Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for stars.
I love Jesus as much as I ever have. And I'm gay. Deal with it.
What Jesus taught was a radical message of welcome and inclusion and love. I feel certain God loves me just the way I am, and I have a huge sense of calling to communicate that to young people. When I think of myself at 13, sobbing into that carpet, I just want to help anyone in that situation to not have to go through what I did, to show that instead, you can be yourself – a person of integrity.
We need to be skilled into knowing God and His Word, then act as excellent translators of these things to the people in our churches.
You don't have to choose between your faith and your sexuality. You're not alone, things will get better, and God loves you exactly the way you are.
I feel certain God loves me just the way I am, and I have a huge sense of calling to communicate that to young people. The Church's teaching was the reason that I lived in so much shame and isolation and pain for all those years. But rather than abandon it and say it's broken, I want to be part of the change.
God is Someone who creates something out of nothing. He takes emptiness and creates wholeness, He takes darkness and speaks light. Because of this, we can come to God empty and weak knowing that He takes us and with His power makes something out of nothing.
Why don't I drink from a straw? Because straws are for suckers.
The problem of unmet expectations in marriage is primarily a problem of stereotyping. Each and every human being on this planet is a unique person. Since marriage is inevitably a relationship between two unique people, no one marriage is going to be exactly like any other. Yet we tend to wed with explicit visions of what a “good” marriage ought to be like. Then we suffer enormously from trying to force the relationship to fit the stereotype and from the neurotic guilt and anger we experience when we fail to pull it off.
I never give too much thought to the idea of universality.
What's the woman doing there?" he asked. "Covering a scratch on the hood. She was cheaper than a new paint job. " He flipped through a few more pages of barely dressed women and classic cars. "Nick used to have magazines like this when we were kids. But without the cars. " He rotated a photo sideways. "Or the bathing suits.