Finding Strength of Will

Here is my blog post for ldslights.org. I sat down to type one thing but as I typed this is what I ended up with instead. It is a bit of a tribute to a friend whose funeral we attended yesterday. Written January 11th, 2015 by Wrylon The above picture is a picture of our family’s feet, from years ago. Today we attended the funeral of a friend. When things like this happen it makes us look at our own lives. How am I living? What influence am I showing? The woman today left an influence all around the country and especially among her family, friends and acquaintances. As she was sick over the last few months, friends went to be with her and comfort her, but it ended up the other way around. Those that visited her left feeling comforted. What good I am doing in the world? The words to the song “Because I Have Been Given Much” by Grace Noll Crowell come to mind, the beginning and the 3 rd  verse. Because I have been given much I too must give. …. Because I have been blessed ...

There are many reasons why being married to a woman is good enough for me, and in some ways better or easier for me than being with a guy. Jealousy .  Maybe this is unique to my wife and I but as this is about me and what works for me, it certainly is applicable:  neither of us is jealous of friendships that either of us has for either gender.  In addition, if one of us likes and is friends with a guy or a girl, the other is as well.  I suppose this isn’t entirely true — there have been a time or two that I’ve been jealous of Wrylon talking to another guy…when he was paying more attention to her than he was to me. No competition .  My attractions to men do not cause Wrylon the worry it would if I were attracted to women.  She doesn’t have the right parts and so there is no pressure on her to try to compete for my attention in that area. Sexual attraction .  This may seem counter intuitive but there are several factors in this area that m...

For several weeks now, maybe even a months, something has been bothering me.  I'll admit that I've been in a darker place emotionally, struggling, feeling weighed down and confused because of it.  It was not something I had even been able to formulate into words, like a shadow of a thought.  Visible yet without substance of its own.  And dark. Wrylon and I attended a wedding celebration a few weeks ago of a friend.  Our friend had married her partner in New York and was having the celebration here where home is for them.  Wrylon asked if it would be difficult for me going and seeing them together.  I assured her I would be fine. But it did bother me.  Not because of them, but because of my reaction.  Looking into my friend's eyes, seeing her happiness in finding someone she wants to spend her life with, threw me off guard at how happy I was for her.  She seemed to me to have it all, everything that you could hope for in this would. ...

I suppose by making public some of what is commonly reserved as personal that we are inviting criticism, and I'm OK with that.  But what astounds me is the certainty which many people seem to have that I and my wife are making the wrong decision.  Is it too simple to believe that we could really have found our soul mate, the peson that we want to spend our life with, in spite of our differences? Because it is that simple.  My wife and I have chosen to make a go at this life together.  We hold sacred the importance of family.  We believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  We feel that the best chance we have is to face this side-by-side, as partners, best-friends, lovers, and equals.  We believe in true love.  We believe in God and that He is our support.  We believe that we are not just as we are now and will always be so -- we believe that we are meant to constantly try to improve ourselves, and that it is possible to ...

Just faced another of the scariest moments of my life.  I wonder if I will ever get used to it?  This morning I came out to a friend I carpool with.  His friendship means a great deal to me and I have wanted to tell him for some time, but have not had the courage.   I used to think that I was a pretty good judge of character, and while I still believe it to be true in general, there are the secret workings of a person’s heart, their true character, that are difficult to see.  There are moments, though, when we truly see a person’s character, moments when guards are down, moments of vulnerability.  When talking to someone you care about, outing yourself is definitely one.   For both of you. “I’ve got to share something with you,” I told him this morning.  “Before I chicken out.  You never know where God is going to take you and he has certainly taken me on a strange path during the past year.” I explained that I had spent the majority of my li...

The need for intimacy, for connection, and the attraction to others is the foundation of same-gender attraction.  The complexities and pain come from a lack of understanding of our need for connection, both personal and in society as a whole, combined with greed, pride, doubt, and fear of something different from accepted norms.  The solution is what it has always been:  love, acceptance, patience, moderation, hard work.   My son taught me this today. As my wife and I get more comfortable with our situation, our conversations are getting more and more open.  In addition,we have been to firesides hosted by SSA groups and have taken our kids, been to dinner with like minded individuals, we plan on volunteering at a local center supporting LGBT youth, and we are blogging about it.  My children are observant but most are young enough be in that wonderful state of ignorance from innocence.  My preteen son has begun to take notice. My wife and I well aware o...

I sit here in a moment of quiet reflection.  The  house is still.  I am still.  It has been some time since I felt still.  And silent.  But my mind is a whirl of thoughts and faces and dreams.  I hold my breath, almost, afraid that something will break this moment--the children waking up, or a phone call.  The sound of my keystrokes is almost too loud.  This moment is precious to me as I look inwards and outwards.  Inwards at who I have become and what has changed; outwards at where I am and what hasn’t changed. I feel the need to recount the dream that I woke with; it is still lingering in my memory, which is unusual.  Most fade more quickly than the frost in the morning sunlight.  Many details have faded, but one incident sticks out clearly in my mind.  My dreaming mind visited a prison.  Dirty, somber and grim.  I was standing in a hallway leading into a room, small but high-walled.  I could not see the c...

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. ...

Thinking about what it means to see things as they really are.  Much of my energy in life has been spent trying to make things be what I think they should be.  This has mostly been in the form of attempting to control other's perceptions of me, or alter my perception of myself.  For many years I thought I could actually change myself, change who I was, or change some aspect of me simply by altering what I liked and what I didn't like.  What I've learned is that it is simultaneously much more complex and much more simple.  It is complex in that it is impossible for me to understand all of the interactions of emotion, desire, needs, feelings, and thoughts resulting from even the smallest thought.  Yet it is much more simple in that each thought, feeling, desire, emotion, and need may be simply just what it is. Today I said simply, "I love you" to a friend.  More of an acquaintance, really, but I understand somewhat of the challenges that are facing him...