Participant #1:
Welcome to Lift and Love Conversations, where we're building a supportive culture around LGBTQ families in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. I'm Allison Dayton, and I'll show you how to embrace your child and your spiritual discomfort to deepen and grow your testimony of Jesus Christ. And I am Jenny Hunter, and I will help you identify and overcome obstacles that can get in the way of sustaining healthy relationships. And I help you realize the blessings of being an LGBTQ family. Each week, we will bring you lessons that we've learned from our own life, the experiences from hundreds of families that we have worked with, and conversations with amazing experts.

Participant #1:
Hello. Our. Listen love community. I know you probably are like, what happened to Alison and Jenny? Because we've taken a little bit of a podcast break, but we are back. We have missed you. I know. We found down time. We did well, and we did our live Listen Love Mama's retreat with mothers who know. And it was beyond even what my highest expectation was. It was so incredibly fun to meet these amazing, 110 cool, beautiful moms. And we're going to talk about a little bit more, but we have Anita Irving with us today. I know. And everyone was so thrilled to meet Anita, and she taught everybody a trans non binary 101. That was so good. Awesome. So awesome. Yeah. We were going to tape it, we debate it, and now I kind of wish we did tape all of our stuff because it was all so good. What do you think, Anita? Like, going into the it was just so intense. I don't even know how to talk about it. I'm like it was all of the things. It was spiritual, it was emotional, it was heartbreaking. It was heart. Rending. It was full of love. It was full of faith. It was just all of the things that you would want it to be. And it was so intense and so packed. I don't know how to explain it to people, but it was wonderful. I think you guys were really inspired to do that. Thank you. You know what? It felt inspired. The planning felt inspired. It came together so well. We're going to send out a survey as soon as I come off the break. Totally. Yeah. I think it took it like you said, it was so packed, but emotionally, too, and meeting and connecting with those 110 moms, it was a sacred space, and it just took a while, which is almost like you don't want to talk about it too much because it is very sacred. I don't want to cheap in it. Right. It's kind of like Mary after angel gabriel tells her that she's going to have the Son of God, and she just keeps it in her heart. Like, she bonders these things in her heart. Not that I'm equating, obviously. It just felt so sacred. I love that. And I think it's okay to equate it to that, because it was sort of a powerful first experience, at least for us, I would say everyone in the room, it was their first experience to be together, and I think the power of the togetherness and to not be the one alone. My girlfriend's daughter came out to her two years ago, and she finally is out publicly to her family, and there's just such a relief on her. Mom noticed and other people have noticed that she just is a different person. And I think that's what happens once we realize we are not sold during alone, and we are all experiencing really similar but diverse experiences but very similar feelings. And I think especially as a trans mom, I don't know any other people in my area who have trans kids. And so I have friends who have kids that are gay. I have friends where I know people. But because I think youth coming out as transgender is still pretty new for the last few years, it's very isolating. So even my friends who get it because they're LGBTQ families don't fully get it because they're not a trans or nonbinary family. It feels different. And so just to be there, and I'm so glad we had so many trans, non binary moms who were there. I hadn't raised their hands at the beginning of my workshop, and it was, I think, almost a third, I think, of the moms were here. We could put those stats up. It was wonderful, and it was interesting. Allison, like you're, like saying, even because we had our Mama Support Zoom meeting last Thursday, you're like, well, such a different meeting after. What were you meaning when you said that? It was just way more open. People were more comfortable expressing themselves. There were quite a few people that were new there. I think I felt a little bolder, like, in my responses, and the other moms were kind of jumping in and had something to say. There was something that happened where everybody kind of moved up in confidence, a level. Yeah. And that's kind of what we're talking about today. Anita sent us this email because she had got this question. What was the question you got? Anita, do you want to the friend I asked, I'll read it to you. She said, I don't understand how you say and she had left the church for various reasons, and that was one of them. She's like, I don't understand how you stay active. In her perspective, the doctrine of the church is actively against my family because they're LGBTQ, and she was trying to figure that out. Sincerely not trying to short. That's a question that we all likely wrestle with on and off or on. Totally. And maybe not with those words, and maybe not with that kind of feel behind it, but certainly we all have some level of, like, so what are we doing here? And I think that's why the events felt so sacred, because everybody is on different face journeys. But for the whole, I would say most of those moms are trying to figure out how to increase their testimony in Christ and support their child overall. That, I would think, is the common denominator. And that's why it felt so sacred and so powerful. It really was like the women at the whale feeling to me, where we were just being fed from each other and from the spirit, from our savior of how to do this. And so I thought, Anita, like, how you broke it down and we're going to go, and you kind of made a formula for this. When I read this, I was like, yes. You're like, we should do podcasts. I'm like, Absolutely. Because I think our brains like to work in systems and formulas. And so I think you've done a beautiful job of doing this for other moms to see. And it helps that I'm an accountant. I think in formulas, it's beautiful. I like the feelings. I appreciate that's probably why I love it so much. Yeah, no, I think it's so good. It is a question, I think sorry, adjusting my seat there. I think it's a question that I know that I get asked it all the time, like, several times a week. If not, if I leave the house, I get asked it. And it's generally being asked when people like you said, who really would have liked to stay, and they're like, how are you staying? Or trying to figure it out for themselves. It's not asked in a negative way. It's asked in a really open, positive way. Everybody's got to figure out for themselves. But I really resonate with Anita, what you wrote and talked about. Take how we do it, but then make it you got to really personalize it for you. So take what we give and then make it yours, right? Yeah. And we all deal differently with the questions and the different points. So let's kind of dive in here and start. Let's start and see where we go with all of this and with the information that we can kind of share with you. I always call it coping skills, like, how do you cope? But I also think they're more powerful than just a coping skill, because if I wanted to leave the church, I would leave the church. I want to be here. It's in my blood, and I don't know. It's in my blood and it's in my heart, and it is my weight, and I want it to be the very best place for my family and for other LGBTQ families. So I stay. It's not going to work that way for everybody, and it certainly didn't work that way for my brother and who knows what my son's future looks like, depending on how he's embraced and all of that. So I know we'll each kind of share our different points, but just there's strength in what we do and joining together to do it. So I want to start with that kind of feeling, right? We stay because it strengthens us and it strengthens our testimony in Jesus Christ, right? And I think it's important to mention, too, that this synopsis, if you will, the way that I broke it down for this friend of mine, those words were mine that I used. But the principles, the underlying things that helped me get to this point are things that I picked up from listening to other people who are willing to share their faith journeys and their faith prices and their impressions and feelings. And so I don't feel like these ideas are unique or my own because I think a lot of people listening to this podcast will be like, oh yeah, I've done that, or I resonate with that, or whatever. So for those of you who do share, there's so much value to that because it does help us all as we're trying to navigate our path in staying close to the Savior, whatever that looks like. And I think that's the first point, right? You have to have a testimony of the Savior and his domestic. How do you stay focused on that with all of the culture? Because our church is a culture, right? It is a way of life. So how do you focus on the savior and not on the culture? I think, for me, I really had to the word was used at the conference to deconstruct our testimonies and then reconstruct them. And that resonated with me very strongly because that's essentially what I did. I grew up in a very conservative home with a very conservative, sweet mother who was a conservative Methodist before she became a conservative member of the church. And so just very, you know, conservative. She doesn't drink caffeine. I love my Coke. So we all have our things. So I grew up, if there was a church activity, I was supposed to be at the church activity. If I didn't go to the church activity, I didn't go anywhere. It was very rule driven, I'll put it that way. And I don't want to give the impression that there wasn't love or there wasn't testimony because all those things were there. My mother has I would call her a pillar face. That's been a good example to me for that. But I realized that I had to strip away all of the external things that were not Christ because they were very scary to me. You have a child that comes out as LGBTQ, all of a sudden you realize that they are probably not going to do all the things that you think you have to do. The pressure that we put on ourselves to live the culture, to do our food storage, to go to the temple every month, all the things that we think must be done to achieve salvation, you realize that they're not going to have that life. And then there's a lot of fear tied in to what's going to happen to them in the long run. And so I think I was just really grateful that the first thing that came through was, number one, my job as a parent is to love my child. I mean, that was the first thing impression that I was given. But as far as the rest of it, you just have to take everything else away. And at the core of our doctrine, at the core of our church, at the core of all these prints, the restored gospel, it's Jesus Christ and his atonement. And is he full of grace or not? Is he powerful enough to say or not? Does he love my child or not? Of course he does. And is there anything too big for him? No. And I love the fact that our whole story of our church starts with the visitation of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father and calling Joseph Smith by name. To me, the bedrock of, like, he knows my son by name, he knows me by name. Right. That relationship, I mean, the church came later, the establishment of the church. But our whole story of the church of Jesus Christ latter states based on this visitation, of this one on one relationship. Right. It was a one on one visit to Joseph Smith. And we feel the same way. It's one on one as in Christ. Right. The beautiful thing about the doctrine of Jesus Christ in his atonement is it drives away all the fear. I'm not afraid anymore because it doesn't matter that I don't have the answers. It's not that I'm saying it's not hard sometimes that I don't have the answers, but at the end of the day, I trust that there's still a plan and that Christ has not forgotten their family. There's just no room for fear when you're focusing everything on your faith in Christ, it just makes everything that much more beautiful. And one of the things that I found is when I separated my testimony of Jesus Christ for my testimony of the restored Gospel and the church as a whole, it was a little bit scary because I didn't know what was going to happen to my testimony of the church. And I love the church. I love participating in doing all these things. But what I found was that my testimony of the Savior deepened and grew in a way, like exponentially compared to what it had been my whole life. Because for the first time, I understood and felt on a very core level that I did not need to follow the commandments to earn his love. I did not have to go to church every Sunday to earn his love. It doesn't mean I don't go to church every Sunday. And I'm not trying to keep the commitments, but it took away all of that pressure. And I could see more purely how deeply he loves and advocates for us as his people, as his children. And so there was nothing to be afraid of to do that, but it doesn't mean it wasn't scary to do it. Yeah, but to learn that our Lord is not transactional with his love, because humans really view that's how we kind of go to autopilot. We have to learn out of that transactional love. But he just does that so naturally because he's perfect in it. That's what the testimony you gain. And that just fills you up at every cell of your body. Like, you just feel so seen when you really understand the depths of how much he loves us. And I'd like to use the word seen. That is the perfect descriptor. I feel like not my actions, not my obedience is seen, but me, who I am, my flawed, broken, and perfect self, I'm seen and I'm cherished by my Savior. Anita, one thing you said that I just love was you said, I don't know the answers. It's not that they're not answers. I just don't know them. And when you say that my deepest days of anguish are those days when someone has sort of attempted to take that away from me, those ideas, when people say there's more answers coming. Yeah, nothing will ever change. I mean, the number of times I've heard that nothing will ever change and it's like, well, okay, the days that I buy into that or I think everybody thinks nothing will change or I don't know, no one wants change or whatever leads me to despair. Those are the darkest days for me because I think I'm praying for deeper understanding. And I would like it if everybody we're all praying for more understanding about this kind of large percentage of people in our church who are suffering and hurting and their families make it a really big percentage of our church. But it's those moments when people say, take away the hope. And that's one of the things I have to protect 100%. Yeah. I have to protect myself from hopelessness because that's when despair takes over, right, when you've lost any hope. And for our LGBTQ members, that is dress, because hopelessness is high correlation with suicide. These members want so much to have a deeper and more hopeful understanding of what the Lord's plan for them is us do their parents, right? And I hope is the fruit of the spirit. And so that goes directly with our number one point, is like focus on you and your savior and his atonement, and you are going to feel hope is from the Savior, never from Satan. Satan is hopelessness for sure. That is his message. Right? And when we're just hopelessness is feeling disconnected from everybody. And I think that was the beauty of the event, was that we were connected and the power of connection and a shared testimony that we're all being carried through hard times. This was kind of the beauty of the event, really was. All right, so we didn't say at the beginning, but three main points. So your first point is focus on Christ. And what's your second point, Anita? Okay. And actually what I said is I had to split my testimony into these three distinct parts, if you will. So the first, obviously, was the Savior, my testimony of the Savior and his atonement. The second was the restored gospel and its ordinances and the covenants that are associated with that. And then the third was the church as an organization, as an entity. So when I took away the other two things and just focused on Christ, and that was fine when you talked about that, what I found for my testimony of the restored gospel in the covenants that are there, I have a very strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. And for me, that's what carries my testimony of the restored gospel. And that's always been at the core of it, and it's evolved over the years. I had friends lead to church some years ago, and I questioned some things, and I shelved some questions, and I've had a number of spiritual experiences that have resolved my concerns there. And so for me, my testimony of the restored gospel was also not harmed when I separated those two. However, it's important to acknowledge and Allison alluded to this the church is still being restored. It's not done yet, and there's more to come. And which article of faces that we believe all that God has revealed, all that he has now revealed, and that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. And I believe with all my heart that those answers will come. Will outline the plan that our Father has for his LGBTQ children. That our home. Many parents have our kids. I wonder sometimes if there was this big council in heaven, and Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother sat them down and said, hey, we're going to send you to Earth during this time, and you're going to have this unique set of challenges, and you're going to be fighting for your place, but you're going to help the people of my church learn how to love better. Will you do it? And when I look at it from that perspective, I see some very valiant and strong spirits in our LGBTQ kids. They are not LGBTQ by accident. So I have to believe, and I do believe that there is more to come and that those answers will come. I don't know what the answers will be. Again. Alison talked about hopelessness. For me, part of maintaining hope is to not quantify what the changes will look like. I love that Alison and I were just talking about that today because you say what you think about what the apostles should do. I think you say it so beautifully. Well, I mean, I have a really strong testimony in the Lord teaching his apostles. I heard a first hand account from Elder Perry, who was my husband's uncle, about the experiences around restoring priesthood ordinances to our black members and the people of the world. I have a really strong testimony of that. I believe there was great education and movement there. It was not fast, it certainly wasn't at the beginning of the cycle of the civil rights movement. In fact, it was in the last year of the civil rights movement. And for some people in the church, they're probably still where we were back then. But for the most part, those members of the Twelve and the First Presidency were moved along a line of information and education. And not to compare it to that period, to this period too closely, but there's a process of learning that we're all going through, and I go through it. I'm learning much more about trans or gender nonconforming people. At the beginning of this, I really just couldn't dive in. And I didn't have a child who is trans or nonbinary, so I didn't. And I'm learning, and I'm trying to learn more and more and Anita has taught me so much and we're all learning, and we're all learning how everything fits. And we need to allow that grace for those who don't have children, little children coming out and who are experiencing this with 2040, 50, 60, 70 years of believing a different way. And that's part of loving, right? It's easy to love the people we love. It's harder to love the people that feel like they're not working with us very well. So that's part of my process, and I really have a strong opinion of that. And all of that is to say, I believe that the Savior will move mountains. I love present. Nelson said that. He said, before Christ comes again, he will do many of the greatest work he's ever done. He said that in general conference, I think, two times ago, and that just brought me such hope. And I love the fact that we expect that from the Savior. We know he runs this church and that he is evolved and he is mindful, and that there's a plan to all the chaos. Right. Because especially in the world right now, there seems to be so much chaos and hopelessness, right. But if you ask yourself what are some of the top two or three biggest issues in the church right now, I would say the LGBTQ issues are up there, if not one or two. Well, I think it's just division overall. It's a big division right now. Yeah. And nobody knows exactly how to, how it's one of the biggest problems we're facing right now and the church is how to combine and coalesce around this issue. So when people say, oh, things will never change, I think, well, of course the Lord's going to help us through these tricky times. And if we listen and watch, we can see where he is making progress for us. I just think it's all about us becoming a Zion people. It's our becoming of who he needs us to be. I was going to say, wouldn't it be sad if things never change? Like, if we never changed as people, what's the word we're supposed to change? We're supposed to grow and become more like the Savior. And I think beliefs were they were in Joseph Smith's time. I mean, heaven. They thought Christ was going to come anytime. I think so many new things were happening then that they were, like, always expecting change. But I actually think our kids are kind of that way now, too, because think about the last five years, so much changed in our church, right? And so, like, now everybody's like every general conference, there's a million rumors, which I kind of love that buzzed excitement. I love that, bring it, Lauric. We're ready for more. You pointed out, like, the church leaders and stuff, and I think that's a really good segue into this third perspective of the church being this third thing is that we can recognize that our leaders of the church, whether it be the general authorities, whether it's our local leaders, they're doing the best they can. And I have a lot of empathy for where they're coming from. And sometimes it's harder to have empathy than others when they're doing things that are causing pain to people that I love. But absolutely, they're stewards in trying to do the best of their stewardship. And I think of that with the corner of apostles in the First Presidency. I find so much hope in the fact that we have members of those leaders that have LGBTQ family. Close family members that they love and listen to and talk to. That they have good relationships with because that means they're listening and that those viewpoints are being hopefully heard. And that the Lord will use it to tutor them. Just as he has used it to tutor me as a mom to get me to the place where I am right now. And so I think we can respect and love the church as an organization and recognize that these are not perfect people leading the church, but they're good people for the most part, just doing the best they can and trying to. I appreciate the fact that they don't make casual shifts on a dime based on public opinion. I understand that we are trying to we believe the Lord leads this church, but the Lord doesn't work as fast as you want them to sometimes. And that's okay because we grow in the process of having to wait. I love that because I often say, like, why didn't the Lord tell Lehi, grab the wife's and grab the plates before you leave? Right. But he sent them back twice yeah, he's not the efficient. He's not about efficiency. He's about becoming and change. It's about learning. Right? It's all about learning. And I don't have a doctorate in very many things, but I feel like I'm rounding out the rest of my doctorate on LGBTQ matters as they apply to the church. And there's always more learning, but I can't expect that of everybody else, right? I mean, I did head first dive and have been in it for a long time, as we all have, and been working on it. So we can't expect our bishop, who's never once dealt with it in his family or doesn't have that kind of compassionate view that earned empathy that we've got. So it's hard, and I say it because I believe it's super important, but it is very hard. And I usually have to go through a fairly good cycle of anger, frustration, and then finally back to love before I don't just go like, oh, okay, and right back to love. I usually have to travel a fairly arduous road of recovery, right? Yeah. And I think I want to add right here, because I was just coaching a mom about this today where she's like, I'm learning so much, and it's so hard to sit in Sunday school and hear the judgments and hear the ignorance, and I'm like, I know, but until you drop that judgment of them, you won't feel the love again. So we are asking for non judgment from people who don't have LGBTQ family members, but we have to really work on nonjudgment, like the bishop, who's still learning, giving grace to him, and giving grace to the young woman's leader who messed it up. And the benefit for us to do that is that we become more effective disciples and feel them love more. And I know it's hard, right, especially when they have specifically said things that have done real damage to your child. But the best gift you could give your child is to forgive and let go of that hate and that judgment, because then you become such a more effective condo of Christ for everybody involved. Well, I'm teaching them that it really doesn't have anything to do with them as an individual. It has to do with a lack of education. So I talked to this amazing mom this week. She sent me this email, and it was kind of like, hey, to whoever gets this, I need a little help. And the bishop had been really tough on her 14 year old, who was identifying sort of in a tender, fluid kind of phase of exploration as a 14 year old. And those of us that have been around in fact, I sent it to Anita because I was angry enough. I was flooded, as I would say, and I couldn't answer properly because I was so mad at him. We talked about some of the resolution. So she went back. Anita gave her great advice. And then I came back once. I kind of got my wits about me again a day or two later and said some things. And then she'd come back and said, I met with the bishop again. He'd actually talked about stripping her. She was class president, and she was stripping Temple recommend. I mean, we're talking about a provisional. This isn't an adult, this is a child. And then not showing up for church while she was questioning, and this mom's going to write her story out. I can't wait. But she went back and said to him, hey, I want you to really rethink this, because if you do this, she will never come back to church. And really, in a calm, very educated way, just said to the bishop, look, this child is trying to figure out who she is, and I'm all in for that, and I want her to find out who she is. This is the appropriate time for figuring out who she is. She went back and she spent some time with him and really kind of had him think about some of the things that he had done. Sort of like knee jerk reaction. Then she told me she was meeting him again this week or had just met him, and it was getting a little better. So rather than saying, oh, look what he did, my hands are tied, she made another appointment, went back and said, okay, I want you to look about, you know, we've had a little time here. Let's look at this again. Here's some information that I've been thinking. I'd like you to rethink about it this way. That's the way I wish I would have acted. I think I did okay with some of the things that happened to my son, but I wish I would have even been more clear when I went back. And this woman has a really lovely way of, like, distilling all the anger out and just leaving the feelings that she was having and what she thought could be better anyway. It's impossible. When you're flooded with emotion, it's impossible. And I find that when there's all those really big feelings going on, that I have to wait to respond until I can come from a place of love. That's the rule I've given myself. But if I can't come from a place of love, I'm not ready to talk to confront them about it yet or just to bring it up again. No, in coaching, we call it your primary response. And your secondary response, like, your primary response is that very quick. And then your secondary response is the love where you want to be. So you got to be flooded or untriggered and then get over there to be flooded in. Emotions when you feel like your child's being attractive is absolutely normal. We all have mama there in us for sure. All of us, really. If we didn't, many of our kids wouldn't survive either. Other people or us, our mama bear instincts to can. I don't know if this is turned because we haven't really talked about this, but I feel like the number one reason is that we all need to, besides the covenants, which I really believe in the covenants that are gospel gives us, and the power of those is that we are to teach other people. Right. This is a story of the bishop learning. She's learning. And we have hundreds of these stories. Right. Alison of moms that did the hard work with the state president, with the bishop, went back in with the bravery, and bishop's hearts were changed. The state president's hearts were changed, and young women's leaders hearts were changed. So that the next kid going into that office is a totally different experience. Yeah. And they're not always going to come up with the satisfying solution. No, but I love what Ben said at our event, you do it by ten you can't move somebody 180 degrees. Just do it by ten degrees at a time. Yeah. And that's not always satisfying, but it will get us all there. Next child will be the leader, will think a little differently. You know what I mean? There's growth. And really, I see remarkable growth sometimes, like stunning growth in leadership and the way that people are responding and the emotional feelings that are seeping into the hearts all over the church at all levels. Right. We can't discount this hard work we're doing as individuals. And one of the things I know, Alison, you've said, and I've said, and I think Jenny as well, that we feel called to be here in this space. It is not an easy place to be in all the time, to be both LDS affirming and LGBTQ affirming, especially when we have kids who have stepped away from the church or other loved ones because of how they felt at church and what they were told at church. And so it can be a very difficult place to be. But I'm here because I believe God wants me to be here, and I still feel the savior and the spirit at church. And I want to fight to make maybe fight the right word. I'm working to make it a safer place for the families who do want to stay and the kids who do want to stay and help them figure out how to do that. And it's so important if all of us who are hurt by people in the church left the church, who would be left? Who would be left to help these families who are kids that are just coming out and just trying to figure it out? I mentioned this before, I know, but I think it's worth repeating. When Oliver first came out, I looked around at the people in my ward, and there was a lady who I greatly admired, who, in my opinion, was walking the middle of the covenant path who had just posted on Facebook a couple of weeks prior, congratulating her brother on his wedding to his husband. Congratulations. We love you. And it was the first time I had seen somebody active in church supporting a same sex marriage. I had never seen that before. But it changed me in a positive way. I realized that I didn't have to choose between fully supporting my child and fully walking the covenant path. This whole concept that you have to choose between being an active covenant keeping member of the church or loving and supporting your LGBTQ families, it's fiction. It's a false paradox. And so I had to throw that out, but I did it. I was able to do that in part because of the people I saw around me who were actively walking the path that we expect to see at church and being affirming. And so I knew that that was part of what I needed to do as well. I'm all in. I'm all in the church, but I'm also all in my family. I'm all in the restored gospel because I know the Savior is all in for me. And I turned to Alison during our mother's event, and I said, I sure wish Apostle could have been here to witness these women, to witness the strength and the love and the ministering and these women being all in for the family and for Christ. And it was just so beautiful to see, because watching the gospel lived at such a high level and watching his daughters be like, the highest level on the self. I just wanted everybody to witness them, because if they could witness these moms and what they brought to that room, they would totally see why we could support our LGBTQ children and have such amazing relationship with Christ. It makes you into this most amazing disciple and highest self of yourself. But it's a path. We gave you three ways to focus on, but it's individual path that is treacherous, to say the least, right? You're questioning everything. But if you can make it through the path, we honor everybody on the path. Whatever they're doing on this path or where they're at, I promise you, you will love the version of yourself so much better after this. And we're still on it, right? We're still going through it, but you really until we all get to the end of this. But one of the things I really admire that you said, you said you talked about it being a calling, and then you told the story of this woman who had put it on Facebook, what, two weeks before your child came? Just a couple of weeks. It was right around the same time that Oliver came out. So I think when people say to me, like, why do you say stay? Like, this is my church, these are my people, this is my gospel, how do you stay? Like, it's a totally different question. And how do you keep a testimony? But what you said, if we're called to do this job if you're called to do this job, you get strength, you get extra measures of goodness and Karen along the path, right? The little stones. And that woman coming out with a Karen to you, a signpost of, like, look, this woman who you really admire, look what she went before you, and she left you a little sign that everything's going to be okay. And there's beauty in it, and there's goodness, and there's God in this. And I think that as moms who are just starting out on this road, look for the Karen's that God gives you because he asked you to do something hard. You can absolutely 100% down on them. And as I always say, write them down, connect the dots. And when you look back at the moment, the guests, the Karen, the way finding maps and ribbons tied to branches and however they come to you, pieces of bread on, you know, like breadcrumbs, you will see the Lord, he's not absent in this. He's guiding us, which helps us to stay on our path, which doesn't look like and it's not that we always feel guided and lifted, but we can see definite connections between lift the next step, the next step. And I love that you saw that. And that's it. That's the beauty right there. And that's what draws these women will tell you all of them in that meeting, that their connection with Jesus Christ is exponentially closer, more intimate and dependent on Jesus Christ than it ever was and dependent on a very good, trusting way, the way he wants it to be. I really feel that way. That's absolutely my experience is I had no idea how close the Lord was to me and how intimately understood my pain and my joy and my family. No idea until I started this. And I would say, once you figure this out for yourself, your formula, write it down, because there's going to be moments where you're going to ask yourself that question. There are gonna be hard moments that you need to go back and say, remind your brain of, like, no, this is my community. This is why I'm staying in this church, because you're going to have moments like that, and you're going to need, like Alison said, write it down so you have it to reference when those hard moments yeah. And have some steps. I listen to music. I have a playlist. It moves around. Some songs go off, some comes on. I have some rituals, like just calming down rituals have find out what works and keep them near whatever it is, because there's so much goodness to be had and there's change to be had, and it will be. Some others, it just will be. It reminds me of that. And I think we've all heard this story about young girl who had this strand of imitation pearls. And her dad would come into the room every night and ask her to give him this imitation strand of pearls. And she was like, no, Daddy, I don't want to do it. And this went on for a few weeks, and finally one night, she gave him that strand of invitation pearls, and in return, he gave her a real pearl necklace that he had had and was just waiting to give her. And that's kind of how I feel on this journey. Is that my invitation pearls of walking the path of the gospel? I mean, it was beautiful. It was pretty. It was lovely, and I found a lot of happiness there. But I feel like the save is just waiting for us to let go of the things and the expectations that we have for our lives and what as good as we thought it would get. And then he's giving us this beautiful gift that's so much more and it's so much more valuable, and that's so much more precious. I am so grateful. I'm so grateful. If you would ask me five years ago if I would have said that you'd ask me three years ago, two years ago, I don't know if I would have had the same answer. I am so grateful to be an LGBTQ mall. I'm so grateful for this path that my life is on because it is so beautiful, and I would not have felt that without the opposition, the things that challenged me. So good. I love that analogy, because it really you drop all the fake things and you just focus on the real. I think that's so good, Anita. I agree. Well, thank you for bringing this to our attention to do a podcast on it, because I think this will be helpful. It was helpful for me just reading and discussing it, and we just appreciate anytime we get with you, Anita, your wisdom. Well, and I just want to put a note here that if you have any questions about your trans non binary gender fluid gender nonconforming child, however you want to phrase that, reach out to Anita on Instagram. I'm there. I'm at Anita Simple Things, and I may not see my messages in, like, 30 minutes because I had to turn off my notifications, but I'm on there at least every day. Otherwise I'll get nothing done that's faster than I get back to people. So awesome. Yay. But Anita is two support groups a month, one in the Lift and Love. It's the free one that changes dates per month, so depending on then and are lifted up together close with that's a private one, because we want a private space to process this right. And if you want more help processing than the support groups, be sure to reach out to the lifted up community, which is run by Jenny, and she has coaching there in her community. Anita is there. It's the next level. If you need more coaching help, if you need more help getting through this, check that out and sign up and give it a try and see if Jenny can help you work through some of the things that are that are really hard for you, that you feel like you are not handling well. Yeah. Getting that help is the best gift you can give your child. I know that was the best gift I gave my child. Right. Getting that clean space and that private space. Yeah. And this is just not a thing that you can always handle on your own. The community is so important. It's important for your children. It's a safe community. It's important for us. And a learning community where you're not stuck on the same square or the same bend in the road right. And just having those other moms right. Who've been there walk the path that you can connect with. I was just talking to mom today. She just feels so isolated, like nobody knows what I'm going through. And I hear that over and over again. You don't need to feel isolated. We are here to help you. Lift and Love has so much resources lifted together. Go in there and get the one on one resources. There's no reason for you to feel isolated with us. Even when you're struggling with your testimony. We can help you with that because we are Face affirming and your child affirming. Both those things. So thank you for joining us today. We love you guys. Thank you so much. Glad to be back. If you have any comments about Lift and Love podcast, put them in the comments and give us five stars and that helps other people find us. So thank you for that. Love you all. Thank you for joining us. If you like what we share, subscribe to the Lift and Love podcast. And if you have a minute, leave us a five star rating so other families like yours can find us. When your child comes out, you need to find support where you feel safe and understood. This is why we created the Lift and Love Coaching community. A place where parents can connect, learn and grow in a private setting. Jenny is a certified, advanced, trained, space based life coach with almost 10,000 hours of coaching. Together, we have worked with hundreds of families just like yours. To see if the GLIFT and Love community is right for you, go to liftenlove.org and click on the Community link. For more free information, support groups, and available resources, check out Liftandlove.org and Liftandlove.org on Instagram and Facebook. But most importantly, remember you are not alone in this journey. Journey. We are building a community of thriving and faithful LGBTQ families who are here to lift and love you.