Last year, I ordered the book Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith because I realized I still had some things to come to terms with in regards to my sexuality and my faith. I wanted to continue writing and speaking about the intersection of queerness and Christianity in my life, but I couldn’t keep doing that until I more than occasionally believed that my bisexuality had a purpose besides making my life more complicated.

A little bi-centric reading seemed like the best starting place if I wanted to eventually be able to make space within myself to let my spirituality positively color my views of my sexuality, just as I’d let my sexuality positively color my understanding of my faith.

When I bought that book, I wasn’t really thinking about my calling.

I only wanted to find a better way of looking at the relationship between my bisexuality and my Christianity. But the more I read, the more I felt like that anthology had answers to questions about my calling I’d been asking since I stood at the altar of my church at seventeen and tried to understand what one of our pastors meant when she’d told me, “God has called you to push past the fear and speak up.”

Questions I’d faced anew my last semester of college when I wrote YA short stories about Black queer Christian teenagers for my senior thesis and first got the sense that writing was a part of my God-given purpose. Questions I kept trying to bury every time someone used the word calling in reference to my life.

As I read about other bisexual people of faith finding spiritual beauty in their bisexuality and embracing the places where their sexuality and faith intermingled and even became inseparable, I began to consider that my bisexuality might be a crucial part of my spiritual journey. I looked back at all the moments that had made me feel most connected to the calling I’d received as a teenager and noticed my bisexuality was somehow always there.

Teaching me how to speak the truth again and again even when I was terrified. Expanding my definitions of love and justice until I understood who and what to speak up for. Giving me the perspectives and connections necessary to write and discuss intersectionality in ways that were healing not only for me but also for others.

In that light, it suddenly didn’t feel blasphemous to admit that maybe God had wanted me to be bisexual all along.

Maybe when God called me at that altar, They were envisioning the life I was slowly living into as a bisexual writer and public speaker. Maybe, my bisexuality had been a part of God’s plan from the very beginning even before I knew it was part of me. Maybe, God hadn’t simply allowed me to be bisexual but had ordained it.

Coming to view my bisexuality in this way has not answered all of my questions about my sexuality or my calling. But it has made space for me to consider the idea of calling in a broader way and to provide a much more personally resonant answer to the unfortunately enduring question, “Do you believe you were born that way or do you believe your sexuality is a choice?”

Whereas before I struggled to give a concise but accurate response to that question, now I can answer resolutely, “I believe I was called into my bisexuality” and then relish in the sight of people wrestling as I have, and as I still am, with all the things that can and does mean.

Originally published on Angélique’s Junction; Graphic adapted by nonbinaryChristians.tumblr.com from “Stained-Glass Rainbow Flag with Cross” by Jesusinlove.org