A Thin Line Between Love & Hate (Love Conquers All series) ORIGINAL VERSION

Chapter 5: "Fear Not"

Don't give up. He isn't the obstinate opponent he's pretending to be. Brandon sure hoped that was God speaking to him—and not his own wishful mind. Under other circumstances, he was certain he and Josh would have become instant friends. Brandon had witnessed the kind of pressure he was under from his family. It was under duress that Josh had stood on the picket line and spewed hate along with the others. Even now, Josh didn't seem to hate Brandon, as much as he appeared afraid to make friendly chit-chat.

He likes you. He's just scared to admit it—even to himself.

This was a precarious, delicate situation and Brandon had to proceed cautiously. If he came on too strong, trying to push Josh into becoming friends with him, he would end up pushing him away instead. And he was convinced that Josh had a shortage of "friends" or anyone he could confide in or simply relax and be himself with.

Be himself. Most likely, Josh couldn't even "be himself" with himself. Not if Brandon's suspicions were true. The kid wasn't just fighting an external war with what was expected of him, but surely an internal one as well as he battled his own emerging feelings and attractions. He had to be terrified of his family finding out. And accepting a ride from a "fag" couldn't be helping the matter any.

"It's cool," Brandon shrugged and smiled. "I guess I don't blame you for thinking what you do about me. I'm not offended. I know I'm a good guy. And God knows it, too." He glanced at Josh. "One day, you'll see it as well. I'm a patient guy. I can wait. I don't mind proving myself to you."

Josh kept his face turned away, staring out the passenger window. "Why do you care what I think of you?" he mumbled. "We're never gonna be friends. We don't mix with..." he faltered before finishing without much conviction. "...your kind."

"My kind?" Brandon chuckled lightly. "I didn't know I was a kind. I try to look at everyone as just people. We're all flesh and blood human beings, made in God's image. Doesn't that make all of us the same kind?"

Josh shifted uncomfortably. "Those who willfully live in sin aren't living up to God's image."

"You think we're different because...I'm a sinner?"

"Not only those who commit such things are guilty, but those who take pleasure in them that do them."

Brandon was well familiar with the scripture. "I'm not sure what things you're talking about," Brandon said. "But let me ask you this. Do you pray? Go to church? Minister to others?"

"Yes."

"So do I. So, what makes me a sinner, but you not a sinner? I mean, if we do the same things?"

Josh chanced a glance at him. "You're ministering lies. Twisting the scriptures to make them say what you want them to say."

"How am I doing that?" Brandon asked. "The scriptures I quoted today at lunch, how was I twisting them? Don't you believe that God loves everyone? His own word says that the two greatest commandments are to love God with everything inside of you and to love one another, and that love is the fulfillment of the entire law. So, it would seem to me that if our hearts are right with God, and we love others honestly and sincerely as God loves us, then we're pleasing God. Do you really think it matters to an infinite, eternal God who we're attracted to? It seems kind of silly to me that so many people make such a monumental issue of it. It's sad, and surely heartbreaking to God that this one inconsequential thing has caused so much discord and division in the body of Christ. And inflicted such pain and anguish on the persecuted."

Silence settled over the car as Josh stared out the front windshield, his face strained and brow knit tightly. Brandon doubted that "love" was a common topic of discussion in the Waylon household. That brief encounter with Uriah Waylon at lunch, and then witnessing the picketers after school, was evidence enough of the kind of "teachings" Josh had grown up on.