Transcript

Andrew

What helps you when you feel tempted and tempted to feel alone in your struggle?

Christie

Jesus. So I think one of the things that recently has come up for me and what I say recently, I mean in the last maybe 15 years, but I feel like, realizing that Jesus, there is nothing I feel that Jesus hasn't felt. And so if I'm feeling the weight of the aloneness or the weight of feeling like I don't belong, or the weight of feeling like I'll never get through this, or even the pain of life, I just really feel like, wow, I can go to Jesus on the cross and share it with him.

Not like, oh, I know how that feels, but literally I'm feeling it with you. It's beyond empathy. It's actually co like he carries our burdens. That has been a new revelation for me.

Amanda

Yeah, I there's, there's been so many intense seasons where even that community was not available for me. So I would like call and no one would answer and in like intense.

Andrew

Sorry about that. Yeah, it was busy and you were a little too much.

Amanda

Sorry. It was. I am.

Andrew

I was a delinquent member of Christ.

Amanda

But I had to learn, that God wanted the strength and need through my relationship with him. And, yeah, I remember I would there would be seasons. I would have no words. I couldn't even pray out loud. And so what I did is I brought back to my memory this beautiful picture of Jesus where, like, you see the blood pouring out of the cross. And I would just prostrate myself on my face in my mind's eye and I would just allow his blood was like just covering me. And it was literally no words were being said. But I'm just his image, would just give me life and reprieve in that moment.

Marco

Going to daily mass is so helpful. Like, okay, here I am. Everyone's about 70 years older than me, but that's okay. Here I am, I'm in community, you know, and so I'm not you're.

Andrew

Only 15.

Marco

And I'm.

Andrew

So you're technically.

Marco

I'm not alone anymore. So that's helpful. Honestly. Yeah. And I love the Divine Mercy. I have a huge picture of it in my living room, so I'm just like, here I am, Lord, your your mercy is enough. Even if I don't necessarily feel it, it's enough. So I'm going to open to you my wife. I can I can reveal a little bit of. Yeah, I'm having a hard day and there's something about that. Yeah. That you me thing. Yeah. That's so helpful.

Andrew

I and may I just say sing a simple song? Jesus. That's our tradition, our, you know, kind of primitive view of worship is just. I just sing these little songs that simple, good songwriters. I can sing it. I can break out of myself by by giving him honor for being merciful Jesus. And that gets me out of myself. Yeah. And music also corresponds with the depths of sexuality. There's something of the heart and deep feeling that music kind of breaks us out. Right? So I love that because sometimes we don't, you know, we can call and we can connect, but sometimes no one's there. Yeah. And, and we just need to welcome this Jesus who's closer than a brother or a sister and...

Marco

Early on in my own healing. I was in college. Crummy little dorm room. And there were times where I just wanted to check out with pornography. And like you said to the simple songs, I would just put in my earbuds. And honestly, I wasn't I didn't even really liked most of them. But there were some that I'm like, this is so powerful. And I can kind of remember those songs like, oh, this is so powerful.

And I would just put my hands up. I wasn't, I was kind of a a smug Catholic, so I was. So kind of tied to. To being charismatic. But I thought, no, I need to worship God in my body. I want to sin in my body. So I want to worship God in my body. And I'm going to. Reclaim this crummy little freaking dorm room as a chapel.

And because I am tempted to just do stupid stuff. But Jesus invited through these simple songs. Songs was so powerful. And so I, you know, I'm grateful for that.

Andrew

So with that in mind, how can admitting our weakness become a source of strength? This is a community question, more or less.

Amanda

And for me, like telling on myself, admitting temptation, meeting where I need God and people. What is a type of like intentional humility. Like I'm going to like grab for humility. But then there's something also about dragging my temptations into the light where they just started to lose their power. And even seeing it on another person's face, whether it's a man or a woman like them, not being surprised by what I thought was the the dirtiest, most shameful thing about myself. Yeah.

Andrew

You know.

Christie

I think to, one of the things I have noticed is that my willingness to air my dirty laundry empowers other people, too. And there there's this like, oh, we're going there.

Andrew

You know, it's like, I'm taking this.

Christie

Yeah, I guess I it's been frustrating for me as I grow in my faith to see the church want so, so. But I see people in the church want to present this happy little perfect face. I'm like, we are a wounded people. And I mean, I just sort of assumed I was converted on the backs of people who were fighting for their own healing. I was so blessed.

Those are the first Christians I knew were women who were abused and wanted to be free from the effects of it. Yeah, and I thought that's what Christianity was. Yeah. And so you go to a more traditional environment and you're like, are we all wounded? Like, why do you look so perfect? So for me to to be able to say, you know, I'm struggling, boy am I struggling. It also empowers me so much again to know that I'm not alone. Yeah. You know, it's like, oh, there's power in the kingdom.

Andrew

Yeah. Struggle. Yeah. Well, any kind of addiction I think is based upon disconnection, neglect, isolation, wrong ideas about self and others based upon early brokenness. So the only way we can find strength in the midst of temptations to addiction is by connecting. Right is by coming out of la la land, out of fantasy land breaking out of any kind of little plan to get a little through porn or emotional profit, whatever. Whatever you girls do.

Okay, but it's like, say no, I'm just going to connect. I'm just going to say, hey, brother, how's it going? I'm not doing well. Let's connect. What's going on? Life's going good. How's the hobby? How's the sports? How's the family? It's connecting in reality. And kind of breaking that. That weird sexual thing that substitutes for a very basic human need to connect. Yeah. To say I need friends right now. Not fantasies.

And, so I think that's, for me, quite simply, what began as overcoming an addiction actually, became friendships and community. Not as an end in itself, but as a segue into reality. And, so I love that, you know? Hey, man, I mean, that's how we live.

Marco

.So one of my first kind of dating experiences was taking this girl out on a first date, and it was great. I'm like, wow, this is going really well. Took her on a second date, and at the second date she brought up a podcast that I was on, which it during which I had mentioned my as my same sex attraction, my queer stuff, my queer past. And she's like, I just can't do that.

And I thought, oh, what a one. What an awful second date. I wasn't, I wasn't bringing this. She was bringing it to me. But I had to own the fact that, yeah, I'm a gift, but I am a broken gift. I walk with a limp when it comes to this stuff. And I had to say, okay, that is really hurtful.

I, I'm, I thought I was able to, to sort of at least have, a good a good time with this girl. I wasn't going to sign on the dotted line, but just to get to know her. And there was something in her that was saying that that brokenness I can't really get over. So that was a that was hard for me. I had to I had to bring that to trusted people.

And so I have that really has the capacity to to disempower me and to make me feel like my gift actually isn't good enough for a woman. And, the same woman I, I had, I was going on a on a work trip work ministry trip, and it was after this crazy, awful second date experience.

And I see her at the airport kind of with this sort of Greek statuesque dude that they're, they're like dating, going on a trip. And I'm like, oh, this is such like, insult to injury. Since, like, not only do I feel so disempowered by this strange interaction that I had with this woman, but I'm not like that guy, you know, my masculinity may be robust, but not as robust as that. So it's sort of reinforced, a diminished feeling that I really had to to pray through and fight through.

Christie

So one of the things I think is important for me to remember is that I am still becoming who I am. I am going to be, becoming and reintegrating for the rest of my life. And so for me, there are things that will happen in the world now that will kind of spur a memory that I am not fully who I'm going to be.

So there will be something maybe, I've experienced some pain, some hardships, some things that have happened in our married life and in our family life that I can feel the ancient call, if you will, the ancient call of of this kind of draw to a woman, get lost in this. And and I'm able now to look at that and go, okay, this is a place I'm not really trusting Jesus yet.

Okay, so this is a place I'm not integrated yet. And then. Okay, Jesus, have your way. Right. Feel free. And it might take a long time, but I've learned to be patient with myself and to go, all right, I might not get it this time. I, you know, there are still there are some things right now that I'm kind of dealing with, but I'm like, well, this might take a little while, because it hurts a lot.

It takes a while and I'm stubborn. So Jesus is in the process of restoring and restoring. But I think the thing that all of the those years have really taught me is that the position to position my heart as a thing that is being integrated, not I'm not looking at the goal of finally, we're done with that, right?

Marco

But there's moments where it's like, wow, I, I'm still weak as a guy. I'm I'm vulnerable to temptation or just to even feel my wounds, so to speak. And I can just go to Jesus and allow him to minister to me in that tension. For so long in my life, I couldn't stand that tension. I couldn't live in the tension of, yes, I want to love Jesus. And I also have these same sex attractions.

That tension was driving me insane. And so I would I would short circuit with sex with other guys, with pornography. So in this, healed, becoming more healed season of my life, it's to acknowledge that tension. Okay. Yeah. I have a vulnerability today or I'm feeling weaker today than I did yesterday. Here I am, Jesus, I'm leaning on you to help me through it. So the Eucharist is super helpful.

Also, just good, good male friendships to be able to speak that out, to say, hey, I'm not I'm not feeling my best today or I have a temptation to to look up gay pornography or just to check out in some, some lustful way. And having brothers who know me and who are fighting for me and I for them. So helpful in those moments where I feel the tension of aspiring to more but feeling weak for whatever reason.

Amanda

Yeah. Community is very important to me. For the beginning of my Christianity, it was it was me and God. And I really kept people at arm's length because I thought they were to not be trusted. Honestly, because my experience was they could not be trusted. But community is me opening myself up. Community is me opening myself up to others in boundary safe places where I am actually explaining my wicked, my wickedness, my weakness, the places where I become attracted and really just asking them to to intercede with me and to be Jesus for me in that moment, to speak the truth to me.

Morgan

I ultimately think God is at work. I know he is at work building healthy community. I came to realize pretty quickly it wasn't going to happen until I was truthful and until I told the truth about myself, which is confession, really. Confessions. Just nothing but telling the truth. And I wasn't good at that. I I've been a liar. I've been a hider. I've been a dodger.

I've been unwilling to tell the truth about what's been going on inside of me. Very broken, disintegrated part of me. But the community began to be real when I told the truth. Which then elicited more truth and which then allowed me to have deeper friendships, which then was really so satisfying that I was willing to take more steps of being known in my weakness and in my sin as well.

So it started with me when I began to trust that the Lord had my back. At some level, I could trust Jesus to say, tell the truth. That's where it started.

Taylor

How have I helped build myself a healthy community? I think my church has done a really good job at like we are all about community groups. So doing communion, doing church around the table once a week and that has been built into my life, and we would never be normal friends, I feel like naturally. But we are committed to each other. Every Tuesday we're having dinner, we're going through a practice and there's specifically two women, two girls that become became my best friends, and they were the first people I could share my story with and not have to split myself off. And I think that began true transformation for me because I could be fully truthful.

Yvonne

Some keys for me for building in building healthy community have been choosing that people are worth it. No matter what emotional response comes up in me, the person in front of me is worth my time. I can have a great friendship with someone, even if there's no emotional high. And actually, those friendships where there isn't the same level of emotional high end up being so much more stable. So I've, I've learned to invest in I've learned how to invest in relationships that are not just fast food relationships. They're they're the healthy eating, sustainable, long term.

Dean

Yeah. Vineyard San Francisco in the 90s. It was vibrant. It was a lot of of single young people trying to figure out what life was all about and who God was for them. A lot of sexual, brokenness, promiscuity going on because it was a fallen world and a very fallen city. And there were many options to choose from, in that community.

Living waters started there when I, when I was there, and it became a ground for everybody to. Discover a greater vision for their lives, a greater vision of what God had purposed for them in relationship. And there was a hunger to go after it.

And, I of course, dealing with with same sex attraction issues, but but most of my community were not and they were just young adults giving themselves to people indiscriminately in search of of life and love and, We found a place where we could fail, where we could be loved, where we could be called to choose better, choose more. And and Christ made a way for us. The community was such. The church provided a place.

They they encouraged people to go through living waters. So the whole the whole church really took on, the dynamics of, of death and resurrection that we found at Living Waters. It became a real thing to aspire to because so much life was was being found there. And the leadership of the church were ones that also experienced healing there. And so it just permeated throughout the whole, the whole community.

Amanda

Healthy community to me, is is really just being self-giving in the way that I treat my brothers and sisters, but also the way that I receive from them. I'm allowed to receive from in a way that's pure, in a way that's not emotionally grasping after them, and specifically in my female relationships.

For me, what that looks like is I'm very careful when I start to have this tendency in my heart that wants to have this one special friend. But when my heart is drawn towards one woman and I want to be like a special friend or like a best friend forever, like we're still 12 years old, to me that's unhealthy. And I would pull back and try to go to a healthier place before I reengage that friendship.

Yeah, there has been a lot of fruit in my healthiest same sex, friendships with women. It's actually been so surprising to me because the women are so much better as my friends, and they are my lovers. I get so much more from them as my friends than than my lovers.

Morgan

.Building same sex friendships has been really key. Because that's what I've always wanted in my pursuits of same sex, you know, illicit relationships, ultimately were never satisfying because that's not what I wanted. I didn't want to be used. I didn't want to use people. But that's what I did. So pulling back and saying, what does it look like to pursue a true friendship with a male that's not broken and illicit?

So it started with men that really aren't struggling the same way that I am. And trusting them, then realizing like, oh, I began to realize I'm one of the guys. In other words, I wasn't so strange to my own gender. Allowed me to branch out to relationships with men struggling similarly, but with boundaries and with good accountability.

But it it did start with trusting someone, with the inner parts of my life that allowed me to flourish and more relationships which beget more. And, and that's taken many years, but it's but it's always proven to be true. And satisfying and hopeful.

Yvonne

.struggle in building healthy same sex friendships. Because it hasn't been always easy. Certainly. Has been to not objectify a person. I'm trying to be friends with another like a woman I'm trying to be friends with. If I objectify her or if I see her through the lens of what I can get out of the relationship. That's that's usually a red flag that, I have a need that I'm trying to meet through this person, and it's not going to go well. So the benefit of being friends with women is, is I have women around me, have people around me who understand me in a way that only a woman can understand me.

Bonnie

One night I was, and I know I'm married at this point. I haven't had a lot of a lot of temptation come my way. But, I was sitting on the couch next to, a friend who was there with her fiance, and she just put her head on my shoulder for a moment. and I had all this temptation rise up in me. And I was like, Holy Spirit, would you just come sit between us right now?

And I felt his presence right there, and he just kind of held me through it. and I went to one of my friends the next day and I said, I need prayer. This is this is rising up in me. I don't know what it is, you know? And so my community, she was like, yeah, so I'll make time for you, come over, put on some worship music.

And she said, let's ask the Holy Spirit what's going on. And, in that time, while I was praying, I saw the Holy Spirit just kind of comfort me. And then I saw him move to my feet, and I was like, oh, I I'm uncomfortable. Holy Spirit, why am I uncomfortable? Oh, because you're at my feet and I feel like I should be at your feet. And she was like, just ask him, why is it your feet?

I was like, why are you at my feet? And he's like, cause you're tired and you need me to minister to you. And I was like, the not just my feet, but my head and my hands also like, Lord, give me, give me what I need. He's like, you've been pouring out. Let me pour into you. I'm like, Amen. And then when I saw her again, everything was fine.

Yvonne

So some of the progress I've seen in opening myself up to friendship with men, as I've learned how to see men for the value that they bring. For a long time, it was hard for me to understand just what. What is a man, really? And what is he for? And what does how does he apply to my life? But I have developed some really good male friendships, and. And I get to see what they bring.

There's, like, men bring such a great levity, but also, a stability and and they encourage me. I, I'm so grateful for my men friends. They do encourage me in a way that is unique to men. There's there's an encouragement I receive from men that is so strengthening and and so solidifying.

Taylor

The struggle with building opposite sex friendships is, The, safety, probably, of fully being stepping into my femininity and, allowing men to pursue me in like, a kind and loving way instead of standing my ground and kind of like denying their friendship or their initiation. And I think, A blessing of being friends with the opposite sex is. There. It's like the same. The same coin. I guess it is their pursuit.

And Ben specifically, he's always makes eye contact. Every week I come in the door, he always aseks m how I am week after week after week, and I can be in any mood, and it's still consistent. And, I feel like his intentionality in seeing me, I'm going to cry, but, has been so healing and where there's no secret intention behind it, it's just like, hi, Taylor, how are you? How's your week been? And he doesn't say backhanded comments. And I feel like he's been healing in my story. Because I don't have examples of that.

Amanda

I've had to learn to also look at men and their sexual identity as good. And I remember dating these men, and I knew with some of them I'm thinking of a couple in particular. It's like I don't I, I'm not sure we're really a good match. And yet my heart was because I know who I am as a woman to dignify and honor them right where they're at, no matter where their place was at.

And so I spoke out to them the good that I saw in them, even in places where, where I was breaking up with them, where I was telling them, hey, I can't go any further, but here's the good that I seeing you, and I want to bless that. And I know if I had not focused on my own healing and my own growth and my sexual identity, that I would not be able to do that.

Marco

So for me, loosening the grip of homosexual lust, I'm able to love my wife with the clarity and with a freedom because of these brothers. I need these brothers. And early on in my healing, I did. I did find that I can't wait for the community to form around me. I have to form the community in order to be clear for the one I've pledged to love for the rest of my days. So those those brothers.

So helpful. One I think the brothers, they treat me as a guy among guys. So it's not like, oh, Marco has a special kind of a special thing. We have to treat him differently than the other guys. It's very clear that we treat each other the same. Yes, of course, we may differentiate with the kind of vulnerability that we experience, but the brotherhood is the same, and I really like that.

That's really encouraging for me, especially because my historic wound was not feeling man among men, not feeling like a brother among brothers. So having that community now is so healing for me.

Morgan

I remember as healing started, in my own, you know, understanding of me as a man and my sexuality and what it's meant for, I began to experience, a particular attraction to one woman and specifically, I had always been enamored by my wife, Karen. At the time, she was just a friend. And I remember telling a brother, a buddy of mine, Hey, I think there's something about her that's really fascinating to me.

And he was like, this is fantastic. We'll just get to know her at a deeper level. In other words, he spurred me on to ask her out on a date and spend more time with her and take walks and enjoy coffee and enjoy things to get to know her and, more exclusively, not just as a buddy or not just in a group of friends, but more one on one.

So and then another friend that I was living with at the time had several roommates. He encouraged me as well, and so before I knew it, I had like a band of brothers cheering me on to date my wife. Soon to be my wife years later. But yeah, so that community of men had faith for me and had hope for me.

Even when I didn't particularly know, you know, what to do or but but God awakened something, and these men were there to kind of spur me on.

Amanda

.being in my first year of marriage now, not even to the year mark when it comes to my relationship with my husband, I've realized that I still need my female friendships a lot. And my friends have helped speak into my heart like, hey, you can do this, and you don't have to go into the place where your defensive walls are going up and you become more masculine because you're trying to protect your heart and you can let Jesus protect your heart.

And that's something really beautiful my female friends have done for me in this season. In what I'm learning through my new marriage and that is that true masculine makes the true feminine come, come alive. And that's really beautiful for me. It's also very vulnerable for me, to when I respond to my husband, it puts me in a vulnerable position, which I'm not used to, but I am learning, and I need to learn more that that's actually a beautiful place to be.

It's the way that God, intended me to be. And I'm also really learning in the ways in which I have judged men in the past. And that can come out in my marriage and really to walk in repentance and say, hey, I'm really sorry that I have assumed the worst of you here.

I'm really sorry that I assumed, this of you, which is not in your character, but maybe, it's more of what men have done to me in the past. And so really, just letting go of, judgment, letting go of projection and and really repenting for the ways that I can, interpret things poorly. Yes.

Dean

It I I met my wife and, she went through her own process of of healing and restoration and, and the Lord met us beautifully. Crystal has been an amazing, An amazing. Source of life for me as a man. She, is so gracious. She's so loving. She's so humble. She's willing to own her own stuff.

And has just been a great partner in life because she, she has a lot of courage in the ways that she has said yes with me and just grounded in her trust in the Lord to be able to, overcome our own impossibilities. Like myself, she didn't want to do it alone.

And we found ourselves, equally going after the things that God had called us to, and we wanted we wanted walking partners, and we we met as friends and really discovered the beauty in each other without any expectation going into it. But God revealed himself, through us, really helped me to understand who I was, who I am as a man in relationship to her. Because she didn't she didn't Domini me.

She didn't, demand she didn't have unrealistic expectations for me. She really blessed who I was, the good of who I was, and also was able to acknowledge my my, my weaknesses, my failures, my, you know, the things that could take me out and was willing to to walk with me and love me into greater strength and maturity.

And the Lord, in his mercy, brought us together to really to really know that love is part of his plan and his purpose. And, the difficulty in that is with my HIV, diagnosis again, early 90s, still very terminal, can have kids and doctor told me I wouldn't get married. Told me I would maybe have ten years of life left. So still walking in that reality.

Pursuing relationship with her, I was like, wow, is this really something you want to give yourself to? She really had to reckon with the the prospect of never having children, never having a free for all sexual relationship, you know, because of the risks involved. And it was something that, that she had to, to to grieve and really surrender to the Lord. But she did beautifully. It was, just so humbling and beautiful to see.

That her, yes, to me was, was. Much more. Of a yes to the Lord and what he was calling her to and and she, she said yes. And we, we got married. We learned the realities of, of safe sex. And, you know, all the precautions that you take. And she knew that, you know, it was most likely she wasn't going to conceive and have a child.

And, the threat there, of course, would was who would adopt a baby to a person with HIV. You know, is that even possible? The times were that it was it was very possible, was very common. It was happening all the time. Gay couples were adopting. And you know, there were a lot of, There are a lot of opportunities to, to warrant going after that. So we began praying about it.

And our, our, our adoption process was really it was a roller coaster because we would get matched to a family and then it would fall through oftentimes at the last minute. Very devastating, very, very emotionally. Heartbreaking. And then out of the blue, we got a call that there was a baby born right here in Kansas City was ten weeks early. The family he was matched to, backed out because of the complications of his birth.

He had some brain hemorrhages. Prognosis was unknown. They didn't know if he would be blind, if he would ever walk, what his life would be like. And so the the matched family backed out. And this baby needed a family. We felt like this was was an opportunity that the Lord was providing for us. And, so it would be that. Yeah. Yeah. So we felt like this was an opportunity that the Lord was providing for us.

And so we started talking to the right people and met with a lawyer. It was it was just amazing to see how God opened doors left and right. And we met a lawyer on a Tuesday. After meeting with him, we got to go to the hospital and meet Jeremiah. He was six days old in the incubator in the NICU and, really saw him at first sight.

We really saw him as the gift that he is, and knew he was ours. So that was Tuesday. Thursday? We were found out we were going to court on Friday, for it all to be legalized. And the the lawyer said, Dean, I just read your your home study and saw the HIV diagnosis assists.

And honestly, you've been assigned the worst judge given that he doesn't have a a real A real high history of granting adoptions to those who are HIV positive. And he said, honestly, you have about a 30% chance that he's going to, approve this adoption. And it's just devastating. It was just, once again, the greatest fear is realized, you know, where what, Yeah, it was just it was just devastating to see. Going from such a high low.

We have a baby to. Oh, well, they may not give it to us after all. And, again, we just felt compelled and reminded by a dear friend of ours to, remember who's fighting for us. You know, to remember who is is going before us and to worship him, knowing that he's going to accomplish his will regardless. And, so we did. And Friday we went to court and the judge couldn't have been more accommodating, more, more friendly.

I mean, it was just complete, like day and night compared to what we were expecting. And God was all over it. And it was like a 15 minute, court appearance. And so that Friday, we, we, had our son and again, he continues, God uses him to challenge who I am as a man who I am as a father, who I am as a husband.

And he's been the tool, the catalyst, if you will, of of what God has used to to really fashion the man he's purposed to me to be. And it's it's just another beautiful expression of how God can take the impossible and make it possible.

Christie

I mean, some people are asking like, is your goal to get married? Was that your goal all along? It wasn't my goal. It was at first. My goal was, gosh, you know, fix these nasty feelings. But soon I realized that what I really was in for was a position of becoming. And I got married because I was whole enough to get married. But it wasn't like, oh, there we go, shut the book right? That was just the next step forward.

Morgan

It's wonderful to see men and women truly pursuing chastity, wholeness in in beautiful ways that aren't married even yet. And their hearts would say, yeah, this is something that I want, but they're not at this point. And their their lives are beautiful expressions of hope, and beautiful expressions of healing because of the choices they're made to pursue Jesus and along the way, bringing others with them, in other words, mentoring and and and, loving others, spiritual directors, wonderful men, wonderful women who have a very full life that God is blessing.

And there I think they they would like to be married one day, but at the end of the day, they really, are about offering the gift that they have to the body of Christ in this way. And it's beautiful.

Taylor

Though I'm a single person, I can still be whole enough because Jesus. It's not that simple. But ultimately, like his presence, the Trinitarian community of love, that is my deepest desire to commune with him. And it's hard and it's painful. And yet, even if I had if I was married. He wouldn't be completely able to meet my needs and fill me. It's it's truly the father. And so just trusting in God's enough for me.

Daniel

I think it's. Important for me. To remember that. I am a sexual. Being and it's good. And when the Lord began to heal those areas in my life that were hard and difficult, some of the pain that I experienced, I realized that I needed to fall more into the embrace of the father when it came to embracing my manhood and seeing others as good, like, for example, women, and seeing them as good and seeing them as the gift, you know, and realizing that I'm not the same as her.

I'm different. And she's wonderful and. She's she's beautiful and she's everything. That I'm not. And that is so wonderful. And I think that for me, that was the thing that really changed my life, to realize that I've always been this man who was made to discover the other and see the gift in her, and to be inspired by her beauty and realize that it's pointing me right back to the Lord and his beauty and his mercy and his power.

And I think it's amazing because I'm not married yet, and I'm 42 years old. And you know what? I'm directing my energy and my life to serve God until that day when hopefully, yes, I will be joined to another woman. And I believe it's going to be so good. And until then, I stay faithful and I stay planted because I know who God is and I belong to him, and I know his mercy.

I've been a recipient of this mercy of God, and I want to live my life in such a way that says, thank you, God, for what you've done in my life.

Yvonne

I don't have to be married to find life. I don't have to be connected to someone to to feel like there's meaning. And it is certainly it is a challenge. There's a loneliness. Absolutely. But I haven't I think once I, once I decided that it's okay for me to be single, it became okay for me to be single and I can just live.

I can, I can live like I can look around my life and I can see the beauty of it. And there's so much good and there's so much beauty in it. I do have a lot of great community. As a single woman, I'm able to give myself. I'm able to. Okay. Yeah. As a single woman, I'm able to give a blessing that, you know what's really cool about being a single woman?

As a single woman, I do find there is a place of intimacy with Jesus that I don't know that I would be as compelled to if I were married. I have a very. I have a very intentional focus in my life, unto God and and to my faith as a result of walking it as a single person. It's a it's pretty cool, actually.

There's nothing you feel that he hasn't.

People who know the struggle firsthand, in real conversation and personal stories.

Even on the days no one picked up.

Temptation is hard. Facing it alone is harder. The group gets specific about what actually carries them through: a Jesus who has felt everything they feel and the unglamorous daily community of people who pick up the phone... and honesty about the seasons when no one did.