“Like I really enjoy this life thing, so I want to give it a shot, and part of that is accepting who I am.”

Produced by Courtney Earl.

Transcript for This Whole Grace Thing Rocks

So I knew that I liked guys and girls when I was like thirteen. I was like this is really weird, this is uncomfortable, this isn’t normal, so I suppressed the un-normal part till I came to college. And it was mostly my peer group and just having those conversations and growing up as a person, realizing that I’ve struggled with who I am for ten years, and it’s made me really depressed, and like I’ve had bad thoughts and, like, it’s made me not want to live, like… I really enjoy this life thing, so I want to give it a shot, and part of that is accepting who I am. So it was as much of being around people who are accepting as learning to accept myself. And honestly the like homophobia that I felt was not because I think it’s wrong or whatever, it’s because it scares me that it showed up in my life. I think that was the big thing and just realizing that my life was spiraling downward, realizing that I do have influence on accepting myself, I mean, only I can accept myself for who I am, so opening that up and just realizing your life is going downward. That was the part that really changed me and being with people I trusted, and who legitimately loved me for me, um, helped that process, like, grow and bloom.

What I struggle with is when people single out a single sin, if it is a… I don’t know…very confusing. If it’s a sin we cannot single that out because we’re all sinners. I’m really good, I’m a champion sinner. I should, I…I do it every day, so just singling out a sin isn’t fair, and I was singling it out in myself and singling it out in others and realizing that this whole grace thing rocks. Let’s just have grace and live more graceful lives.

I don’t want people to have to change what they believe in their theology; I want people to be accepting and welcoming and tolerant of people for where they’re at. Like everybody’s different, if we all were the same, life would suck, and um, I just want people to hold true to their theology while promoting welcoming environments for everybody, regardless of what your background is, what your story is.

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