved. They remind us that when love is real, it does not ask which church someone belongs to before it shows up.

We know we are not doing enough. We know we cannot reach everyone. But we are doing our best with what we have, and we refuse to stop. Here at God’s Beloved, we are holding space for LGBTQIA+ people who are rebuilding faith after it was shattered. We are standing with refugees who still shake when they pray. We are sitting with people who lost years of their lives to shame and fear. And we are saying, over and over, that they are not too late, not too broken, and not too far gone for God.

And we must say this clearly. God’s Beloved is not only here in Ottawa. There are God’s Beloved all across Canada. Many of them have lost faith. Many of them stopped going to church because church felt like danger. Many are still carrying sermons in their bodies that made them doubt whether God ever loved them at all.

To them, we want to speak directly.

You are welcome in our sanctuary. You do not have to explain yourself before you are allowed to belong. You do not have to be healed, changed, or fixed before you are loved. You do not have to leave parts of yourself at the door. If you are tired, you can rest. If you are angry, you can breathe. If you are unsure, you can come anyway.

The United Church of Canada is playing a vital role in this moment. Across the country, the United Church continues to affirm, protect, and publicly stand with 2S and LGBTQIA+ people. It does so not as a trend, but as a matter of faith. It proclaims that God’s grace is wider than fear, deeper than doctrine used as a weapon, and stronger than generations of exclusion. In a world where religion is often used to harm, the United Church is choosing to heal.

So, if you have ever sat in a church pew and felt your spirit shrink.

If you have listened to messages from the pulpit that made you doubt whether God could ever love you.

If scripture was used to frighten you instead of free you.

Please hear this invitation.

Visit a United Church of Canada near you. Walk in quietly if you need to. Sit near the back if that feels safer. Listen. Watch. And see for yourself that God’s love has not expired, has not rejected you, and has not moved on without you.

You are God’s Beloved.

You always were.

—Rev. Daniel Addai Fobi is the leader of the God’s Beloved group at Kitchissippi United Church in Ottawa, and an advocate for 2S and LGBTQIA+ people.

The views contained within these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of The United Church of Canada.