My novel isn’t an indictment of the church or small towns. That wasn’t the God I knew from my hometown church and the spiritual example of my maternal Grandmother. What kept me from killing myself was believing that God would not make me this way and also condemn me. It was something I’d known about myself since I was very young and long before I heard any of the names for it. I also knew that I didn’t choose to be lesbian. I knew in my heart that I wasn’t against God. In college, my faith kept me alive even while I wrestled with the thought that I should die, because I was a lesbian and the church was saying to be gay or lesbian was against God. It was my faith and the kindness of people at my church that got me through depression and worries about sexuality and my family problems. Personally as a teen, the church saved my life. I had crushes on boys too, but not as intensely. I certainly knew enough not to say I had crushes on girls. I heard unkind remarks and insults toward a teacher who was presumed gay, but I didn’t know what to call myself or whether it would always be like that for me.

I was aware that I loved women in high school, but I didn’t know there was anyone else like me in the world.

She is trying to reconcile what she knows about God and herself with what others are professing to know about God and queers like her. Lorraine, the protagonist is a spiritual person. The drive to live in concert with what we believe is the will of God isn’t easily reduced to black or white in life or even in novels. Stray and the final book of the trilogy, Rise, will show more layers of Lorraine’s spirituality and the values of the local pastor and the other characters in the story. Bend is fictional and it is also part of what is intended to be a trilogy. There will be some talk about my treatment of the church in this novel. Enjoy her guest post and then be sure to check out details for the great giveaway at the end. Hedin dropping in today on the tour for her new release, Bend, from Riptide Publishing.

Bend by Nancy J. Hedin