NeuroDivine

Hymns and Reflections | Psalm 139 | 12 August 2026

A gay Christian’s thanksgiving for love, identity and the God who knows and affirms us wholly.

Psalm 139 is among the most intimate passages of Scripture. It speaks of a God who knows us completely: who searches us, surrounds us, sees us before we can see ourselves, and is present even in the secret places where our lives first take shape.

This hymn grew from that intimacy. It is both prayer and thanksgiving: for the landscape that formed me, for the man I love, and for the truth that being gay is not something I need to separate from my life before God.

The Hymn

1.
You formed me in my secret place,
Where Slemish keeps its guard;
Where Antrim hills hold early light,
You shaped me, loved and starred.

2.
You set my heart to love a man,
As Braid’s calm waters flow;
You blessed the bond our lives create—
A grace You let me know.

3.
No whisper meant to shame my love,
No cold or narrow word,
Can drown the truth You breathed in me—
A truth by You affirmed.

4.
For I am wondrous in Your sight,
Like Maine’s slow-gleaming run;
You made me gay, and made me whole—
A man Your hands have spun.

5.
So let my praise rise clear and bright,
Like lark-song on the air;
For You have fashioned all I am—
And hold me in Your care.

A Short Reflection

There was a time when words such as “fearfully and wonderfully made” could be offered to LGBTQ+ Christians with an unspoken qualification: wonderfully made, perhaps—but not that part of you.

I no longer accept the qualification.

Psalm 139 does not describe a God who knows only the acceptable portions of us. God searches and knows the whole person. The psalmist imagines God present in the womb, in darkness, at the furthest limits of the sea. There is no hidden corner beyond that knowing and loving presence.

For me, that includes being a gay man.

So this hymn deliberately says something that remains difficult for some Christians to hear: “You made me gay, and made me whole.”

I do not say that defiantly. I say it thankfully.

The hymn is rooted in the landscape of the part of County Antrim in which I grew up. Slemish stands guard over the opening verse; the Braid flows through the second; the Maine through the fourth. These are not simply decorative references. They belong to the geography in which I first became myself.

And into that landscape comes love.

“You set my heart to love a man” is therefore not a confession of failure but a line of thanksgiving. The love I share with my husband is not something I must explain away before approaching God. It is among the graces for which I approach God with thanks.

That is why the third verse matters so much to me:

No whisper meant to shame my love,
No cold or narrow word,
Can drown the truth You breathed in me—
A truth by You affirmed.

Verse 3

Many LGBTQ+ Christians know those whispers. Some have heard them from pulpits, congregations, families or strangers armed with selected verses of Scripture. Sometimes the whispers have become shouts.

But they need not have the final word.

The final movement of this hymn is therefore not argument but praise. Like the lark-song rising over the Antrim countryside, thanksgiving rises simply because I am alive, loved, known and held.

I am gay. I am Christian. I am a husband. I am a child of God.

I do not need to divide those truths before I can pray.

I am wondrous in God’s sight. And so are you.