Kara,
Firstly, WELCOME! There are pleny of us gay Christians around, despite what "The Advocate" would have us believe.
At age fifty-nine, I've a got a few years of experience on ya, but you seem to be light years ahead of most folks your age. I'm afraid that the struggle to show/explain to straight people and to non-Christian GLBT people what we are about never ends. That struggle may be part of our mission to spread the love of God.
Are you familiar with the Reconciling Congregation Network? It's an excellent resource.
More later. This dog (Kudzu, a beagle-basset rescue mix) has got to got for a walk, and he means right now!
Mike

Sometimes I think I don't post here because i have been on a break from all things spiritual. I'm kind of squeamish to admit that, what with being the moderator and all. I feel I should be a shining example of how easy it is to be queer and christian, but for me it hasn't been that easy (though not as tough as some).

I was an ardent Christian in mostly evangelical spaces as a teenager. My family, oddly, is not very religious at all. i just took to it, and found a passion for God and the church. Most of the churches I attended as a kid were very conservative and all sex outside of marriage (especially gay sex) was considered a sin. This thinking soaked into me and still comes up from time to time. I found some more liberal and open churches in college and my faith became more justice-loving and less rigid.

I met my first girlfriend in church when I was abroad in the UK. She was the daughter of very (and i mean very) conservative parents who were methodist pastors and had even been missionaries in Africa for a time. We eventually fell in love with each other, though we both tried to resist for a time. I was concerned that even though logically I knew that god is a god of love and compassion and had created me to love others that god was in fact the vengeful, negative god of my childhood. I could work out the theology in my head, but it took the actual experience of loving another person to force me to change my internal conception of god. It took a lot of work. My girlfriend's parents were very unhappy with her (and me for leading her astray). I believe she has reconciled with them, though we broke up on bad terms several years ago and I don't communicate with her.

So definitely, the hardest thing for me was trusting that love was stronger than fear, and more specifically that god manifests her/himself in love and not in fear. I hope that answers some of your questions. Please feel free to ask more.