church talk & vulnerability

I haven’t listened to a sermon in months. My younger self – from even just a few years ago – would be flabbergasted by this. I was in church for years. I loved church; I threw my whole self into it. The music, the scriptures, the sermons: all of it brought me so much comfort,

Loss and Chronic Pain

Earlier this week, on August 2, 2022, my cat Frodo was euthanized. Similar to our other cat Snowflake – who died on May 8, 2020 – he had blood work done which showed he was starting to have kidney failure. He had lived a good long life, and we didn’t want things to get worse

Continuing on the Deconstruction Journey

“And yet, when I choose Love, “right” and “wrong” fade away. They become much less important. Because always analyzing what – and who – is right and wrong leads to boxes that do not allow for the messy, wild, imperfect beauty that is humanity. Trying to stay in the lines and within what is known does not work with radical love.”

I Wasn’t Looking for a Side A Church

http://www.comingout4christians.net/side-a-side-b-primer.html explanation of Sides A & B if you’re unfamiliar with these terms  Side A: LGBTQIA+ affirming, anti-conversion therapy Side B: LGBTQIA+ non-affirming, anti-conversion therapy Side X: LGBTQIA+ non-affirming, pro-conversion therapy —————————————————————————————————————————————– I wasn’t looking for a Side A church. I’ve been in Side B and Side X environments my whole life. While many of the

Hope Through Collective

I’ve talked quite a bit on this blog and on my social media pages about my faith. Throughout 2019 and into 2020, I’ve been going through my own personal faith deconstruction, which I’ve talked about some. It has been immensely painful and while it has given me good community online – and I’m very grateful

Faith & The LGBTQ+ Community: #OnceGay

This post is yet another one sparked by discussions I recently saw on Twitter regarding Christianity and the LGBTQ+ community. Specifically, the controversy around Bethel & their stance on homosexuality, and discussions online about the topic using the hashtags #OnceGay and #ThisIsWhatOnceGayLooksLike. I made a Twitter thread about it you can read below: “Regarding the

Twitter Theology: Does Prayer Work?

As in several previous articles I have written under “Twitter Theology”, the inspiration for this article came from a tweet, which read as follows: “#ProgressiveChristian, #Agnostic, & #Deconstructing Twitter friends – one of my besties just asked me, “Do you think prayer works?” So I’m curious – do YOU think prayer works? Let’s have a

Let’s Talk About Purity Culture

Earlier this week I saw a post that Twitter user @SheilaGregoire shared: Here is a YouTube video by Katie Emmerson (@katielizg on social media) that gives a good explanation on what purity culture is, how it is often discussed in the church, and why it has been so harmful and damaging to many people (especially

Faith and Chronic Illness

There’s a Bible college near where I live called Christ For The Nations. Every summer they have a youth camp called Youth For The Nations. I attended this camp with my youth group in 2016, and the following year I was unable to attend but I watched several of the services online because I had