Finding Strength of Will

Here is the highlight of Josh & Lolly's Voices of Hope Video. To me, they are AMAZING! ~Azalea Josh & Lolly's Voices of Hope Highlight

Josh Weed started doing weekly check-ins around September 2012 or so.  Again, I was still feeling pretty scared and to even post this was a huge leap of courage.  During the check-in, you tell how you are doing physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and set a goal for the upcoming week.  You are not allowed to say "good".  That's cheating. Physically:  Pretty ticked off.  The family's going through the second round of chest colds in two weeks.  I really shouldn't complain because it's been about three months since we've been sick, but it still sucks waking up at 3AM  to your 5-year-old hacking up a lung and you're thinking, "didn't we just do this?"  Sort of worn out from that and lack of sleep related to that.  Other than that, feeling pretty good about myself physically.  Been keeping up on my goal to ride my bike to work for a couple of weeks now (helps that the transmission's on the fritz in my car).  Also getting some...

I wrote this post two weeks ago, as you will see at the bottom.   I’m actually glad I didn’t post before as it gave me two weeks to put everything in a better perspective. Will has always been gay or attracted to men.   Since he was 8, he knew he was different.   Then, I assume, sometime a few years later he realized he was SSA (Same Sex Attracted).   He had a goal in mind though; he was going to go on a mission, he was going to get married, he was going to have a family, and he was NOT going to be gay.   Though that did get him where he wanted to be, and we think that the goal to not be gay was a good thing for our journey, the time comes when you have to be honest with yourself or you might explode!   :) When Josh Weed came out (you can read our story about that here ) it allowed Will to be OK with being gay.   That means he isn’t squashing those feeling anymore.   And if he isn’t squashing those feelings, that means he is having them. ...

I am Azalea, Will’s wife. He is gay and I am the opposite.  I LOVE guys!  LOL  He was worried I would be uncomfortable at a North Star Fireside which was mostly all (SSA/gay) men.  Really?  You do know me, right?  A place where there are mostly men and for that matter kind, sensitive, caring men?  Sounds like heaven to me! So in the last few months my husband Will has embraced the fact that he is gay.  He is becoming a different person and it is so fun!  Our marriage is very solid and we are best friends.  I think that is what makes this all work so well. I love that my Will can see the big picture. He, much like Josh Weed, knew he wanted to go on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he knew he wanted to marry in the Temple and he knew he wanted to have a family and he knew that he wanted to remain a faithful Latter-day Saint. This is one of the reasons he was not going to be gay. Well, it gets to the poin...

OK, just found something I want to share.  The reason it is going to be remotely coherent is that I wrote it almost six months ago, just after  Josh Weed's coming out post  on June 7 of this year.  Just six months ago.  A friend of my wife shared Josh's post on Facebook, my wife read it, and shared it with me.  Up to this point in my life, I was blissfully living in denial.  I read the article and my world  turned upside down.  Here is a portion of an email I wrote to Josh a short time after. " I have started and restarted this email more times than I can count in the past few days.  There is just so much bottled up that I have never really been able to share, now that I am able to share it, I don't know where to start.  Oh, well.  Might as well get straight to the point:  I am an active Temple-attending Latter-day Saint, have served a full time mission, have been married to a wonderful, amazing woman for 10+ years, and...