An Open Letter to Anna Carter

Dear Ms. Anna Carter,

To be honest, I was half asleep when I read your article An Invitation to the Longing Ones. Trust me, I do not do well when I'm sleepy.

But, your article still shook me. And that's no small feat.

Yes, I do know the feelings you're talking about. The overwhelming desire for intimacy, the feeling that everything is about to cave in. The gaping hole that has to be filled so vehemently threatens to take you as its prisoner and never let you go.

I know.

I also know how it feels to fall for your best friend. And then you lie, and tell her that she has nothing to worry about. Until she figures it out, and then rejects you.

It stings. Bad.

I know.

But thanks be to God, I also know how you felt when you fell in love that day in Adoration. It was at SEEK 2017 when it hit for me.

I kept thinking, my God --- my Lord and my God. I had no idea love and peace even existed like that!

I'll never forget that experience. I'm sure you'll never forget yours.

But, I'll also never forget what happened after, when everything went to Hell in a hand basket for me.

That high was great, but that high also left me feeling really low after it was all over. Suicide wasn't a scary passing thought, but a habit, and a comfortable one at that. I avoided my closest friends, which lead them to have an intervention for me (at which I stared at the floor, heart steadily beating as falling as I wished it would stop).

The root cause was that longing for intimacy that you talked about. That longing for God masked behind wanting to work up the nerve to kiss my best friend, or just cave and watch pornography again since I'd already been an addict for 15 years.

Just last night, I was texting one of my dearest friends (whom I met through Catholic Twitter --- God Bless Catholic Twitter), and she told me about this prayer, the Litany of Longing. I read through it, and found that peace that I had been looking for.

It was crazy, and I have a feeling I'm going to be put through more trials than I can count facing loneliness and longing, but at least now, I have this prayer, and a stronger faith and hope in Christ Whom I long for.

Be know happiness because we know pain. And that aura of peace and joy that comes from you, even in your writing, tells me that you've suffered so much.

It took courage for you to come out like that. It took courage for you to come out PERIOD. And I can't thank you enough for doing so.

A problem that I've had is searching for friends that also struggle with homosexual attractions that believe in what the Church teaches, and that desire to build authentic friendships rooted in Christ and covered in authentic love.

You let your heart bleed out in that article. And you left tracks in the dirt behind you. Their are people following those tracks now, and are beyond thankful that you left them.

I know I'm one of them.

Thank you for what you've done here, Anna. And I pray that your ministry with Eden Invitation attracts and blesses more souls than you can count.

Last night I prayed to God to cover me in Grace, and when I woke up this morning, He did just that.

Thank you, Anna, and God Bless you.