Hola readers!

Recently I came across a popular tweet that said something like, "if you say gays are wrong then walk away because you are no friend of mine. Accept everyone."
Accept everyone, huh? I guess that excludes us disagreers in that.
"You are the devil," a friend of mine was told when she voiced her atheistic questions. The condemner was her pastor.
What happened to Jesus' command to love one another, to love your neighbor as yourself, about love being the ultimate act?
"I hate people who can't understand gender choice," someone told me. "We need to leave people open to choose."
But what about my right to choose an opinion that doesn't line up with your's?
"Don't bring him back," another was told when he brought his friend into church. The friend was suffering from PTSD and war-related trauma, brain damage causing him to speak his mind and do things he normally wouldn't.
What about the Christian-belief that the church is a place for the trip-ups, the broken, the suffering. When has it become a place for only pretty faces and lives?

The world can blame the Church for the issues we face.
The Church blames the world.

I've been thinking about this for a long time.
Both sides say "we accept everyone."
Yet when we choice opinions that differ from your's, we strike, hate, resist, judge...and I'm just going to be honest and say that both sides are to blame.
It's not them.
It's us. 

I googled the word accept (because google is always right of course), and the word accept can mean, "welcoming, enduring, tolerating a belief."
John Cooper recently wrote a social media post about the difference between accepting one another and endorsing another. To endorse means to support with approval ones actions or decisions.
God calls us to love one another regardless of religious belief, background, or current social-standing.
That, in my opinion, is accepting.
We have forgot as a World what it means to accept, and I think we all hypocrites.
I am not here to condemn one or the other (or maybe I kinda have).
Let me just sit back and condemn self then.
Yes, I have become a hypocrite.
I judge.
I tell you I'm right and I am going to see you different and probably even judge a little -- because heck, you're wrong and I am always right (insert sarcasm).
I've been in church all my life. It's easy to fall into the "pretty-face" picture, to leave your crap at home and forget that it belongs in Church. Church is supposed to be a place where you learn and grow together and rise above your junk.
Instead we leave it at home and play perfection, when that is the last thing Jesus asks of us. Our junk is the very reason we need Him.

We are each entitled to our beliefs. I believe in the choice of free-will. Believe what you will, but we also have the right to say our beliefs differ.
I believe in marriage between one man and one woman.
I believe in pro-life.
I believe that your gender is identified at birth and that God doesn't make mistakes.
I believe that the Bible identifies what is right and wrong and that will never change.
I believe in a lot that you may not.
But I am called to love you, to be your friend.

But I am not entitled to endorse you.
We are each free to believe opposite, but as a Christian I am called to love no matter what you believe...and I hope you will do the same.
I believe this is a truth the world is aching to hear...if both sides will hear it. We each say we must accept one another and we each forget what that looks like.
The Church is broken. We are a people equally broken.

I don't know what your view of the Church is, and the Church is certainly not perfect, but that is something that should unite and not divide us. We will make mistakes, but me and my fellow Christians must learn and move on. We should admit when we are wrong and stand strong when we are right.
We must remember that others differ in beliefs and we are still to love.

We are each called to love and love no matter what stance we take religiously or politically. We are supposed to respect what another believes.
We are called to live in love despite different beliefs.
I will not ask you to endorse me. I will not ask you to love because of my beliefs, but we love despite the other's beliefs. We should step up in the church and learn together, to realize we are each on a journey for Truth. We should all be willing to learn, to admit that at times, we're right and you're wrong...and sometimes we're both wrong.
I am asking that you remember that we are all broken, all trip-ups. I am asking that you forgive the Church, that you realize that this is not what the Church is supposed to be.
As I have struggled to find a church I realized that I can either sit back and judge the pastor and congregation on the little things I disagree with, or I can stand up and be the change, be a part of Grace.


This is a hard post to right because it can easily be taken many ways. I am not asking you to not stand up for what you believe. I am not asking the Church to change its beliefs if they stand concrete with the Bible. I am not saying that accepting everyone will suddenly solve our issues. I am not saying that there are no absolute morals.
But we are an angry world. There is enough unrest and war and pain and depression and darkness.
However I believe that Ultimate Love conquered it all.
And I believe that Love is the answer -- not hate.
There is a time to stand up for what you believe and a time to simply Love even when the other disagrees.

It's time for us to learn the difference between slamming another because we're different, and gently explaining why we believe what we believe. We must learn when this should be done and how...I honestly believe that our beliefs should be requested before given and not proclaimed to prove a point. I have friends of different religions, backgrounds, lifestyles and beliefs. I am called to love them, to not endorse their actions I consider wrong, but certainly not drag them to my side
Two different actions.

The reality is we are all broken.
But the reality also is that we are Loved despite that.

That alone gives me hope.
And that Love alone is going to carry me into tomorrow.

I am sorry for these rambles but it's been on my heart. I feel the world has forgotten what it means to love. We accept who we want and leave out the rest.
It hurts my heart, this darkness.
And yet I too am guilty.