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dailyaudiobible · 2 years

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10/24/2022 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 44:24-47:7, 2 Timothy 2:22-3:17, Psalm 94:1-23, Proverbs 26:6-8

Today is the 24th day of the month of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today, as we gather and move forward together, day-by-day, step-by-step. And taking the next step forward which leads us to the exact place where we left off yesterday, which leads us back into the book of Jeremiah. And today we will read Jeremiah chapter 44 verse 24 through 47 verse 7 and we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week.

Commentary:

Okay so, in our reading from second Timothy, today we encountered a verse, it's a famous verse, but it is a verse that, of all of the verses in the Bible, most succinctly describes why it is we come around the Global Campfire every day. And I quote, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work”. Paul says this to Timothy, because as a pastor, he's telling him, you have to be faithful to the text and you have to be true to those who taught it to you. So, Paul, Timothy's father in the faith, is telling his son in the faith, where he needs to focus his energy, what he needs to embrace, what will bring value to the task that he has of leading God's people in the congregation. And he’s telling Timothy this because he believes that difficult times are on their way. We talked about that when we began the letters, the pastoral epistles, Paul is imprisoned, he is not likely to get out and he doesn't. But he knows that he is probably going to die, and this isn't what he thought when he began the journey, he did not see that it was gonna go this way, but he could see that his life was drawing to a close, and that persecution of the congregations that he had planted, seemed not only inevitable but imminent. So, Paul is helping Timothy to focus his attention on where it belongs so that, he and the congregation are not unprepared for the trials and tribulations and persecutions that seem to be right on the horizon. So, Paul is telling Timothy to press into the Scriptures, press into what he has been taught, press into the people that are true and that he can trust. By contrast, there are things that Timothy should not press into and should indeed avoid. And we too must know and avoid these things. Paul says, people will love only themselves and their money, they will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred; they will be unloving and unforgiving. They will slander others and have no self-control, they will be cruel and hate what is good, they will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Paul tells Timothy, stay away from people like that. So, if we would spend some time in second Timothy, or at least spend some time in meditation today, considering we are being told where the truth lies, what to press into, what to hang onto, no matter what comes our way. And in this case, persecution is literally coming their way. So, Paul is saying, this is what you got a hold onto for dear life. The Scriptures, the message you were taught, those who are true. But he's also being told what to avoid and we look at those characteristics of what to avoid, we realize, okay that wasn't just in the first century. These things are totally on display at everywhere in our culture today, people are boastful and proud. There are those who definitely love only themselves and their money, there are definitely those who are ungrateful and those who consider nothing sacred and those who are unloving and forgiving, who will slander others and have no self-control. There are those who are cruel and hate what is good, they will betray their friends. They will be reckless and puffed up with pride and love pleasure rather than God. And indeed, they will act religious, but they will ultimately reject the power that could make them Godly. So, the thing is, we read that list of characteristics and go, yeah, you should stay away from people like that, but we should also realize the Bible will never lead us to be that kind of a person. So, if we’re doing what Paul was saying, understanding the value of the Scriptures, understanding that it teaches us what is true and makes us realize what is wrong, that it corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us how to do what is right and that God is using it to prepare and equip us for every good work. We would understand the Bible never lead us to be selfish and ungrateful and to consider nothing sacred and to not be loyal, to be unloving and unforgiving instead. Being willing to slander other people and having no self-control in our lives, and on and on it goes. The Bible will not lead us on that path. So, let's remember why we come around the Global Campfire every day. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work.

Prayer:

And so, Father, as we do every day, but especially today, we thank You for Your word and what it represents in our lives. And as we look back over this year, we see how the Scriptures have been used to transform us in so many ways, on so many levels, and we open ourselves fully to it, doing exactly what Paul is encouraging Timothy to do, to hold on to what we've been taught, to hold on to what is true and to trust in what You are teaching us through Your word. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com that is home base, home of the Global Campfire, that is where you find out what's going on around here, you can also do the same thing by using the Daily Audio Bible app, which you can download from…from whatever app store that you use, so check that out as well. And there are some new things going on around here. In particular, a brand-new resource called Sleep, A Contemplative Journey, will be releasing a week from tomorrow. And this is a resource that I've been mentioning at the end, every day here for the last few days, just talking about the story, the need for rest, the need for intentionality around being restful and just how I have had my own challenges in that area, which is part of the inspiration for creating this resource. How do we create a space that is specifically intended to calm us down, to use musical passages that are pleasing and calming and bring a sense of wholeness, to bring Scriptures into the mix, to be spoken over us, words of encouragement, words of rest words, words of hope? And that is what Sleep, A Contemplative Journey is, a journey toward rest. And as we look at the rhythm of any given year, we all kinda know that we are right on the threshold of it getting pretty busy and pretty crazy. And we all kinda know that we’re running around, and our rhythms are disrupted, and our sleep can get scarce and when that happens, any number of anxieties can have free access to steel rest and sleep from us. What if we were intentional about creating space to allow our minds and our hearts to rest and to be bathed in the Scriptures? So, if that sounds like some things that may be a good addition into your toolbox then Sleep, A Contemplative Journey is available for pre-order right now. And so, go grab that from whatever…whatever music store it is that you use to download your music and then it will show up automatically for you on the first day of November. And I look forward to hearing your experience as you navigate towards intentional rest. And so, Sleep, A Contemplative Journey, search for that, search for my name Brian Hardin and you should have no problem finding it, wherever it is that you get your music.

Okay, if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible. If the mission that we share to bring the spoken word of God, read fresh every day, offered freely to anyone who will listen, anywhere on this planet, any time of day or night and to build community around the rhythm of showing up around the Global Campfire every day. If that is meaningful, if that is life-giving to you, then thank you, humbly for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you're using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that's the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today, I'm Brian, I love you and I will be waiting for you here, tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Good evening Daily Audio Bible Community. This is Diane Olive and Jeff Brown on October the 16th 2022 at 10 something at night central time. The reading for today was very poignant to me and I just want to say that how important forgiveness is. Jeremiah, we all need to learn how to forgive from our heart. For none of us deserves what Jesus did for us. But if you forgive and if you repent before him humbly, he will change you. He’s changing me, my husband sees it. I don’t know if other people see it yet, but he sees it. So, Father, I pray, I pray for everybody who has been bullied or hurt and this man was certainly bullied and hurt. And he needed to forgive. And is a terrible thing, it’s terrible what those people did. But Jesus got oh, so much worse than we ever could receive. What yet innocent. So, Father, I pray for everybody who’s ever been bullied or hurt, that they’ll find it in their heart to forgive as Jesus forgives, to love as …

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Jazz from the Bay. I’m calling in to request prayer for myself. December 2021 I was attacked by a very drunken man that I knew and was very close with. And ever since, I mentally, have been messed up. But as soon as that happened, the first thing I did get back into the DAB family and listen every day and that’s the only thing that’s kept me sane, so far. But recently, with the coming on to my one-year anniversary, it’s hard. I can’t sleep, if I do, I’m up every 10/15 minutes, every time I hear a noise, I think it’s this person that I’m actually very, very close with. Since I, who I’ve since forgiven, not for him but for myself. My anxiety is just horrible. And to think that somebody so close to me would do something so bad it hurts, and I don’t know, it’s just a constant fear; if somebody so close to me could do it, what makes me think that somebody else that’s a stranger, wouldn’t do it to me. So, I just ask for prayer. I want to be able to sleep peacefully, I want to be able to not have to fake a smile and fake encourage everybody else, it’s not fake but encourage everybody else. And I’m just so broken. So…

Good morning DAB this is Amber for California. I’ve never called in before, but I heard a prayer today from Widow in Montana, calling about her daughter that’s ran away. And I just related to this so much because I also have teenagers that run away and threaten to kill themselves and stuff like this in the past. And I do want to encourage you that it does get easier, and it does get better. Just keep praying for them and praying that God moves on their hearts and I know they just lost their dad, so that’s probably a huge reason why she’s acting out. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be praying for you and your children and your daughter. And I pray in Jesus name that she would return home safely and that God would give you peace about the whole situation and all the kids would deal with this grief and pain, of losing their dad. I love you all and I’m praying for you all every day. Have a good day.

Hi DABers, this is Prisoner of Hope calling in to pray for some other DABers. Scottish Tom, you requested prayer for your co-workers; one who lost a grandmother, one who lost everything in a fire and another who lost his father in an accident. Heavenly Father, we just come to You just in brokenness for the tragedies that have struck these people at his work, Lord. I just know that You are the God of all comfort, You are the God who has perfect timing and who see’s everything and You know our hurts and you catch our every tear. I ask that You please bring comfort and healing to all of these people who have lost and their families. Lord, we just know that You are the one that we can turn to, we thank you for that. We thank You for being everything to us. I’m also calling to pray for Kayla, you said you had mitochondrial disease with extremely bad stomach problems, it sounds like. I can’t imagine what that’s like, to be in extreme discomfort each and every day and not finding the relief you need and to suffer with this disease. So, Kayla, I just pray that our Heavenly Father will put His hand on you, that He will bring healing to you. That He will help physicians find what it is you need to find some kind of relief. I just pray for your spirit that you will not be in lowly spirits, that somehow you will still be able to find the joy of the Lord in your life. As He is our strength, it says the joy of the Lord is our strength in, I believe it’s Nehemiah 8: 10. And so, I pray for that. I also pray for this family whose grandchildren were taken, who have been away from their parents and that the father wants them back. I just, Valeria from Arkansas, I am praying for your kids, your grandkids and asking that the will of the Lord be done and that the judge would have wisdom and see what needs to be done. We ask all these in the precious, beautiful name of Jesus. Amen.

Good evening my family, it’s Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower. And yes, it’s evening, I had Bible study this morning and so I’m doing my DAB in the evening, but I’m doing it. So, anyway, I heard Widowed Mom today on todays. And I just need to tell you sweetheart, I was a widow, or I guess I still am, a widowed mom. And but my children were very small, not quite 2 and 3 when their dad passed away. And it’s not easy, I know sweetheart. But you know God provided for me another single mom who was a Christian, or is a Christian, and we were able to sort of blend our families together, spiritually. And oh, it was a God send. So, I’m gonna pray that for you. Lord God, Widowed Mom needs someone to help her with the decisions that she has to make and what she needs to do to know what she needs to do. She needs a good Christian counselor to walk this walk with her. And I pray that You would provide, just like You provided for me. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. And if you would like to contact me through messenger, I’m Susan Jobin, J O B I N. In Belville, Canada, Ontario, Canada. Okay, sweetheart, I know that I will keep praying for you.

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immortalonus · 3 years

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Where You Belong: Update and excerpts

So things have not been going super on the fanific/fanart side of things for the last several months. In the case of Where You Belong, the primary culprit is good old fashioned writers block, mixed with a hearty combo of frustration.

The core issue, is that this is the chapter that Valerie decides to actually talk to a ghost without shooting them, robbing them, or making them cry. I really want this decision to feel natural, and with a personality like Valerie's, putting her in a place where restraint or worse, compromise, would be her first choice has been giving me trouble. I have all the pieces of how I want this thing to go, but putting them all together in a way I like has resulted in throwing two, maybe three chapters in the bin. Just today, I downloaded a new writing program purely because I had just gotten sick of looking at the Apache Openoffice interface and failing to write.

(The new writing program is Quoll, for those interested.)

So, as an apology for no new content since last year, and because I haven't done this in a while, please enjoy some excerpts from former versions of chapter five, tentatively titled Rejoinder.

Excerpt one:

She wasn’t sure, exactly, what she had been expecting, would not admit to herself she had been avoiding considering it at all, but Valerie was certain she had never imagined anything like this.

This, Which stretched on mile after mile, this, with its undistinguished nature and tiny clusters of huts in what few gentle dips of the land deigned to cradle them, this pastoral, utterly undistinguished vista devoid of towers and castles and vaults or any other thing that might conceivably hold a treasure or artifact of any kind.

Valerie slowed her board, trying to figure out where she needed to go.

All the other islands she had seen before, even the ones of significant size, had some key feature - a looming skull faced mountain, a grand cathedral of staring eyes- some obvious centerpoint to the landmass easily spotted with a little altitude or distance gained. Now, however, it didn’t feel like she was on an island, it felt like she was on a world.

From my second draft, I like the intensity the repetition of "this" conveys, but struggled with most everything that came before and after. It also blocked me from describing any more of the landscape in a way that didn't feel redundant or otherwise detract from its strength.

I also dislike the second clause of that final sentence. I think I may have switched registers a bit? "it felt like she was on a world" reads as relatively informal compared to everything that came before.

Excerpt 2:

Unnaturally straight lines, felled towers yet unburied beneath the snow, lay collapsed around massive roadways, larger than any machine she could imagine fit to ride it, cut through the vast cityscape, crushed mountains beneath its heel, cowed the bucking landscape beneath the leveler's rod and yoked to the chains of a people with nowhere left to go.

From the same draft as excerpt 1, and probably the strongest of the descriptive paragraphs detailing some of the features someone flying over the Farfrozen might spot from above. It's also one hell of a burn to stick on a race you haven't even met yet, but it seemed in character and kind of gave me a chuckle to write.

The big problem with the section this paragraph came from is mostly that all of it was useless: Valerie isn't really interacting with this stuff, she'll never see it again, and there's no reason to think about it or describe it at that point in time, anyway. While third person narration does give me more leeway in how closely I stick to a character's own thoughts, feelings, and perspective, this section had a chronic case of pointless decor syndrome, just kind of stuck in the middle of the narration more because I wanted it to be there than because it , you know, actually did something for the story at hand.

Very much a "kill your darlings" situation here, alas.

Excerpt 3:

/Mother said you wouldn’t come this year again but I knew she was wrong especially since there was a major storm just outside the border and everyone has been waiting I even snuck out especially to look because I knew-/

Valerie’s translator almost couldn’t keep up, and her brain was now officially on a skid, unable to keep pace with the eagerness of a child unimpeded by the need to breathe.

/Just knew that we would have someone, even if it was just a foreigner. Right?/

Valerie stared at the ghost.

The ghost stared back.

/(Hoping) Please?/

/...No./

Section of dialogue from one of my earliest drafts, which I'm still quite fond of. I don't picture Valerie as particularly good with kids (and secretly jealous that Phantom totally is), so I figured a ghost child would be the perfect thing to throw her for a loop. On one hand, its a ghost, so she should shoot it, but on the other hand, it's a kid, and shooting kids is wrong...right? lol

We also see some more instances of ghost speak in this chapter, which is always fun.

#Danny Phantom #Valerie Grey #Writing #Where You Belong #Excerpts #Mine #I swear I'm still working on this #My latest plot involves smashing Valerie against a rock #Maybe a big rock #It's very cathartic

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theshedding · 3 years

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Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating.

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is:

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational.

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there.

Think I’m overreacting?

Examples:

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions.

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer.

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked.

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

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fundielicious-simblr · 3 years

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Harvestfest

(Adalynn’s POV)

(Ignore the fact that some people are missing, in spite of having a detailed pose planned out I forgot to add some people and it was too late to go and add them, at the point I’d spent 4 days trying to get almost 50 people to pose and was at the end of my rope 😂)

Happy Harvestfest! It felt so good to gather with all my family as we focus on being together, being grateful, and sharing in the blessings the Lord has showered on all of us. With so many of us now married and having to split holidays between our family and our in-laws, we all sat down and decided that the holiday that would bring us all together at the big house in Newcrest would be Harvestfest, meaning that we’re left to be with our other family at Winterfest. This year there were 46 people to fill up my parent’s house, which just goes to show how much the Lord has blessed us in the past 12 years, before I got married there would only be the 15 of us around the table digging in to the 2 turkeys that us Zoe and I would wake up at 4am to pick fresh from the farm, sharing in the sides that Macie would prepare for the evening, and laughing and singing together. One thing I’m very grateful for are all the children that are running around again, growing up it would be Charles, Parker, and Ashton that entertained us all with their shenanigans, but once they grew up and grew out of it then we all missed the sounds of having children around the house. Now there are 22 children that run around and call my parents ‘grandma and grandpa’.

(Updates on the family are under the cut!)

Allan (55) and Casandra (52) Collins

My parents are thriving in this season of life they’re in! This year they’ve completed 34 years of marriage, what a testimony! Dad is still the pastor at Newcrest Baptist, the Lord has blessed the church abundantly allowing for dad to hire on additional pastors, which gives him the chance to speak at various conferences whilst not having to worry about his congregation in Newcrest being left stranded. Mum has been finishing up school with Ashton, the last kid in the Collins Homeschool, can you believe it? She’s managed to successfully homeschool 13 children from Kindergarten all the way to the end of highschool, which is no easy feat considering how different we all are. At Ashtons graduation party we’re planning on honouring her for all that she did to homeschool us and how she did and continues to pour into all of us. Since Ashton is basically self sufficient with schooling, mum has a lot more time to travel around and visit her grandbabies, since Barrett and Kyleigh’s kids are the closest to us she’s always having them over at the big house or going over for a few hours a day to continue to pour into the lives of her grandchildren. She also gets invited to speak at different ladies’ meetings in the wider area, as well as joining our dad on speaking engagements, either accompanying him to speak at different churches or speaking with him at loads of different marriage conferences. It’s such a blessing to see my parents be so richly rewarded for their dedication to the Lord!

The Leonard Family - Mason (34), Adalynn (33), Noah (10), Luke (8), Aaron (7), Paul (6), Joshua (4), Caleb & Jonah (1)

We’re excited to be expecting baby number 8! As time passes and I’m blessed with more children, I’ve realised I have a very consistent pattern of getting pregnant when the youngest child is almost 2 years old. Well, since the twins 2nd birthday is coming up I decided on a whim to take a pregnancy test and it was positive! As usual we’re not finding out the gender until the baby is born, but with the current numbers I’ve got I’m going to guess that this baby is a boy. The boys are excited to have another sibling on the way, but while we wait for the new baby to join us I’ve got the boys focusing on their school work. The oldest four boys are steadily progressing in their work and are loving school, they also love working on gaining their scout badges before the end of the year so they can progress onto the next level. Another exciting thing in our house is the nativity play that our church is putting on this Winterfest, the boys are in the children’s choir meaning that all our music practice has turned into Winterfest practice. Mason’s sister Molly is getting married soon as well, so the family has been gearing up to host people at her wedding in the next few months.

The Collins Family - Barrett (31), Kyleigh (29), Chloe, Allan Jr & Benjamin (8), Rose & Violet (6), Daisy (6), Marigold (5), Olivia (3), Preston (1)

Barrett & Kyleigh are also expecting a baby, this baby joining the family will be baby number 10 with the gender being a surprise! They live in Newcrest so they’ve got the advantage of being by the big house and seeing my parents all the time, as well as all my siblings who still live at home. Kyleigh and I are in the same boat are up to our ears in school books, but when you add in the fact she’s got 2 extra kids than I do, it’s amazing how calm she is about it! You’d never know she’s actively homeschooling 7 children whilst also running after two toddlers, she makes it look so easy! With everything happening in their house they’ve got plans for even more disruption, an old family friend that owns a construction company has offered to add an extension to their house purely to be a blessing to them! They currently live in a 3 bedroom house and the current plan is to add a second floor to the house to give them more room to grow, and with them adding a new baby every year I can tell there is going to be a lot of growing for their family to do.

The Moreno Family - Francisco (33), Zoe (29), and Javier Jr (2)

Francisco and Zoe are also expecting, and when we were all together they shared that they were having a baby girl! They’re not sharing the name they’ve picked out now, so we’re all waiting for baby girl to make her appearance so we can hear the no doubt beautiful name they’ve picked out. Little JJ is growing in leaps and bounds, it’s so hard being far away from family, which makes us cherish these times that we get to be all together even more. In other news, they’ve officially moved out of Oasis Springs and are excited to be starting out this new season of life as they get settled in Windenburg. They’ll be stationed there for the next 2 or maybe even 3 years, meaning that Zoe gets a few years living close to our sister Amira as well as our cousin Brittany.

The Wright Family - Shane (26), Maggie (25), Arlo & Iris (1)

Shane and Maggie are enjoying their new season of life with the twins growing into toddlers and enjoying the learning curve that comes with having not one, but two toddlers running all over the place. Shane continues to work at the design agency, and now that the twins are slightly older Maggie has started going back to doing more freelance photography jobs, and is hoping to start back at the office full time soon. Their current plans for the winter include a family skiing vacation at Mt Komorebi along with Reece and Stacie and their in-laws for Winterfest.

The Collins Family - Reece and Stacie (24), Liam (3), Hazel (1)

Reece and Stacie are also enjoying life with their family of 4 after the addition of little Hazel. Liam is starting kindergarten which is keeping Stacie busy with them as they start an official homeschooling programme, with the addition of Hazel’s basic toddler care as she attempts to be like her big brother. As well as starting school, the mother’s at their church have created a play group to help the kids socialise with each other since most of the families homeschool their children, so Liam is making new friends at church too. Their plans for winter include a ski holiday in Mt.Komorebi with Maggie, Shane, and their in-laws as well as with Stacie’s mother and sister.

The Collins Family - Beckett (23) and Mandy (21)

Beckett and Mandy made the journey home from Selvadorada in time for Harvestfest with the entire family. There’s not pregnancy news on the horizon for these two, but their lives are full of blessings in other forms; They’re in the process of fundraising to continue to build a church in Selvadorada, they hope to be able to educate the Salvadoradian population on the ways of the Lord with this new church. Currently Beckett pastors at an old church building, with Mandy helping teach english and Bible at the local school, she also sometimes helps the local midwives with deliveries and aftercare for postpartum mothers. While they’re in Newcrest they’ll be travelling to various churches in the local and wider area to help fundraise, as well as catch up on all their shopping whilst they’re still here, they’ll also head over to Oasis Springs to see Mandy’s family before they leave. Over the winter they’ll be hosting Macie, Celeste, Annette, as well as other youths from Newcrest Baptist as they head over to Selvadorada on a missions trip!

The Eichelburg Family - Thomas (23) and Amira (22)

Amira is also expecting! The couple announced their pregnancy to the family when they arrived at the big house, she’s currently in her second trimester and currently doesn’t know the gender of the baby. In Windenburg she helps with the children’s church programmes or volunteers at a local charity shop in her spare time whilst Thomas is at work, now with the pregnancy she’s got other things to keep her busy. She’s planning to have her baby shower in her third trimester, so that should happen sometime in the next month or so, it’ll definitely be easier for her with Zoe moving close to her now. Their winter plans include planning the baby shower, escaping on a quick babymoon, and preparing to welcome their new addition before the new year!

The Roberts Family - Felix (25), Priscilla (20), and Andrew (1)

Priscilla and Felix are enjoying this new season of life with little Andrew, he’s definitely put Priscilla through her paces as she learns how to deal with a toddler that’s her own child and not a child she can give back to their parents at the end of the day. Felix is working at his father’s offices as an Attorney, so is kept busy during the day before coming home to Priscilla and Andrew in the evening. Whilst Priscilla is loving time with Andrew, she can’t deny that she’s definitely praying to get pregnant soon! Their winter plans include helping campaign for the local conservative candidate in the local primary elections, as well as Priscilla helping coordinate their church’s winter show.

Charles (19) and Lorilee Mitchell (18)

These two are engaged! Charles proposed to Lorilee just before Harvestfest, hence the now allowed hand holding. The family is so excited to have another boy get married, with the couple planning a winter wedding in the bride’s hometown of Windenburg. Charles finished up with his pilot’s license soon before he proposed and he’s started working with the missions centre attached to Newcrest Baptist to help with their ministry efforts. He’s saved up enough to buy a small house a few miles away from my parents, so the couple will have a house to move into after their wedding.

Macie (31), Annette (21), Parker (18), Ashton (16)

There are the current singles at home, Macie is still living at home but is making herself useful to those around her in an effort to be a blessing and to pour herself into others to glorify the Lord. When she’s home in Newcrest she helps Ashton with difficult work and cares for the garden, visits her local nieces and nephews, serves at church, and bakes goodies to gift different members of our church family with. When she’s not home she’s travelling to see her many siblings and nieces/nephews scattered around everywhere, she also leads programmes at various christian retreats for young ladies and older single ladies as well. This winter she’s travelling with others to Selvadorada on a missions trip and will stay with Beckett and Mandy, as well as helping to prepare for Charles and Lorilee’s wedding.

Annette is primarily works as a babysitter/mother’s helper for the different women at church, as well as helping babysit her nieces and nephews or even her cousin’s children. When she’s not doing that she’s travelling to women’s retreats with Macie to help run the programmes or work in the kitchen.

Parker has graduated highschool and has started working for a construction company that is owned by a member of Newcrest Baptist, he’s starting out as an apprentice and hopes to learn enough to make this a full time career.

Ashton is the youngest and is currently the last Collins child being homeschooled by Casandra, she’s working through her final year and is on track to graduate early in the spring. The family is planning a graduation party to celebrate the youngest child finishing school, and the official retirement of our mother as our teacher!

The four pregnancies

The four pregnant women got together for a picture, it’s such a blessing to be pregnant at the same time as my sisters and my sister-in-love! Between Zoe, Kyleigh, and I we’ve got a combination of 17 children, and we’re adding 4 more since we’re all having singletons. Once all these children are born my parents will have a total of 26 grandchildren, what a blessing!

(AN) I just want to say thank you to everyone who left their condolences after I shared that we lost a friend, her funeral was last week and some friends were able to fly back to the states and see her laid to rest with full military honours. This is such a great community and I love being a part of it, thanks to everyone for being so great 💛

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blouisparadise · 4 years

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Here are some great bottom Louis fics that were posted or completed during the month of May. We really hope you enjoy this list. Happy reading!

1) Louis Punishments | Mature | 1759 words

Just a bunch of punishments Harry has given to Louis.

2) Hoping To Discover A Certain Kind Of Lover | Explicit | 2353 words

He knew the basic idea of what was supposed to happen. It was the entire point of the film Zayn was working on. To match up unmated alpha and omega strangers and to film them as they kissed for the first time. The two of them shuffled awkwardly back and forth, unsure of what to do.

Enough was enough. “I’m gonna just go for it, yeah?” Harry suggested, and Louis nodded quickly, already leaning closer to him.

Everything was hesitant at first. Tender lips met, and all of it was soft and new, neither of them wanting to overstep. A little zing of anticipation and something unfamiliar shot down Harry’s spine as he swallowed the tiny sound of surprise Louis made. Neither alpha nor omega were pushing, but that was the point of all of this, wasn’t it? To see what happened when people let go and let themselves be? Harry figured he would try. For the sake of the experiment, of course.

Gently, so, so gently, Harry slid his hand up the side of Louis’s throat, cupping his jaw to hold him as close as he could. Their lips finally, finally, finally parted, and Harry could taste the hint of tea and honey lingering on Louis’s tongue. Suddenly and all at once, he couldn’t get enough.

3) Irresistible | Mature | 2380 words

Louis goes into his first heat at school and no one is able to resist him. Harry - who's been in love with him since forever - fucks and bonds him in the toilets.

4) Signed, No Name | Mature | 4647 words

Harry doesn’t know Blue, he just knows that he leaves random notes in the corners of the books he checks out, and he’s head over heels for him.

5) It Could've Been Worse | Not Rated | 4949 words

The one where a pandemic happens, harry is obssessed and louis hates apps made for 15 years old.

6) Take Me To The Stars | Explicit | 5840 words

Staring at his darling daughter, in the middle of the pasta aisle, Louis found himself on the edge of a neurotic breakdown.

"It’s your birthday tomorrow! And your papa better not do anything to muck it up! Because your dada worked very hard to organise it! And all of your aunties and grannies and granddads and friends will be there!” Louis continued in a sweet sing-song voice that seemed to get increasingly frantic as he continued. “And if your papa is in rut, then what? What’ll we do, honey girl? Your dada will be too busy! And your papa will be too horn-”

“Louis,” Harry interrupted, touching Louis’ arm. “I’ll be okay. It’s probably not even my rut. I can appreciate you… all of you… even when I’m not in rut.”

Louis looked at him skeptically, imagining the shitshow that would be Harry in rut, surrounded by family and friends, at their child’s first birthday party. “I hope you’re right, H.”

7) Kiss Like Fire | Explicit | 9093 words

Harry watches as his uncle's new omega walks around the backyard, serving canapés and drinks to all of the family members gathered. Harry is surrounded by his cousins, all sat together, too young for the adults but too old for the kids and teens. He lifts his beer to his lips and takes a sip when the omega crouches down by one of Harry's younger cousins and hands her a small cracker, sending her off with a sweet smile.

He watches as his uncle comes out of the house, sliding the patio door shut behind him and quickly making his way over to his omega. The omega looks up at him when he wraps an arm around his waist. His pretty lips move with soft-spoken words. Harry has to fight to keep his alpha in check when his dirty old uncle's hand dips down, grabbing at the omega's ass and making him jump.

"Dude," one of his cousins says, "Uncle Darron's new omega is such a milf."

8) Waking Up Alone | Mature | 10060 words

"Nothing makes you hurt like hurting who you love"

Love shouldn't hurt, loving somebody with everything you have shouldn't make you feel like you're dying. Louis feels like he’s drowning. He should have known where this was going from the start, he should have been prepared. Now he’s waking up in an empty bed, some days he doesn’t want to even wake up again. There's a hole in his heart; it's in the shape of Harry. Nothing he does can fill it. Drugs, alcohol, pouring out his heart into songs that Harry probably won't ever hear. When Louis is with him, he feels like he’s in heaven. Being alone, that's what he feels he deserves, at least Harry can be happier without him.

Maybe if they met at a different time, under different circumstances, he could have saved them. Louis had to do what was best for Harry, but it kills him a little everyday. Louis sees his smile everyday, but he knows it's no longer for him. Someone else makes Harry happier, but Louis wanted it to be him. They could have had forever. Louis would have given Harry everything.

"Forget what I said, it's not what I meant" Harry had tried to say, but Louis knew that wasn't the truth. After everything they’ve been through, Louis still loves him.

9) To The Beat Of My Own Drum | Explicit | 10285 words

A collection of drabbles.

10) Alone Too Long | Explicit | 10371 words

By the time The Temptress finally reached bay, the Captain only had one thing on his mind, and that one thing was Louis Darling.

11) Straight Boy | Explicit | 12251 words

Young, brunette and handsome, Louis attracts unwanted attention in prison. When his cellmate offers him protection, Louis accepts the offer, even though he doesn’t trust the guy. Little does he know how much it will change his life.

When he’s released from prison, Louis finds himself needing and wanting things he shouldn’t want. Louis is straight. He is. He has a girlfriend. What happened in prison stayed in prison—or so Louis tells himself.

Until he meets his former cellmate again. Harry. The guy he hates and craves.

12) Beautiful Crime | Not Rated | 13282 words

Note: This fic contins no explicit smut but since it’s a/b/o we’ve decided to include it in this monthly roundup.

Louis is keen to defeat the one and only Alpha Harry Styles who has a notorious reputation in the entire country for his ruthlessness but a turn of events brings them on crossroads which deviate from their havens of war.

13) Anticipation | Explicit | 14156 words

Louis' a stripper. Harry's the new club owner. Louis decides he wants to get in his new boss' pants fairly quickly, but it might take more work than he thought to do that.

14) Strong Enough | Explicit | 20787 words

“So…” Liam starts, and Louis instantly knows where this is going. He’s actually glad it’s Liam that's dragging the subject out from the shadows and into the light. Louis turns to face him, mirroring his position on the couch and nods, ready for him to continue. Liam takes a deep breath. “Have you spoken to Harry recently?”

Five years after Vertigo goes on hiatus, the band comes back together for a benefit concert. Can Louis and Harry work through their complicated past, or are some wounds too deep to be healed?

15) Alpha and Omega | Not Rated | 22270 words

Note: There is no smut where someone bottoms in this fic, but it contains omega Louis, so we’ve included it in this monthly roundup.

Louis finds a new sense of self when the son of the werewolf leader, Harry Styles, comes to town to quell unrest in the Chicago pack and inspires a power in Louis that he never felt before.

Not my own work but rather a reimagination of the book Alpha and Omega with Harry and Louis.

16) Amazing Grace | Mature | 24290 words

Harry’s a dedicated pastor who's happily married, Louis is the troubled youth that stumbles into his life.

17) A Trail Of Honey Through It All | Explicit | 27083 words

The boy in front of him, well really, the man in front of him, was like something out of a confusing wet dream. Built, tall, tan and muscular, his skin glistened with sweat after a long day of working outdoors with his hands. He was wearing a cut up old American football shirt, the bottom hem was torn and the sleeves were cut off to the point where the t-shirt was really just a loose tank top. The shorts he had on had clearly been full length jeans at one point, and were now just crudely cut off above the knee. His white socks were pulled up too high on his calves, and the brown work boots he had on were old as fuck, the leather peeling along the edges of the soles. Curly brown hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards snapback, and there was a smudge of grease wiped along his brow bone. The smattering of hair along his jaw proved that he hadn’t shaved in a week or two, the hair growing in thicker across his upper lip and around his chin. His sinfully bowed mouth was pink and plump, and Louis was suddenly hyper-focused on the way that he chewed at the toothpick stuck between his lips. He looked like he needed a shower. Louis wanted to lick him.

18) Just a Bit Twisted | Explicit | 30548 words

Professor Harry Styles is hated and feared by all of his students. Strict, reserved and ruthless, he doesn’t tolerate mistakes and has little patience for his students.

Louis Tomlinson is a twenty-year-old struggling to provide for his younger sisters after the death of their parents. On the verge of losing his scholarship, Louis becomes desperate enough to go to Professor Styles.

Everyone says Styles doesn’t have a heart. Everyone says he’s a ruthless bastard. Louis finds out that everyone is right.

He strikes a deal with Styles, but unexpectedly, the deal turns into something so much more.

Something all-consuming and addictive.

Something neither of them wants.

19) Like It's A Game | Explicit | 32223 words

There is little harry hates more than truth or dare.

20) We'll Be the Fine Line | Not Rated | 32474 words

“…Hey, Harry. It’s Louis…… um, yeah. Listened to the album tonight. It’s real good mate. Um, yeah, just real, impressed. I was kinda putting it off, ya’know, didn’t know if I wanted to listen to it. Saw you went on James and, uh, Saturday Night Live. Couldn’t watch you, have a hard time watching you on these things……. Anyway, mate, just thought I would drop a line. Don’t need to call me back. Alright.”

Louis listens to Fine Line, and, drunk, he leaves a voicemail for Harry after months of not speaking. This reminds Harry of a time before everything fell apart, slowly, painfully, a time when the two of them were still in love. And he desperately wants to go back.

21) The Space Between | Explicit | 33074 words

Living in East Verona was a privilege. One Prince Harry only found out when he decided to cross the borders into The Zone looking for entertainment, a temptation, a distraction, anything that would allow him to escape his boring, mundane life of luxury.

But what he found was something he never could have expected - poverty, destruction, chaos, but most importantly, a blue-eyed boy.

Together, they embark on a journey plagued with hazards and risks and twists and turns.

Can these two star-crossed souls fight for their freedom and keep each other safe at the same time?

22) Yes, Daddy, I Will | Not Rated | 33510 words

Where Harry is a dom and Louis is his cute little sub.

23) Last Blues For Bloody Knuckles | Explicit | 34241 words

Styles was a name everyone knew. It had evolved into something of a fairy tale, a far away problem that normal people didn’t have to deal with. Louis never thought he’d find himself falling in love with him. When he finds himself pregnant with Harry’s child, he knows he has to leave the life, and Harry, behind. For her sake.

He never expected Harry to show back up on his doorstep five years later.

24) Before We Knew | Explicit | 39593 words

Or Louis has been skeptical of soulmates for years so it seems like fate when he finally bumps into the owner of the obnoxiously large signature printed into his skin since age sixteen: Harry Styles, a human rights attorney who is firmly against soulmates.

25) Hit Me With Your Sweet Love | Explicit | 39690 words

Powerful people only end up with powerful people. The rest are just playthings in their lives. Louis Tomlinson was many things, but he wasn’t anybody’s plaything.

26) Stole My Heart | Mature | 51343 words

Louis doesn't want much. A warm bed, and people who care about him.

Harry has everything he needs, despite his mother insisting he needs a mate. Money, status, and any omega he wants, why lock his heart down.

Until Louis comes along, and steals it.

27) No Going Back | Explicit | 56102 words

Sales reps Harry and Louis are bored with their jobs and their lives. After meeting at a conference in Cardiff they hook up, have a few too many drinks, and jokingly apply to become remote lighthouse keepers. Six months, just the two of them, looking after the southernmost lighthouse off the bottom of Australia. It’s not like their applications will be accepted. Right?

This is the story of how one choice - a left instead of a right, a go instead of a stop, a yes instead of a no - can change the future forever and that sometimes, taking that leap of faith, is worth the risk.

28) Royal Desires | Mature | 66207 words

When Prince Louis falls into an early heat, his new personal guard Harry Styles is brought in as his heat partner for the time being until Louis finds a suitable royal prince to bond and take the throne with. The only problem is that Harry is everything Louis wants but can't have. Freedom, tattoos, individuality...and quite possibly love.

29) How To Break A Heartbreaker's Heart? | Teen & Up | 67447 words

Harry is straight.

Louis is gay.

Harry happens to be homophobic.

Louis has a dark past.

Harry had a dark childhood.

Will Louis and Harry unite and defy their past? Or will homophobia win for the umpteenth time?

30) Lavender Dreams | Not Rated | 77888 words

Louis is an outgoing person that goes to school for educational psychology and Harry is a biology major who happen to run into each other... a lot.

31) Be My Omega | Mature | 138372 words

It all started when the alpha laid eyes on the short curvy omega and he knew at that moment that his life would never be the same, in a good way of course.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

You can find other monthly roundup fic rec lists here.

#bottom louis #top harry #blp fic recs #monthly fic recs #fic recs #blp #larry

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love-bokumono-fics · 3 years

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WIP Wednesday - Friends of Mineral Town, Part 2!

I'm going to make 2 WIP Wednesday posts today for the FoMT WIP Wednesday feature. When I sorted by Date Updated, I realized that the most recent 10 fics have all received a feature on the blog over the last couple months. Which is great! But I also want to take time to feature some of the WIPs that haven't been updated in a little bit, but still deserve some time in the spotlight. Part 1 featured the first 10 fics on the list, Part features the next 10! Happy reading! Do you have a FoMT WIP that didn't get featured today? Drop the link to it in a Submission box! We're always happy to feature submissions! to cure what ails you - by indoorsy; WIP, 7/?, 22k Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Doctor Trent; Characters: Claire, Doctor Trent | Torre Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, his name is Doctor Summary: Claire, a perpetual people-pleaser with a sensitive soul, uproots her mundane city life to take over her grandfather's farm. Her endeavors are supported by the friendly community of Mineral Town - including the town's eccentric doctor. A Happy Lamp for an Unhappy Life - by MacchiatoRodion; WIP, 7/?, 17k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Major Character Death; Categories: Gen, Multi Fandoms: Back To Nature, A Wonderful Life, Friends of Mineral Town, Havest Moon DS Cute Characters: Cliff, Old Nina, Galen | Guri, Mary the Librarian, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Basil the Writer, Celia | Seperia, Marlin | Mash, Pony | Aya | Jill, Jennifer, Gray, Kai, Carter the Pastor, Popuri, Rick, Manna, Lillia the Shopkeeper, Aja | Adge, Doctor Trent, Dr. Hardy | Paddock Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Death, Past Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tags May Change, Childhood Memories, Child Abandonment, Domestic Disputes, Poor Life Choices, Flowers, Developing Friendships, Healing, Child Neglect Summary: Cliff was once considering committing suicide, so his instinct is to jump off the edge of Mother's Hill, where so many lovable people had perished before. But something compels him to look down at the area where the bodies should have landed. To his surprise, there was an entire village at the bottom. He decides to investigate since he doesn't anticipate that anybody will miss him while he is away. He ends up meeting someone who shows him the impact of even the shortest life to him. This story begins in the summer leading up to the beginning of Friends of Mineral Town and the first chapter of A Wonderful Life/DS. Story of Mineral Town - by CustardPudding; WIP, 2/?, 5k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon 64, Back To Nature Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Gray, Cliff/Female Farmer, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Brandon, Kai/Popuri, Harris/Mary the Librarian | Marie, Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Karen/Rick; Characters: Claire, Sara, Cliff, Gray, Jennifer, Karen, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley Additional Tags: Chickens, Angst, Family Drama, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, More like medium burn? I don't really know, Some Fluff, But also quite a bit of angst, Canon couples, Ann/Brandon is kinda cracky, Some underage drinking, Which is mostly Karen, Minor Swearing Summary: Claire and Sara, sisters who have been inseparable for their whole lives, are vastly different. With Claire's quiet and responsible nature combined with Sara's hotheaded and standoffish one, many wondered how they could possibly be related by blood. But they took care of each other nevertheless. So when they inherit their late grandfather's farm, they expect it to be an easy thing. Take a few looks at it, restore it to its former glory, and then sell it and move on. They were wrong, of course. Rival After Events - by LuxBeacon (Number13teen); WIP, 4/13, 7k Rating: General

Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Kai/Popuri, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Karen/Rick, Gray/Mary the Librarian | Marie, Harvest Goddess/Pete | Jack, Kappa/Claire, Male Farmer | Yuto/Huang | Won; Characters: Elli | Elly, Doctor Trent | Torre, Popuri, Kai, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Karen, Rick, Mary the Librarian, Gray, Pete | Jack, Claire, Harvest Goddess, Kappa, Won | Huang, Gourmet - Character Additional Tags: Fluff, Rival Marriage, LGBTQ Themes, Wholesome, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net Summary: A series of one shots detailing the lives of the Mineral Town bachelorettes and bachelors after marrying their rival. Each story references different locations and characters from across the franchise and each chapter takes inspiration from actual events in the games. Pure Fluff. Year One - by pawprintmusical; WIP, 7/?, 10k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon DS Cute, A Wonderful Life Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Zack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Gray/Mary the Librarian, Kai/Popuri, Karen/Rick; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Zack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Elli, Doctor Trent | Torre, Gray, Mary the Librarian, Karen, Rick, Kai, Popuri Additional Tags: MFoMT, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, alcohol mention, didn't want to tag the whole town but they're here with a chunk of AWL people too, Tags Added As I Go, Pre-Relationship, Not Remake Compliant Summary: Claire needed a change, and Mineral Town seemed like just the ticket. She just never expected how much it would change her. Rainy Day Vignettes - by Shelookstothesky; WIP, 7/?, 31k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: A Wonderful Life, Harvest Moon DS Cute, Friends of Mineral Town Characters: Marlin | Mash, Pony | Aya | Jill, Rock, Muffy | Muumuu, Griffin | Garfan, Takakura, Celia | Seperia, Vesta, Claire Additional Tags: Vignette, Eventual Romance, Angst and Drama Summary: This fanfic is a collection of scenes I wrote with the Jill/Pony and Marlin paring back in 2016 and decided to reread and edit them just for fun. I'm not sure if I'll actually write new scenes in addition to the original ones I wrote back in 2016. I suppose it will depend on how engrossed I get back into the plot. I hope you enjoy anyway!~ Life is like a Festival - by LeafBubble; WIP, 7/?, 26k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Many relationships will happen, Final pairing is a mystery; Characters: Rick, Popuri, Barley | Mugi, May | Mei, Saibara, Gray, Duke, Manna, Basil the Writer, Anna, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Thomas, Harris, Old Ellen, Elli | Elly, Stu | Yu, Jeff, Sasha, Karen, Doctor Trent | Torre, Carter the Pastor, Cliff, Doug | Dudley, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Kai, Gotz | Gotts, Brandon, Jennifer, Zack, Won Huang Additional Tags: Adult themes are present, Depression, Angst, Prejudice, Sexuality, Abandonment, Happy Themes, Life gives the good and the bad Summary: Claire is a young woman who led a comfortable life. Great up bringing, amazing schooling, landed a dream job. As the days go by she feels as if she was doing nothing, but being a cog in the machine. A chance get away on a cruise forever changes her life. A forgotten land, facing turmoil when crops and animals begin to decay. A goddess is in disarray as she needs to find a new farmer to help restore the town. After making a deal with a goddess, Claire vows to find the man who saved her life. Will she decide to take on the challenge of being a farmer in an unfamiliar town and find this mystery man, or pack her bags and face reality? Friendships will be tested, and love will be fought and lost. A slow burn story that will go through the lives of the many

characters of Mineral Town and their connections to each other. all that glitters - by christinahosetti; WIP, 3/?, 5k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/F Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Jennifer; Characters: Claire, Jennifer Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Worldbuilding, Eventual Smut, Fae & Fairies, not gonna tag the whole town but they're all there basically, claire is called clover Summary: “You’re not completely solitary, though,” Clover points out, now harvesting the blackberries into a tupperware container she’s fished out of her rucksack. “You hang out with me all the time. And Mugi, and Lillia, and Harris.” “That’s true. They’re all people with peaceful energies, though, so I don’t mind them so much. No drama or nastiness.” Clover gives her an odd look. “I’m not sure that applies to me.” “Well, you’re the exception.” - Jennifer has secrets to keep, but the farmer makes her want to spill them all. Harvest Moon: The Novel - by CurtTheGamer, WIP, 5/?, 8k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence; Major Character Death Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Back To Nature Characters: Pete | Jack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Karen, Elli | Elly, Old Ellen, Gray, Jeff, Cliff, Gotz | Gotts, Sasha, Maria the Mayor's Daughter, Anna, Thomas, Manna, Doctor | Trent, Duke, Saibara, Stu | Yu, Won | Huang, Kent, May | Mei, Barley | Mugi, Kai, Popuri, Lillia the Shopkeeper, Rick, Basil the Writer, Harris, Jennifer, Zack, Dog, Horse Summary: Pete is a young man from the big city. He hasn't dreamed of having a job outside the city, nor does he want to. But when an old friend from a small village dies, Pete inherits his farm. Though reluctant, he agrees to leave his city life to become a farmer. Will he live happily ever after, or will the old-fashioned country life become a bore? What is Art? (Not That) - by FosterTheBananas; WIP, 1/2, 1.2k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Characters: Won | Huang, Brandon Summary: Huang heads to Mineral Town to help oversee shipments for his cousin. While there, he tries to buy some art in the hopes of reselling for a profit, but instead he catches the attention of an eccentric artist who. just. won't. go. away.

#wip wednesday #harvest moon #story of seasons #friends of mineral town #fomt #sos fomt #story of seasons friends of mineral town

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more-quiverfull-sims · 4 years

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MORE courtships on the horizon...we are thoroughly overjoyed!

Author’s Note: Ingrid’s last hurrah!

I’ve decided to make Patience Grace my heir for this legacy. This was a tough choice because she was #10, pretty late in the lineup, but the Gormans didn’t have that many girls to choose from compared to boys (before Miracle, the final Gorman child, arrived, there were only 6 girls). Hope (daughter #1), and Evangeline (daughter #3), were way too free-spirited to be good heirs, Katlynn (daughter #2) became the Jana of the family early on, and Helen (daughter #4), while a great Quiverfull daughter, just didn’t strike me as the heir for some reason. It also helped that Evangeline, Helen, and Patience (daughter #5) came close together and right in a row, which made them easy to compare.

Patience reminds me of Ingrid, both because they look alike and because they share characteristics. Patience is a good, obedient Quiverfull daughter, but she also has a romantic streak and can be kind of self-centered. She’s not as rigid as Ingrid, but she’s close. She also lacks some of Ingrid’s cunning...kind of like a Kendra to Ingrid’s Michelle.

Anyway, being the heir, Patience is courting young and aiming high--she’s dating none other than the eldest son of Pastor Fleming, who runs the Gorman’s Church, Newcrest First Baptist. Helen Praise is courting too--the relationships started around the same time--but she gets a lot less attention. Helen doesn’t really mind that, though--she’s never loved the spotlight, and she’s privately a little embarrassed by her mother’s antics.

Anyway, Patience Grace will soon be married off at 18, while Helen is going to wait until a more reasonable 20. I’m excited to see how their relationships unfold. After her wedding happens, I’m going to start telling this story from Patience’s perspective! I’ll still include the occasional update from Evy, though, since she’s my favorite.

Also, Jon Edward Fleming is named after fire and brimstone preacher Jonathan Edwards, who is famed for delivering the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” speech during the First Great Awakening. I thought he was a fitting namesake!

Greetings, readers!

As many of you know, my sweet Evy May has been married for over a year now. Many worldly people did not understand her choice to marry so young. The devil is constantly prowling to devour sweet Christian families, and he certainly made an attempt to destroy us with the gossip that surrounded Evy’s marriage! While that time was painful for us, we are SO happy to report that Evy and Auggie are still very much in love and happy doing life together.

Evy and Auggie recently celebrated Auggie’s 20th birthday at Auggie’s parents’ house. How sweet!

We haven’t had any baby news from Evy and Auggie yet. We pray that the Lord will open Evy May’s womb soon, but until then these two are enjoying the fruits of a happy, Christian marriage!

Happy birthday, Auggie!

Our greatest gift, Miracle Joy, also aged up recently. Stetson and I are SO proud of her! She is such a virtuous young lady and a blessing to us all...every sibling dotes on her!

Sweet Katlynn made a cake for her sister! She is truly a gift. Now if we could just get her married...she’s 23 and still single!

I cannot believe our youngest is now a big kid! The sight of her aging up truly brought a tear to my eye! Though I miss being a young mother greatly, being able to shepherd my children through these more mature seasons of life is such a gift as well, especially as our grandchildren multiply.

One of Stetson’s most important jobs is assessing the MANY young men who show interest in our daughters. Most of them do NOT make the cut!

But after years of careful discernment and praying, an event we always dreamed of has taken place. Yes, it’s true--Pastor Fleming’s oldest son, Jon Edward, has asked to get to know our Patience Grace. Their relationship has moved quickly because they are clearly such a perfect match! Jon Edward has even said that he knew from the first time he met Patience that he wanted her for a wife. He saw her humble spirit and her feminine modesty and was blown away! He agrees with us that women today are so worldly and self-absorbed. Patience stands in contrast to them like a shining light! We are SO grateful for her and the wonderful example that she provides!

Jon invites Patience to court.

Pastor Fleming spent a day at our home supervising Patience and Jon. Jon’s older sister, Laura, was also there!

Sweet fellowship!

Stetson and I had MANY serious conversation with Patience and Jon about the joys and responsibilities of young marriage. Patience is 18 and Jon is 22, so while they are young, they are old enough to marry in the sight of God, so long as they understand the gravity of making eternal vows!

After extended conversations with Patience, Jon, and Pastor Fleming, Stetson decided to allow them to become engaged!

Patience turned 18 just a few days before Jon decided to propose to her, but she is so strong and mature in her judgment! She is ready to be a wife and mother. We never allow our children to delay marriage for too long because it can lead to temptation, so we will allow these two to be married in two months’ time. They’ve already courted for four months and got to know each other for four months before that. Patience was younger than any of our daughters when this process started for her--she was on the early side of 17--but we were confident that the timing was right. We prayed on this match over and over again as a family, and over and over again felt confident that the Lord was drawing these two together!

In other news, our sweet Helen Praise is also courting! Helen is 19 going on 20 and has such a sweet servant’s heart. Young Tyson Bheeda is crazy about her! They both enjoy art and spend many of their chaperoned dates at local museums.

We are so grateful for these two and for their commitment to purity! Here’s to praying we will have another engagement on our hands soon!

#thegormans #fundie sims #quiverfull sims #sims 4 #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 legacy challenge

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toomanysurveys9 · 3 years

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Do you take lessons for anything? No. Although I’m in grad school for marriage and family therapy. So that’s kind of like lessons. Lol.

Has something really heavy ever fallen on you? Not really, no.

If you wear makeup, what colors do you usually wear? I usually use natural colors.

Does your shower have curtains or a glass door/wall? It has a curtain.

If you have more than one pet, do they ever get jealous of each other? I have so many pets, and Phe and Cocoa do occasionally get jealous.

Is there a room in your house that you don’t like going in? Not a room, exactly, but I hate our basement.

Do you remember the last question you were asked? What did you answer? Just the one I just answered here.

Besides salt and butter, do you put anything on your popcorn? Jalapeno powder stuff they have at our local movie theater. It’s good with the butter.

Are you lonely? I guess you could say that.

What’s your favorite magazine to read? I haven’t really read any magazines in a long time.

Do you like pineapple? I do. I used to not like it when I was a kid, but I do now.

Have you ever seen fireflies? I have!

Have you ever trespassed? Not that I can remember.

Do you tell your parents where you are going? I mean, sometimes. Sometimes I will just say I’m leaving, and leave it at that.

Do you raise your hand or participate in class? I’m doing online classes. It’s mostly reading and writing papers.

Do you like visiting the mall? Why or why not? I used to. But it’s kind of stressful these days. Although I do want to go soon for a smoothie. There’s a store in one about an hour away that has the best.

Have you ever purposely hurt an animal? No.

Would you ever see a therapist? I have before, and I would again if I needed to.

Are you afraid of heights? Yes.

Are you afraid of the dark? Not really.

Are you a jealous person? Not normally, but I can be if I think I have reason.

When is your birthday? September 1.

What are you listening to right now? The kiddos talking about ice cream.

Have you ever been caught doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing? Yeah. My mom caught us having sex once when we were 18.

Are you still friends with someone from kindergarten? Not really.

What is the most important thing to you? My kids.

Do you like whipped cream? Yeah, usually.

Are you close to your mother? Yes.

Are you close to your father? Yes, but it’s not quite the same as with my mom.

Do you walk around bare foot when you’re at home? Or do you wear socks? I am usually barefoot.

Do you like chocolate popsicles? I haven’t had them in a long time, so I couldn’t really say.

Would you ever be your school’s mascot who wears that costume? No.

Would you rather see the Great Wall of China or Big Ben? I guess Big Ben because that’s a place I really want to visit.

Have you ever written a poem? A long, long time ago. They weren’t that great.

Would you ever be a tornado chaser? NO. NO. NO. I’m too chicken.

What is your favorite thing to eat with bbq sauce, if you even like that stuff? Pulled pork sandwiches.

Your parents tell you that this summer, you get to pick the vacation. Where do you plan to go? A longer vacation to TN than what we are doing during memorial day weekend.

What do you think is a good theme for a prom? I have no idea.

Have you ever had to do a class in summer school? I didn’t have to, but I took my statistics class in undergrad during summer.

Do you get nervous when you go to the doctor? About what? Yeah. Since getting pregnant, I’m afraid of being told I lost the baby.

Have you ever been to the rainforest? I wish, but no.

Have you ever created a website? Nope.

Ever thought about writing a book? Yes. I think it would be fun but challenging.

Have you ever had a dream where you killed someone? I don’t think so.

Do you ever make up stories in your head and wish they come true? Yeah.

Which is worse: stuffy nose or runny nose? Runny nose. And it can be more painful.

Which is worse: Sick to your stomach or sore throat? I hate being nauseous, and I hate throwing up.

Do you think your last relationship was a disaster? Eh. Kind of I guess. I never should have dated him.

Have you ever solved a Rubik’s Cube? I’ve never really tried, so no..

Who do you think is the easiest to talk to? Probably Stephanie these days.

Would you consider yourself to be emo? I guess.

Do you have a favourite metal band or do you not like metal? I don’t really listen to metal.

What is your current desktop picture? Nothing. It was my kids and then my computer did something funky and I just never fixed it.

Thick or thin blanket? Depends, but usually thicker.

Who are your favorite bands? That’s kind of hard to answer. I don’t really know.

How do you mark through your word search puzzles? It varies from highlighter, circling, or putting a line through it.

Have you ever sewn something? I don’t think so.

What did you eat for dinner last night? Turkey sandwich.

Ever been grounded? Story of my life growing up.

Have you seen all of the Jaws movies? No.

When was the last time you played cards? (not on the computer) It’s been several months, at least.

Have you ever drank Cherry Coke? Yeah.

Have you ever had a black eye? I have.

Have you ever eaten a bug? I have not ever chosen to eat one.

Do you like pranking people? Nope.

Did you ever take a cooking class in school? I did in high school.

Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Not really. We celebrate Wyatt’s birthday. My little St. Patrick’s Day baby. :)

Do you use Skype? No. I use zoom when I have meetings with professors.

Have you ever participated in local magazine cover girl searches? Nope.

Have you ever been called a skank/slut because of the way you dress? No.

Is your ex sexually attractive to you still? He never was.

Describe the most romantic moment you’ve ever had. I honestly don’t know. Jacob isn’t exactly the romantic type.

Have you ever cheated on a test? Nope.

Have you ever been to couple’s counseling? Nope. Or... not really. We did premarital counseling with the pastor that officiated our wedding, but I don’t know that I would count that.

How often does your employer ask you to work overtime? A lot. Considering I am part-time and said a maximum of 3 full days a week. Plus she has me on one of the most aggressive kids, so that’s great. I emailed her over the weekend letting her know I was done working with him, so we will see how that conversation goes tomorrow and whether I will have a job still.

Did you often read for fun when you were a kid? YES. I have always loved to read.

When was the last time you were scared? Yesterday while watching Jacob in the night of destruction events.

What’s your favorite song by Rihanna? I don’t really know.

Can you speak binary? Nope.

Would you rather live somewhere that had hurricanes or tornadoes? I would prefer neither. Lol.

Have you ever had a pet that you disliked? Nope.

When was the last time you saw hail? A year or two ago. We are getting a new roof thanks to insurance because of it.

What is on your mind right this second: That I kind of want ice cream.

Have you ever given a nickname to your pet(s)? Yeah.

When was the last time you shaved your legs? Last week.

Do you ever try free samples at the store? Yeah.

Do you like boys with long hair? I don’t really have a preference with hair length.

Do you like root beer? Yeah.

What is the best fast food place, in your opinion? I don’t know.

Do you have faith in yourself? LOL. No.

#survey #surveys #personal #question #questions #random

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rosesareviolentlyread · 4 years

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WIJ Day 3: Love

WOO the first actual prompt is here. This is a modern magic world heavily inspired by @0idril0 and @whumpywhumper‘s Nico & Markus/Lucien series respectively. I HIGHLY recommend you check them out. So this is meant to be an introduction to Pastor John/The Reverend, who is my first attempt at an intimate whumper. Thanks to @ashintheairlikesnow for inspiring the Reverend with Bram, def check out all her stuff if you haven’t

CW: religious whump, creepy whumper, whumper who doesn’t think they’re a whumper, kinda abusive relationship vibes, drugging, taking advantage of someone’s emotional state

John sits, listening to the record player in the corner crackle with the sounds of a congregation’s singing. His students tease him for being a ‘hipster’, but there’s something satisfying about their amateur voices, captured imperfectly, naturally, using a technology that reminds him of pottery, or weaving. Sound pressed into something physical, ethereality brought to his fingertips, his ears, across time.

It’s a pleasant evening all around. John savors every detail as he takes a sip of scotch - a gift from a colleague in Edinburgh - settling into the thick leather chair by the fireplace, just musing in his mind while he waits for the brownies to be done. Perhaps he should grade, or write a lecture, or work on his sermon. But these moments in time, of being in his body, of feeling fire in his throat as sparks flick out as his toes, these are God’s moments, moments of perfect creation and harmony.

But still, he isn’t bothered by the knock on his door, despite the late hour. The students know his door is always open. He’s become used to them coming to his couch after a late temptation, or perhaps a lapse in their faith. Perhaps just a personal dilemma. The community too, though they typically take the ‘door unlocked’ policy as is.

No, the timidness of the youngest in his flock always brings a smile. It seems no matter how many departmental or congregational dinners he hosts, how many times they come knocking, they always knock. It is part of their youth, not cemented in their beliefs, in knowing that God will provide. So he provides, until they can become sure, can understand how a trinity of a different kind, God, his Son, and their Pastor, will be there for them. They are lambs, learning to stand on their own legs, which is why this is his favorite place to shepherd.

“Coming!” He calls out, setting the glass carefully on a coaster before opening the thick door to the cottage. It takes a few blinks to clear his eyes from the rush of cold air that assaults them. The weather always seems to surprise him, just one of many things in this beautiful world.

But what doesn’t necessarily surprise him is to see, red-rimmed eyes, a flushed tear-tracked face delicately wrought in its complexion, set upon a lithe frame that hides immense strength, an immense spirit that positively glows normally with ash-blonde hair and bright gray-blue eyes. Faith. A sense of calm comes over him, a release of tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for days.

“Oh, my girl, I was hoping you’d come by” Before she can get a word out, John wraps strong arms around her, enveloping her in a warm hug. Immediately he feels the telltale shake of her shoulders, small hands gripping the back of his sweater tightly, a damp spot right near his heart growing.

Yes, John expected this. For how long, he isn’t entirely sure. Perhaps, always. Perhaps, because somewhere in him, he knew God had bigger plans for them both.

Faith had been a special student to him, from her first year intro course in the Theology department. A bright girl, a good girl, who believed with her heart and soul in Jesus’ saving grace for even the most dastardly of sinners. He hadn’t recognized it well at the time, but even he had fallen prey to the negativity within the church, the ones who said Supernaturals were truly the devil incarnate, incapable of being saved.

But Faith, she took it upon herself to prove them all wrong. She’d been hesitant to propose her thesis to him, as her advisor. A piece to study the beliefs and communities of Supernaturals locally, from a theological and sociological perspective, in order to understand how those beliefs might be reconciled with modern Christianity. A piece that would allow for the Evangelical church she came from to see the same possibility of salvation she did. To choose love.

“It’s alright, shhh. Why don’t you come in? The brownies for tomorrow’s potluck are almost done. I’ll put on some tea, dandelion right?” Gently, he pried her away from him, thumbing tears as she sniffled away the last of her outburst.

“Thank you, Reverend. I just...I didn’t know where else to go. Yet.” The downcast of her eyes nearly breaks his heart at the cruelty of this world. For his fellow Christians had chosen to hate, to cast her out of their flock, after she bared her thesis, her work, no matter how unfinished. All because of what she was.

Peter 1 4:8 comes to his mind: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.

So what if she was truly born Fae, a natural sinner of the largest proportions. Does her desire to be saved, to save others, to feel Jesus’ healing light not garner love in them?

Her desire, her faith, does in John’s chest, a warm feeling better than the finest scotch as he gently leads her to couch, leaving her with some tissues to compose herself.

The moment feels so right the longer he’s in it. The brownie timer goes off right as he enters the kitchen, and he pulls them out. Perfect. He leaves them to cool as he flicks on the kettle, fingers moving through his vast collection for just the right blend. Dandelion, reminiscent of shortbread cookies, Faith’s favorite. They’ve shared so many cups over late night thesis meetings, church group meetings, dinner meetings that the box has only one left. Pulling out the last packet, he tucks away in his mind to buy more boxes.

They’ll go through a lot he imagines, in the next few months. It’s easy to prepare, like a moment meant to be, as he lets the tea steep, adds two spoonfuls of sugar, and drops in the pills, stirring until they dissolve evenly.

He brings it all out, tea, brownies, to the couch, where she’s already claimed a throw. It’s good, he thinks, that she already feels at home here. It’ll be easier that way.

“Thank you,” her hands grip the warm mug, breathing in the steam, and he watches attentively as she takes a sip. “It’s been...I was scared. That you’d turn me away too”

“My dear, you have never had anything but love for Jesus and God in your heart. Why would I believe something like this would change that?”

Of course he had been worried, in the beginning of her thesis, that she would be swayed. That they would convince her with their wicked tongues, guile her with magic and false miracles, false idols. Yes, now that he looks back, perhaps he did see it all coming. No, she hadn’t been swayed.

But she’d swayed him. To believe in the possibility of truly saving those damned souls. So much that he’d begun his own research, his own plans, prepared for the possibility. And now, it appeared God’s plan was working perfectly, dropping her right on his doorstep on the eve of her transformation between worlds, an apostle for a new era

“Everyone else seems to think that, that this is wrong. How though? How can being who I am, the person God made me, be wrong?” Her voice is quiet in the night, barely above the crackling fire in its hoarseness, tinged still with tears.

“He does nothing wrong. He made you this way for a reason, so that you may show others. Think of it, your work, is this not His plan?” John tries to keep the excitement out of his voice, to remain calm, collected. Gentle. Yes, he must be gentle, to do this in love for the Lord.

She pauses, sipping more. “I...I don’t know. I just, I need some time, I think. I was walking to the bus stop when I passed your house and thought...I don’t know. I guess I hoped there’d be something I could come back to, when I was ready” Her eyes stare into the surface of the tea, growing distant. Tired. It’s working fast, he knows, likely due to her exhaustion from the past few days.

“It’s alright to not know. The Bible does not have all the answers, but it leads us to where we need to find them. Perhaps that’s why you came here. Why don’t you get some rest, stay here tonight. Tomorrow is a new day, a new chance for you to find your way.”

“Thank you, Reverend. That..that sounds nice. You’re right, I need to-o-o-o” the sentence is interrupted by a yawn and he chuckles.

“It sounds like the only thing you need right now is a good night’s rest. Come on, I promise this couch may be old, but she’ll service you well. She’s saved me from several late night grading sessions” Taking the tea, he lets her settle down, and grabs a quilt from the closet - a gift from an older parishioner - and tucks it around her.

“Goodnight, Faith. Sleep well, tomorrow will be a busy day” she mumbles something slurred, incomprehensible under the effect of the drug. Still, he sits and waits, gently petting the silky hair until her breathing fully evens out, deepens into a rhythm that could be a lullaby to itself in his ears.

So beautiful, so wonderful, so perfect. Truly, this is his and her purpose: to show that the souls of the supernatural can be saved through Jesus’ light.

It is with that thought that he picks up the limp bundle of girl, and carries her down into the basement.

Tags: @sableflynn @bleedingandfeverish @starry-whump @whumpmasinjuly(let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the tag list for this series)

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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09/25/2021 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 45:11-48:11, Ephesians 4:1-16, Psalms 68:19-35, Proverbs 24:3-4

Today is the 25th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you as we bring to the close another one of our weeks together and continue our journey by taking the next step forward, which leads us back into the book of Isaiah. We’ve been camping out in Isaiah for a while, and we’ve got a little bit more to go. We’re reading from the Evangelical Heritage Version this week. Isaiah 45 verse 11 through 48 verse 11.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another week. We just completed the last full week of this month. We’ll be transitioning again in the coming week, and it just keeps going. It seems like it's going fast but at every moment that we slow down to observe where we are we look back and see that You have been faithful, You have been patient, You have led us every step of the way, You have brought us to this point, and we are supremely grateful to You. We worship You. We love You. And as this week becomes part of our history, we pray that what You've planted in our lives through the Scriptures will yield fruit, will bring a harvest when the time is right. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com, that is home base. That's where the Global Campfire is and…yeah…check it out if you haven't had the chance yet. You can arrive there at dailyaudiobible.com or you can use the app and press the little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and that will get you to places like the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And within the Daily Audio Bible Shop are a number of categories of resources that…that are for the community here just around the Global Campfire, whether that be Global Campfire things to remind us that we’re in community together, or whether that be written resources to take the journey deeper. Check it out at dailyaudiobible.com or in the app, the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible thank you with all of my heart. Thank you, wouldn't…we wouldn't have been here 5000+ days in a row if we weren't in this together 5000+ days in a row. And, so, it's…it's an honor…it’s an honor to serve and it's a beautiful thing we’re in this together as we take the journey through the year. And, so, if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at the website at dailyaudiobible.com. If using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you not be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey DAB it's Refined by the Fire in Ohio and I wanted to take a minute. We've had just so many people call in with just soul tugging praises and requests. And, so, I wanted to take a minute to rejoice with those who are rejoicing for the gift of sight, for health being restored, for relationships that have been mended. And I don't want to overlook the high points that we go through. And those high points don't diminish the low valleys that we also face. And, so, the calls that we've had coming in, I'm sorry for the loss of your son. I'm sorry about your mom in the nursing home with dementia. And, you know, your hubby not wanting to walk and his health, just each one of your calls I pray with you. I lift you up whether that's in praise or just in comfort and sorrow, both with thanksgiving that we know a God who is bigger than our deepest valleys, who meets us at the peaks where we get to be there and who carries us through each one. And I just thank you guys for being there for me over the years even if I was kind of in the background. But I love you guys and I hope you have a great day.

Good night, everybody this is In Cognito but not to God. I'm calling to ask that God would reach out to a friend. I'll just give his…his initials, Y I'm sorry JY. and he is…he needs to be rescued from male prostitution. And I'm asking that you all will join me in prayer for his deliverance and that God will use him as a point of reference to save many others who are caught up in the same situation. It turns into addiction because you start believing that that's who you are, that that's the only way. You can't see a way out. And he's truly believing all of Satan's lies. So, I'm reaching out to all of you because I know that prayer is power. Help me to push, pray until something happens. I'm asking God to save him by any means necessary. God created him and then paid a very heavy price for him. So, Satan cannot have him in the name of Jesus. I plead the blood of Jesus over him, that God will save him from himself. In Jesus’ name I ask these things. Amen.

Grace and peace Daily Audio Bible family. This is Phil Jordan formerly of New York now of North Carolina. My wife Sherry and I relocated earlier this year. This is a prayer request for the healing and full recovery of my dear sister-in-law Celestine Garner. She and my brother who are pastors of our church back in our hometown of Mount Vernon NY had a bout with COVID in August. Pastor's out and on the mend and…but Celestine is still there in the hospital on a ventilator. Waiting for her to wake up. There’ve been prayers…multiple prayers and many many prayers have already gone up but I'm reaching out to you guys as well. Support the family as well as for God to just complete this work of restoration in both of them so she can live to continue to spoil everyone and be the most hospitable person she's ever been. I'll tell you it's just something to deal with, this illness because you have to suffer so long in…in isolation. She’s been in the hospital for a while, so you can't visit. But we're praying and we pray in the Spirit that she's been able to hear us and feel our love and prayers. So, pray with us for her restoration and for healing, for God to raise her up, for it to be a great testimony for her to live the rest of her days, see her yet to be born grandchildren and spoil them in Jesus’ name. Thank you.

Good morning DABalonians. Casey Sean Pierce from Hawaii I love the way you started it with your various names for the community at Daily Audio Bible. It was great. My name is Treasured Possession, and I would like to pray for your wife. I want you to know that I am the wife of a husband who I have been married to for 35 years and he has been sober for 12. And it's not easy but it is beautiful. And God…God is mighty. Shamara, I pray that you shall know the truth and that the truth will set you free. I pray that you would remain free. I pray your children will be settled in a home of peace and that you will have the time to focus on yourself and your recovery. I pray that you will know all you have in Christ Shamara, that you'll have a solid sponsor in a group that loves you understand you and supports you in your recovery. I pray you will not seek drama to distract from the pain. I pray that you will be able to endure the pain as you…as the pain is revealed to you and that peace that passes understanding will fill your soul, your mind and you will be as you were redeemed in the word made flesh your savior Jesus. I pray God's almighty blessing upon you, and I pray for an amazing and phenomenal life for you and your husband and your family and that your mother-in-law and mother would be blessed as well. Father God, I thank you for people in recovery. I thank you Father God for your…for you Jesus that that brings it all…that makes it all happen. And thank you Daily Audio Bible family that undergirds all of the believers in prayer. And thank you Brian, Jill, and Ezekiel and all the team behind. Amen.

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teeforhee · 4 years

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Fuck, I'm not sure I'll ever get over how much CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service, it's the under-18s mental health service in Scotland) let me down as a kid.

It's like this. You're 11 and you're traumatised but you're scared of using that word, you don't know if you're allowed it, but you are traumatised. And you're so anxious you can't breathe most of the time, you can't sit down and speak to any of your friends, you can do your school work but you keep falling apart and everything feels like it's getting worse all the time. You don't fit in, you're weird and awkward but your schoolwork is good so you aren't worrying about your grades, you're not even sure why you feel this way (it's unprocessed trauma, but again, you don't feel like you're allowed that word). You're s/hing and struggling with suicidal ideation, and you're lucky enough to still trust authority figures, so you do what everyone says you should. You trust an adult. And she calls your GP, who is another adult you choose to trust, who you bare your heart to with all of these symptoms that make your feel sick to even acknowledge, and then they make you an appointment with CAMHS. You came in asking for treatment. They referred you to CAMHS. They did not explain what CAMHS was other than what the letters stood for. That's okay - it's treatment, right? They're gonna help. You can talk this through and they'll help- just gotta be careful you don't get institutionalised. You don't want that, yet.

You talk to a CAMHS worker. She's a psychologist. She says it's very likely you have autism to your mother after your first session. Your mother broaches the topic gently. You are overjoyed: there's an answer! oh fuck, this explains so much! but it's not treatment. It's a word. The psychologist puts you on a waiting list and you have 22 sessions of CBT with her, trying to unpack your trauma and trying to build up coping skills. So many of them feel like just denying the truth, so many of them feed into your magical thinking ("the one thing you can control is your thoughts, you must always control your thoughts, good things will happen when you control your thoughts and stop thinking the bad thoughts"), but it's treatment, mostly. You stop seeing her twice- once because you are trying to develop an eating disorder and having a mental health professional who wants to hear how you're doing is totally cramping your style (I wasn't actually trying to develop an ED really, I was trying to cope in ways other than s/h, in ways that felt honest to the situation and real and gave me a sense of control that "controling my thoughts" just wasn't doing). You come back for recovery. You tell her you want an eating plan. By the time she even considers an appointment with a nutritionist, you've moved past that stage in your recovery on your own. You stop seeing her again because you get into an abusive relationship who doesn't really like you having contact with people who aren't him, and he super super doesn't like you not being able to talk to him for a whole hour every week. That part isn't their fault: no one could be gotten me out of that until I decided to; believe me, everyone around me tried, and it didn't work until I wanted I to, the third time.

But I left, again, I was without support for 6 months, and when I came back it was after my father (the earliest source of my trauma) had died. They take 4 sessions compiling evidence as to what treatment i needed going forward, without telling me that was what they were doing (I was trying to build trust with an adult again after 6 months of constant reinforcing that I couldn't trust anyone but my abuser), and then an appointment with a psychiatrist and your mother and a new psychologist. They dismiss and justify the symptoms that most worry me, they have at this point turned down my request to be institutionalised multiple times (including after an aborted suicide attempt, I presume they thought that was fine because made it clear that I did want to live), and they say at the end of the meeting that they are going to give me an official diagnosis of autism and that after that CAMHS has nothing more to offer me.

They say that if after 22 sessions with a psychologist I am still struggling so much (bear in mind that probably close to half of those sessions I was concealing factors that were actively making my mental health worse and which were traumatising me) I clearly can't gain anything more from their service, and anyway, autism isn't a mental illness and CAMHS as a service can only help while waiting for/trying to get a diagnosis, or if you have a diagnosis or a disorder for which they could provide specialist treatment. My very obvious PTSD? nah, no big-T Traumas, and c-ptsd is way too hard to diagnose. I receive a hilarious letter detailing all of the evidence (I mean genuinely insightful but also fucking hilarious and I do want to note down funniest bits and post them hear at some point, stuff like "unusual speech was noted, (exclamations of 'wacky!' while describing his symptoms)") and then they refer me to a charity which, at time of writing, I have had 1 assessment phone call with, and am waiting for a call back for my next and first proper appointment.

They did not inform me when I was first referred that CAMHS is a diagnostic and specialist treatment service and if they did (this was well over two years ago now, I don't remember word-for-word what my GP told me), they did not tell me that meant that they would kick me out to a charity once they figured they couldn't label me with anything requiring specialist treatment. During our last sessions they were unyeildingly focussed on the trauma of my father dying and of the "shock" of my diagnosis (that I had been waiting for for 2 years. yes, very shocking/s) when those were not my biggest problems. My relationship with my father is complex and I won't get into it here, but suffice it to say that his death was the last step on a very, very long journey, and honestly one of the least traumatising.

I let them keep the focus there because I desperately hate talking about the actual, recent, debilitating trauma of being in lockdown with an abusive partner for 6 months. That shit hurts, I can't even say his name, but that is the thing that I need to unpack if I'm ever going to be able to go outside in the sun again.

Repeatedly ignoring the requests I made for specific treatment until past the point where I needed it anymore, not informing me how the service I was going to be working with for 2 years even worked in something so basic as "what is this for? what will happen to me if I get a diagnosis they can't give me specialised care for?", telling an 11 year old child that suicidal ideation is "not that serious", a fundamental misunderstanding of what I needed and wanted to hear ('normal' is not a helpful word. 'normal' tells me 'suck it up, everyone experiences this and they're all fine, you're normal, just think better' why are they all so adamant that I am normal? Not even considering my mental health I am an autistic bisexual gnc trans guy, we went past whatever 'normal' means a long time ago, fucking listen to me), at every single step of the way this system has left me in the same state I was before, the only improvement being through support from my friends, fucking Childline (gd fucking bless Childline volunteers, but still, I shouldn't have been getting so little support that that felt like my only option), mental health masterposts on Tumblr, chats with my (luckily) very nice guidance counselor (they're called pastoral teachers here but I know most folks reading this are American or are most familiar with the American school system) and what amounts to gritting my teeth and getting through it.

It was worth it, of course my life was worth it, of course I say the same thing every person who's attempted suicide says, I'm more grateful than words could possibly express that I survived, that I get to go home in a few minutes and feed my kitten and write and message my friends, but for fucks sake it didn't need to be this hard. And it doesn't need to be this hard. I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm still waiting on that second appointment with this charity, I'm still 3+ months behind at school, and I'm one of the lucky ones. My boyfriend has been hurt worse by CAMHS, left even more isolated than I was, even more traumatised by the way he was treated, and every single person I know who's been in this system agrees that it's deeply, deeply flawed.

I don't want people to have competitions over who's medical experiences are worse, who's country has the worst mental health system, who's been the most traumatised by their psychiatrists or lack thereof, please. Please don't make this the suffering Olympics. I'm just making this post cause I know, I know that other people have had similar experiences, whether with CAMHS or whatever their equivalent is. Mental health services need serious reform that puts patients first, listens to their needs and requests, that is well funded and well staffed by people who care about their patients wellbeing more than they care about controling other people's lives.

Austerity in the UK is a huge reason why this happened the way it did- my first psychologist left the service to go work somewhere that pays better, leaving just one newly-graduated psychologist that clearly had no idea what she was doing and didn't care to sympathise or show compassion for me.

This shit needs to change, because kids need help, and this is not good enough.

#mine #newt writes #oh boy ask to tag #tw s/h mention #tw school #suicidal ideation #tw eating stuff #tw food #tw eating #ed mention #tw suicide mention #ok to rb

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exxar1 · 4 years

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Episode 11: New Believer, New Faith, and a New Vow

2/7/2021

- 1 -

Good morning! It’s a beautiful Sunday here in Las Vegas. I have much to talk about so I’m just going to get right into it.

It’s hard to believe we’re already a full month into the new year. This year for me has been very rewarding thus far. For starters, I have had no trouble keeping up with resolutions 1 and 4. (For a refresher, you can scroll back through my previous posts to the one from New Year’s Eve.) I have found time each day to read my Bible and pray, and I have had little difficulty in maintaining a pleasant attitude and a smile in my daily encounters with my co-workers and customers. As expected, though, that latter one has been tested a few times by the occasional sour apples that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. But I’ve surprised myself every time by my patience and my ability to keep a calm and pleasant demeanor. (Those of you who have known me for a long time will understand how truly remarkable that is for me.) It’s simply another testament to the power of God to change our basic attitudes when we are willing to let Him.

I’ve also made great strides in resolution #3, and that’s where I’m going to spend the bulk of my time on this post.

Have you ever sought something – therapy, a particular medication, advice from a friend or colleague – thinking that it might help with one problem, only to be pleasantly surprised that one, the result helped in many other ways you hadn’t anticipated; and two, that the change/outcome/counseling exceeded your initial expectations by such a great magnitude that you couldn’t believe you hadn’t sought this help long ago? That feeling has been with me for over three weeks now, and it’s only getting better with each session.

One of my first tasks in tackling resolution #3 was to consult a pastor on this issue of homosexuality and the Bible. I needed to know what God really said in His Word on this controversial topic, and since I have yet to find a home church here in Las Vegas the only pastor that I am casually acquainted with is Mark Sjostrom of the church in which I was born and raised back in Twin Falls, Idaho.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twin Falls or this particular church, allow me to forge a brief rabbit trail here to give you a short history. Grace Baptist Church was founded in 1975, and, back then, it was just a one-story, oblong, red-bricked building, its main auditorium forming a bubble at one end, at the intersection of Eastland Drive and Falls Avenue on the eastern edge of town. It’s still that same building today, only now there’s a massive, two-story gymnasium/classroom on the other side of the back parking lot, and a third, smaller, two-room annex that sits behind the gym. The first of those latter two structures was needed in the early eighties when the church launched its own private school, Twin Falls Christian Academy. I was in kindergarten when the gymnasium was under construction. I have many memories of watching my dad and some of the other men in church up on the scaffolds, putting together the walls, while I waited for my mom to pick me up after school, which was held in the various Sunday school rooms in the church. A few years later, I would be attending high school in the classrooms above that gym.

In the years since I have grown and left Twin Falls, I have come back to that church on the occasional Sunday morning worship service when I’m home for a vacation visit. I’ve always had mixed feelings every time I set foot beyond the threshold of its main doors (see my previous posts about my struggles during my teen years.) It’s the same feeling you get when you come back to something that is at once familiar and strangely comforting, but also brings with it unpleasant memories and the pain of old wounds that have never quite healed.

Grace’s pastor since 2005 has been Mark Sjostrom (pronounced ‘shos-trum’), and I didn’t know him that well when I decided to consult him on this issue. Our only interaction thus far had been a brief handshake and a greeting after those sporadic Sunday morning worship services, and I wasn’t sure he would even remember me when I nervously texted him a brief ‘Hello’ a month ago. He responded within a few minutes, and I re-introduced myself and then gave a short explanation of what I needed. We agreed on a time and date for a phone call, and I emailed him the next day with a longer explanation of what I needed to talk about with him.

That letter was a somewhat detailed account of what most of you are already familiar with: my struggle in high school with keeping my secret of being gay while trying to fit in socially and eventually declaring myself an Atheist after being expelled from school my senior year a month before graduation. It was probably about 2 pages, and I was now very nervous after clicking the ‘Send’ button. I suppose now is a good time to tell you something else about me.

I have been one of ‘those people’ for all of my adult life. You know who I’m talking about: the people who silently judge the other customers in the book store who pause to browse the Self Help section; or the people who quietly scoff when anyone talks about their latest therapy session with their friends or coworkers at lunch in the break room. I’m glad I don’t need self-help or therapy, I’ve always thought. But, then again, good for them, I guess. I’m glad I have all my issues worked out, and I’m a stable, normal adult. I’ve never had any issues that were so bad I needed to get help from an armchair counselor’s latest best seller or a psychiatrist’s couch.

Hhmmm. My life, lately, has been chock full of irony.

When the time came to dial Pastor Sjostrom’s number my level of nervousness was up to a ten out of ten on the anxiety scale. I hadn’t felt like this since high school when it was opening night of our Agatha Christie play, and I was one of the main cast. I had prepared a detailed outline of what I wanted to discuss, and, after a few initial pleasantries, Mark quickly put me at ease. I was pleasantly caught off guard by his relaxed, casual personality. I found immediately that he was very easy to talk to, and my anxiety level dropped to a ‘three’ in the first five minutes. Pastor Sjostrom is definitely one of those people who has found the right calling. His warm, personable demeanor made me feel like I was talking to an old friend over coffee at Starbucks, and after about ten minutes of getting to know one another, he brought the conversation back around to my letter.

Here’s where my second surprise occurred. Mark was bluntly honest. I had told him that I believed I was saved in 1985, when I was seven, after the evening service of one of our church’s mid-summer week long revival meetings. “Neal,” Mark said rather pointedly, “after reading your description of your life after high school, I gotta say that it doesn’t sound like you were saved. Your behavior and your atheism doesn’t reflect the change that is described in the Bible.” He went on to explain that salvation is a change brought about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the new believer. There is a desire to learn more about God and His Word. There is a desire to serve him and to live one’s life in surrender to Him.

I had to pause and think about that. And, doggone it, you know what? He was right. And the reason I knew that was because I had only to look at the last four months of my life, even more so since I had returned from Christmas vacation. That desire – that hunger – to know God had never been present in my life until September 17, 2020. That was the night I surrendered to Christ in an awkward, fumbling prayer on the way home from work. Ever since, I have had nothing but a desire to read my Bible and change my life. I told pastor this, and he agreed. It was evident now that I was truly saved. That evidence was lacking in my youth and my adult life up to this point.

My third major surprise of that initial counseling session – yes, that was what is was – was when pastor told me he was assigning me homework for our next weekly conversation. He wanted me to read the book of 1 John. He explained that we would eventually get to the issue of homosexuality, but that we needed to cover this ground first. I agreed to the assignment, and we hung up. I glanced at the clock in the upper corner of my computer screen. We had talked for almost an hour. I immediately reached for my Bible and opened it to 1 John. I read the whole book in about ten minutes.

1 John is a primer for the new believer. John states clearly and succinctly what makes a Christian a Christian. Chapter 1:9 was immediately familiar to me from my Sunday School days: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So was chapter 2:9: “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now.” John goes to say in chapter 5:2: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.” And, finally, verse 20 of that same chapter: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”

Yep. All of that book made perfect sense. Part of that was because I had absorbed so much of God’s Word in my youth that it had sat in the deep recesses of my brain for all of my life, and much of it had begun floating to the surface in the last several months – like debris from an ancient wartime submarine that has been recently dislodged from its ocean grave. Except that these artifacts – Bible verses, fragments of sermons, some of Mr. Walker’s proverbs from Bible class – were not dirty, soggy, disgusting relics. They were bits of priceless treasure, and I’ve been rediscovering them in dribs and drabs ever since.

I have had three sessions with Pastor Sjostrom, and they are each the highlight of my week. I very nearly broke down after hanging up from our first talk. I felt a combination of immense relief, peace and calm. Not to be overly melodramatic, but it was if something had dislodged in my very soul, like a sliver of wood just beneath the skin that has never quite come all the way out. I realized with immediate clarity that I was getting far more than just a pastor’s opinion on a particular issue for my book. I had stumbled on to something else, something I needed far more: spiritual counseling and guidance for my new life as a child of God.

I am a new believer.

That seems so strange to say out loud. I was raised in the church. I had at least a third of the Bible memorized by the time I was twelve. I knew all the major stories from the Old Testament – the creation of the world; God’s covenant with Abraham; Jacob, Esau and Isaac; Joseph sold into slavery into Egypt and God’s eventual deliverance of the Israelites from their captivity there; the introduction of the ten commandments and the Mosaic Law; Esther, Ruth, King Saul, David, the Book of Psalms, the prophet Isaiah – I knew all of it by heart by the end of my days in elementary school. Same for the New Testament – the birth of Christ; all of His teachings and parables; His death on the cross; His resurrection after three days; the founding of His church after His ascension back to Heaven – it was all as familiar to me by the time I walked away from high school as the mathematical precepts of basic addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

I had assumed all this time that I was still saved. I thought I had really, genuinely believed in Jesus as my savior that long ago night in 1985 when I was seven years old. And maybe I did. But, for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit had not come into me back then. I was not truly saved. (This is perhaps worthy of a more detailed discussion and analysis later on down the road.) Whatever the case, I am most definitely a new believer now. The Holy Spirit is alive and well within me, and I have only a single desire and purpose: to know the God that created me, and to serve him with all my heart, soul and mind.

Pastor and I did discuss my homosexuality issue in our second talk, and that, along with the extracurricular reading I’ve been doing on this topic, has enabled me to finally reconcile what I couldn’t in my teen years when I first fought with this problem.

- 2 -

If I am gay, and God – through His written word – has condemned what I am as a sin, how can I be His child and serve Him as he commanded me to do? That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with anew for the last few months. I began this new journey in last September with the premise that I was born gay. I’ve believed that my whole adult life. I proceeded from that assumption through all of my reading and research these last few weeks. But if God made me this way, why would He then condemn as an abomination the very thing that I am? Is He not contradicting Himself? How can this be?

Pastor Sjostrom asked that very question in our second talk. He then went on to answer it by explaining that my unnatural desire for the same sex was a cause of the Fall, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what led their descendants to the sins of idolatry, fornication, sexual perversion, and many, many others. Yes, I was born gay. But that’s not how God made me. There’s a very distinct difference.

His explanation corroborated what I have come to discover in the last couple weeks as I’ve read Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church from the Counterpoints series. Author and editor Preston Sprinkle gathered four prominent Christian authors, scholars, and theologians to discuss this issue – two for and two against. I will not go into great detail of what these authors debate and discuss, mainly for the sake of page and time, but also because this issue is not anywhere near as complicated as it seems.

All four of the contributing authors to the Two Views book have used the following Bible verses/passages as the foundation of their arguments:

1.) The creation story in Genesis 1 and 2.

2.) Genesis 19:4-11 (Sodom & Gomorrah)

3.) Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

4.) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

5.) 2 Corinthians 5:17

6.) Romans 1:18-32, emphasis on verses 26-28

7.) 1 Timothy 1:9-10

Those authors have also drawn from extra-Biblical material such as the writings of Philo, a Jewish historian who was a contemporary of the apostle Paul; the Apocrypha; the writings of Saint Augustine; and various other books – most written in the last 50 years – on sociology, sexuality and anthropology in the ancient world.

Here’s an example of one of one of the arguments for the church’s endorsement of homosexuality. One of Two Views’ contributors, Megan Defranza argues that there were many people in Biblical times that were born with no distinct male or female genitalia or other defining sexual characteristics. These “intersex individuals” were often referred to as eunuchs by the people of that time, and many of them were used as sex slaves. Megan claims that Genesis 1 is “…a theological account describing creation in broad categories, not an exact scientific inventory of all of God’s good creatures.” She goes on to say that Adam and Eve were not the exclusive, ideal models for all of man and womankind. They were, rather, just the broad categories; that the birth of eunuchs and other such of types of intersex people prove that God would welcome the church’s acceptance of gays, lesbians and transgenders since they have been born that way, and their sexual desires are natural to them. She claims that God was not condemning the eunuchs and other similar people in those verses/passages I listed above. Those condemnations were for the ones who had turned deliberately turned away from God to worship idols and indulge their sinful lusts.

There’s a lot more detail to Megan’s argument, especially regarding the eunuchs and their forced sexual slavery to their male masters, but it’s not worth going into here. The other three contributing authors give similar arguments, citing external sources in addition to scripture, to support their particular view. Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes, the two that are opposed to the church’s condoning of homosexuality and gay marriage, give the stronger of the four arguments. Two Views opens with Megan’s and William Loader’s essays (the other author who falls on the affirming and open acceptance side of this debate), but by the time I reached the end of their arguments, I already knew which side of this issue I was going to fall on.

Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes – as well as Pastor Sjostrom – present a much stronger, sounder case for why the Christian church, no matter the denomination, should be condemning ALL forms of homosexuality as clearly as God does. My own Bible reading and prayer showed me this after only a few weeks. I don’t really need to read all the other books on this topic to know the truth. To be completely honest, I had a pretty good idea of what the end of this journey would look like before I even started it. All the verses from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and 1st Timothy that deal with this specific issue are quite clear. It is stated over and over: homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God. Paul stated it best in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

That word “effeminate” in the KJV is translated from the original Greek word that Paul used: arsenokoitai. This is a compound word: arsen – male; koite – bed. “Male bedders”, in other words; those men who sleep with other men. In the NIV translation, the word “effeminate” is replaced with the phrase “men who sleep with other men”. The only other passage that Paul uses that word is in 1 Timothy 1:8-10 (NKJV):

“But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine…”

The meaning of these two passages is quite clear: those that practice any or all of those sins listed will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are not true believers and followers of Christ. And thus, any church that not only allows its homosexual members to remain in their sin, but also performs gay marriage, is not a true church of God.

And such were some of you.

God has commanded those that follow Him and declare His name to turn from their wickedness and be transformed. Those that believe on His name and repent of their sins will no longer practice those sins listed in the passages I quoted above. That’s the meaning of the phrase, “…and such were some of you.” Well, I have definitely been transformed. I can feel the Holy Spirit working in me. And, because of that, I have no other choice. If I am to be faithful to my Lord and Creator, if I surrender myself completely to His will, I must take a vow to turn away from my sin nature. I cannot indulge in the “lusts of the flesh”, as Paul says in Romans, if I am to call myself a true Christian. I am now a child of God, and His will alone must govern all I say and do.

But, even more important than those passages I listed and quoted above, is the book of Genesis, chapter two. God created Adam first and then He decided it wasn’t good for man to be alone. So God made the woman out of Adam’s rib, and he called her ‘Eve”. Then, in verse twenty-four, God said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This chapter, more than any other passage in the Bible, clearly and explicitly demonstrates what God had intended from the very beginning. The only natural desire of the flesh was for the opposite sex: man for woman and woman for man. That was God’s original plan.

Unfortunately for us, Adam and Eve did not resist the serpent’s temptation to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After the Fall, their perfect, pure natures were corrupted by sin, and that corruption was passed unto their children, and their children’s children. Part of that corruption was the perversion of the natural, normal sexual desire. Men lusted after men and women for women. Even though the subsequent passages in Genesis which describe mankind’s deplorable state before the Great Flood never state it specifically, it is not unreasonable to assume that more than just homosexuality was a problem. Bestiality, pedophilia, rape and incest were very likely abundant among the first few generations of man, as well as the worship of false idols and complete rejection of God. Why else would God have felt the need to punish his creation by wiping them from the face of the Earth, save for Noah and his family?

As the old saying goes, ‘God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’. I’ve always hated that pithy, snarky retort whenever I had to defend my sexuality to anyone who tried to tell me I was living in sin. But it’s true. God created only Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve; not Melissa and Eve; not Adam, Eve, and some other non-gender, non-binary person.

Just Adam and Eve.

Man and woman were joined in holy matrimony and, until the Fall, they lived in perfect peace and union with their Lord and Creator. Anything that deviates from that original, holy standard that God still demands of His children today, is a sin. That includes homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, incest, idolatry and devil worship, to name a few. Anyone that willfully practices or engages in any of those things and does not repent cannot call himself a true believer in Christ. Nor can any church that not only openly endorses homosexuality but also performs gay marriage can call themselves a true church of Christ.

So then, what now? If I accept that my sexuality is a byproduct of my sin nature, and that God, in fact, did not make me this way, how can I best serve Him? I’m still gay. That hasn’t changed. (And, yes, I’m sure. I’m watching last week’s episode of The Resident as I write this. Matt Czuchry and Manish Dayal are among the best male eye candy on TV right now.) I still desire a physical relationship with another man. (Either of the aforementioned actors would be especially nice.) But that desire – as well as the act – is a sin. God has made that clear in his Word. After some more talk with Pastor Sjostrom, I finally came to an answer – or, at least, part of one.

- 3 -

I mistakenly assumed that after I asked Christ into my heart, after I surrendered myself to God, that my sin nature would be transformed. I thought what many torn, conflicted gay Christians and their family have thought: with enough prayer, genuine repentance, and strong faith I would no longer be a homosexual. God would change my unnatural desire, and I would be sexually attracted to women instead of men. I would throw out all the symbols of my gay pride that I had collected over the years – t-shirts, bracelets, baseball caps, the rainbow colored Apple watch bands – and I would begin my new life as a heterosexual man. 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Yes, it would be hard at first, but God and I would make this work, glory hallelujah amen!

But that’s not how salvation works. Yes, there was a transformation, but not quite the kind that I was expecting. It’s hard to put into words exactly what I felt in the weeks and months following that quiet prayer on that car ride home from work late the night of September 17, 2020. I knew for sure that something was different. To begin with, there was an almost instant peace and calm that settled over my entire being. All the anxiety, the fear, and the worry about the state of the world around me that had been plaguing me for many weeks melted away. In its place was a quiet, firm assurance that, no matter what happened from then on, I was in the hands of God. He would take care of me.

And then, in the days and weeks that followed that moment of salvation, I began to feel more than just spiritual peace and tranquility. The first was a hunger – an insatiable, ravenous desire to read my Bible. I had only the app on my iPad, and I started with Genesis 1. Every night, before bed, I would read two or three chapters. And then I would pray. It was awkward and nothing like the prayers that I heard time and again from my dad or my teachers in high school or my pastor back then. I stumbled over my words, I repeated myself, I kept forgetting what I wanted to say. And I still felt weird doing it. It was like I was talking to myself. But I kept praying nonetheless.

Gradually, as Christmas loomed closer and closer, and the more I read my Bible and talked to God, I felt something stronger inside of me. But it wasn’t anything physical, like an emotion. It was…something else, something in my soul. I imagined this new feeling as a few drops of red ink falling into a bowl of clear water. At first, the drops fall straight down, coloring only a little bit of the water. But then the ink begins to slowly spread, crimson tendrils that stretch outwards, eventually turning the whole water into the color of blood. That’s what it felt like was happening inside of me. My soul – the very thing that made me me was being changed from the inside out. And it felt damn good!

It was after my Christmas vacation, after ten days of rest and relaxation with my family in Idaho, that I noticed an even bigger change. When I returned to the daily grind of my two jobs, I realized that my whole attitude – and, by extension, my whole outlook on life – had been transformed. I was no longer the angry, anxious, frustrated, fearful man that was always pissed about something – usually the people who were my customers. Before, I was short tempered, impatient, always inwardly complaining whenever those around me were being difficult or annoying me in some way. Now, however, I was at peace. The difference in my new attitude from the old was as glaring as night from day. I greeted my customers with a smile. It was no longer an effort for me to be patient with the difficult ones. Nor did I feel the need to rant and rage on social media about the problems of the world, as I had been doing practically non-stop before I became saved.

It was like being wrapped inside joy, as if joy was something tangible – like a big, soft, warm blanket fresh from the dryer. I had to constantly check my reflection because I was sure I had a giant, stupid grin on my face all day long. And that feeling only got stronger the more I continued to read my Bible – now an actual book that I had bought from Amazon – and pray. That, too, was getting better. I no longer stumbled over my words or forgot what I wanted to say. The hunger to know God, to build a new relationship with my Creator, overshadowed everything else in my life. I lost interest in many of the things that had once taken up all my time, like watching TV or playing video games. All I wanted to do every night when I got home from a busy day was to open God’s Word and keep reading.

But there was one thing that didn’t change during all of that wonderful transformation. I’m still gay. The desire for that sin is still there, as strong and lustful as ever. Everything else about me seems different. I am, indeed, a new creature in Christ. So why am I still gay? Why is this particular thorn still lodged firmly deep in my flesh?

I still don’t have an answer. But I do have a theory. The transformation of the new believer in Christ is not like wiping the old operating system of your ten year old iMac. With a computer you can install a whole new operating system that’s free of the bugs, viruses and malware that plagued the old system. The hardware is still the same old hardware, but the software is brand new. Your computer has been transformed. It performs and operates like a new machine.

But we humans are not machines. We are creatures born of the Fall. Being saved in Christ has made us like new, but the old self – the old, corrupt nature – is still there. The old operating system hasn’t been wiped away. Rather, the new OS is now installed, and the two systems are at war with one another. Why is that, I wonder? Why doesn’t God simply transform our sin nature by wiping it way when He fills us with the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t that be easier – and more complete – than forcing us to constantly battle our old selves in order to remain faithful and obedient to Him?

The honest answer is, I don’t know.

What I do know is that God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen not to remove this particular thorn in my flesh. I am still gay.

The thorn in my flesh. Yeah, that phrase sounds familiar. In fact, it’s been rolling around in the back of my brain for several weeks now.

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul writes of the “thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan sent to buffet me.” Those four verses, more than any other Bible passages that I’ve read and also read about, have continued to echo within me ever since the beginning of this journey. Many pastors and scholars agree that that the thorn Paul speaks of was of a spiritual nature, not a physical. Paul says that he “…besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.”

The thorn in my flesh.

What if I am in the same seat as Paul? What if my sexuality is the ‘thorn’ in my own flesh?

I think that part of the reason that God doesn’t just snap his fingers and wipe away our old self is because, without those old, sinful desires and temptations, we wouldn’t continually come back to Him for mercy, grace and forgiveness. It might have taken a little longer for me to surrender if the outside world hadn’t melted down last year, but I have no doubt now that God has always been working in my life, and He wants my love, worship and obedience. My homosexuality is a reminder from Him that I have a choice: I can give in to my sin nature and indulge my own desires, or I can turn from the flesh, take up my cross daily, and follow Him.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our sin nature, and He knows that when times are good, when everything is going our way, we often forget Him – just as the Israelites did over and over in the Old Testament. We get wrapped up in our daily lives, turn away from Him, and give our worship to false idols instead; or we just pay Him our weekly rituals and sacrifice on Sunday, and then put aside our Bibles until the following week. But it’s during the times of adversity, when God allows the trials and tribulations of life to afflict us, that we come to Him. We seek Him because He is our only source of comfort and peace. The storms in our lives remind us that God alone can save us, can heal us. Our afflictions draw us closer to Him. And, if we remain faithful to Him, there is much reward for our devotion and service. When the storm has passed, we often find a rainbow.

The rainbow was God’s covenant with Noah and his descendants that God would never again destroy the world with a flood. In our modern world the homosexual revolution of fifty years ago took the rainbow as a symbol of pride and diversity. When I entered my adult life as an out and proud gay man, I, too, adopted the rainbow as a symbol of pride in myself. I vowed to live my life on my terms, and I wouldn’t be cowered or ashamed into silence about who I was, of what I had been born as. But, of course, I have renounced all of that since becoming a new child of God. It is NOT my life, but His as a gift to me. I live now in complete service to Him, and Him alone.

But I’m not quite ready to throw away my rainbow bracelet that I wear on my right wrist every day. It is still a symbol to me – and to everyone I meet in daily life – but not the one that it used to be. I have found a new place beneath the rainbow created by God in the aftermath of that flood in Genesis. The peace and reconciliation I have long sought has been found at last, and the rainbow is a symbol of both my old life and my new one in God’s service. I don’t find that conflicting at all, just as I have no problem calling myself a gay Christian. Until such time as God, in his perfect timing and wisdom, decides to change my unnatural desire completely, I will always be a gay Christian, and the rainbow will be a sign of my personal covenant with Him.

The process of reconciling this issue, the spiritual traveling and soul searching that I have done over the last few months, has shown me clearly that God is my Lord and Savior. He has allowed this affliction so that I would do the work that I needed to reconcile what appeared to be a crisis of faith. I wouldn’t have experienced personal growth in my life – and my faith – without this conflict and pain. Yes, it has been painful. Peeling back the faded scars of old wounds wasn’t not all pleasant. I had to go back to that fifteen-year-old kid and have a long talk with him. (See section 5 of this post.) I wrote letters to my parents and my three brothers, apologizing for the way I treated them all those years ago. I have recognized how selfishly I have been living my adult life, and the pride of my old nature has screamed fiercely whenever I bow my knee and my heart every morning in prayer. There is now a fight within me – the old nature vs. the new self – that will never let up until I die. And, sometimes, that fight will be painful. And yes, I already know that there are times when I will fail, when I will give in to the temptation to break my new vow with God. But that failure is not as important to God as whether or not I stay in the fight. And I will stay. I’m in this for the long haul, and I know without a shred of doubt that God is on my side. He wants me to succeed.

Hallelujah, amen!

- 4 -

Most of you have seen my post on Facebook from three days ago. My only answer from God to this twenty-four-year-old conflict has been a call to celibacy. Until such time as he chooses to change my sin nature, to change my unnatural desire into a natural one, I have made the following vow to Him:

I take a vow of celibacy before God; that I have surrendered my life and my will unto Him; that I will not give in to the temptations of my sinful flesh; that I recognize my homosexual desire as a sin in His eyes, an abomination caused by the Fall; that He has saved my soul from eternal damnation, and I owe him nothing less than my whole heart, soul and mind.

I take this vow on the 3rd of February, 2021.

Amen.

- 5 -

I read a long time ago – probably in a textbook somewhere in college – that one of the tools therapists and psychiatrists use in their counseling of patients is to have their patients write a letter to their past selves. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I wrote letters to my family to apologize for how I had wronged them in the past. After some more thought and deliberation I decided to write one more letter, this time to that fifteen year old kid that used to be me.

At first, I thought this a stupid idea. I mean, how much more clichéd can one get? Plus, I’ve already treaded into dangerously melodramatic waters in this post. Is yet one more emotional, sappy passage needed?

Ehhhh…yes and no. Turns out, I had a lot more to say to myself than I thought at first, and, son-of-a-gun, I did feel remarkably better afterwards. Guess there was some genuine, therapeutic value to this little exercise after all.

So…here it is.

Hello.

It's been a long time.

Yes, I see you. You've been there all along, but only recently have I begun to really see you. You've been with me my whole adult life, affecting me, shaping me in ways I never realized until now. I thought I left you behind when I left high school. At various times in my life since, I've judged you, shunned you, tried to erase you, or just simply ignored you. I could never understand why you never had the courage to speak up, to ask for help. There were a few adults – or even your friends – who would have very likely sympathized and tried to help you. All you had to do was say something! But you didn't. You kept your secret, protecting it, guarding it like Gollum with his precious ring. I was the one who eventually had to reveal the secret to those around me when I was old enough and no longer ashamed of what I was.

But now I realize that instead of judging you and blaming you, there's one thing that I should have done long ago. I never said, “Thank you.” Thank you for giving me the strength and courage to step into the world as a confident, independent adult. It was because of you, what you went through silently as a teenager, that I developed the strength and resolve to live my truth as an adult. It was because of you that I knew what I wanted in life. It was never my desire to just go with the flow, to blend into the crowd and do whatever everyone else was doing. I did my own thing. And yes, it would have been better if I had been living that truth within God's will, but God, in His infinite wisdom, decided not to work His will just yet. He chose to wait while I forged my own path.

Part of me wishes that I could go back in time and be the adult that you needed. I would have embraced you, told you that you weren't a mistake; that God loves you just the way you are, including being gay. And, deep down inside, you knew that you were loved. Your parents told you that every day. But you always had that sliver of doubt in the back of your mind.

“Would you still love me if you knew my secret? Would you still accept me if I was gay?”

I, the adult looking back at you across the gulf of years between us, know the answer to that is a resounding “Yes! They have always loved you, no matter what!”

Part of me also wonders how our life would have been different if you had reached out to the one person that understood what you were going through; the one that knew your pain – and your secret. It was He that made you, after all. What I can see so clearly now is that it never occurred to you to reach out to God. You only knew Him through the church, through your teachers, through your parents, through all the endless rules, and restrictions, and demands that they all placed on you. That's what you rebelled against. God, to you, was just a system, an institution that governed every corner of your life. That institution would never understand your secret, would never accept you for the real you.

But He was there all along. He was there on those nights when you cried yourself to sleep. You were struggling to understand your pain, to understand the turmoil inside you, but you didn't have the words or the wisdom or the experience to fully realize it all. All that you knew was anger, frustration and fear. But God understood you, and He was there in the darkness, crying with you.

I want so badly to be there now, to wrap you in my arms and wipe away your tears and tell you that everything will be okay. Because it will be. You can’t see it now, but things will get better. You will find a way through this, and you will emerge on the other side with a strength and resolve that you never knew you had within you. The rest of your life is an as-yet-unwritten map of joys and blessings, failures and setbacks, triumphs and successes that will make all of this suffering worthwhile. You will know happiness that you couldn’t dream of – most of it found within the family that you don’t understand or get along with now. (There are 10 nieces and nephews that think you’re the greatest uncle ever, for example.) God has a plan for you, and, like the father of the prodigal son, He will be there with open arms when you finally come back home. He will accept you, just as you are.

But all of that is for later. For now, just know this: the storm will pass, and there will be peace.

You will find your rainbow.

#christianity #life #personal growth #homosexuality #gay

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hunnybadgerv · 4 years

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Fly High, Fly Free | Far Cry 5 | Leah Rook

Summary: John extends an invitation that Leah cannot resist, but nature intrudes, presenting a detour that isn’t entirely unwelcome.

a/n: I decided that it might be a lot of fun to give these two the first tastes of a relationship before they end up at odds. Again, my deepest and most sincere thanks to @amistrio and @chyrstis for betaing this for me. Their insight and suggestions have been so helpful, and really helped me gain confidence with this piece and with writing John, especially.

Full Story on Ao3

Fly High, Fly Free

-1-

The sun hung high in the clear sky as the afternoon pressed onward. Adrenaline pumped through Leah’s veins as she watched Helena slip away beneath them and the mountains poke through the trees. There was no place more beautiful, she thought. Shifting from side to side, she stared out of the cockpit of John’s plane. The area, familiar as it may be, took on a whole other nature from this altitude. The glassy surface of a lake reflected the puffy clouds in the blue sky. Pale dirt roads spidered over the hills to destinations unknown as they disappeared into thick stands of dark green evergreen trees.

The offer to fly her home for the weekend seemed a little over the top at first, but the tone of his voice when he suggested the idea made it impossible to turn down. Plus, the opportunity to cut her commute from 3 hours to 30 minutes made the proposal as tempting as the man making it. She had to admit that giving him her number had been the smartest decision she made in the last six months.

John Seed was tall, lean, and handsome with a pair of baby blue eyes she could just drown in. Even better, he proved to be a gentleman and a breathtaking kisser. Leah sat back in the rear seat of the antique plane and shifted; a part of her was sure she could feel the condom she’d stuffed in her pocket before she headed out to her truck. Maybe she was jumping the gun, but she was into him. And he seemed to like her, too.

The awe and elation that came with the flight did nothing to quell her clashing feelings; the enthusiasm and anxiety battled within her over what might happen later. She didn’t know if she read too much into the way things were going between John and her. Sure, she’d been raised in the church, went to Sunday School and services every week with her family, but John’s religiosity far outstripped hers. To top it off, his brother was a pastor from what she’d been able to glean from their talks. Of course, there was also the chance that she’d misread every sign that seemed to hint that he might be ready to go to the next level.

With a shake of her head, she rolled her eyes at her own adolescent thoughts.

“Leah.”

God, I love the way he says my name, she thought.

“Leah!”

With a start, she sat up straighter in her seat. “Yes, John. Sorry. I was … distracted.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” There was a hint of glee in his voice when it filled her ears again through the headset. “It’s beautiful up here.”

Little did he know she wasn’t distracted only by the scenery beneath them. Her attention flicked forward, catching a hint of his face in the small rear-view mirrors near the control panel in front of him. She had no idea what it might actually be called, but that seemed as good a term as any.

Damn those sunglasses, she thought. She would have loved to know if he might be sneaking a peek at her, like she was at him.

“It really is,” she agreed.

“See that stick in front of you?”

“Yeah,” she said, scrunching her eyebrows together.

“Grab it.”

“Why?”

“Just hold it steady.”

She did as he asked, but only because she had an inkling about what he might be planning. “John, I do not know how to fly.”

“It isn’t difficult. Just keep the position fixed.”

“John.”

“It’s fine, Leah. I have faith in you.”

Guess it’s great that one of us does, she thought as she stared down at her hands. Her grasp was so tight on the yoke that her knuckles were turning white. The possibility of moving it the wrong way and sending them into that glassy lake they’d passed scared the shit out of her. “John?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know how to fly, John.”

“Flying is the easy part,” he told her in a relaxed tone. “Actually, the trickiest thing is getting into and out of the air. Once you’re up here, though, it’s a total dream. Just keep your heading.”

“John! Don’t you dare let go of that stick!” Leah yelled.

“Let go?” he said. Damn him, she could hear the smirk in his voice. “I haven’t been flying this plane for at least three minutes now.”

“What?”

His hands rose high enough for her to see them from her seat. “See? It’s so easy, you didn’t know you were doing it.”

“You put your hands back on those controls,” she admonished, aiming for stern castigation that came out more like stark panic.

John, unperturbed by her tone, threaded his hands behind his head. “But this is so relaxing.”

“For you, maybe.” She could feel the tension building in her shoulders. A quake trickled down her arms to her hands, which telegraphed into the movement of the aircraft. “Christ,” she hissed under her breath. Leah tried to correct every single little tremor.

“Ease up a little. Not so tight,” John instructed, his voice buttery and soothing. “You don’t drive with a white-knuckle grip. You shouldn’t fly with one either.”

Leah Rook knew stubborn when she saw it or heard it; hell, she could be as bull-headed herself. Despite his reassuring tone, she recognized the fact that he bore no intention of rescuing her from this fresh new hell. No, John would not give this up until she tried to fly the plane, actually tried. Leah sighed and summoned up the will to address the anxious tightness creeping through her upper body.

“If you push away from you, you’ll tip the nose downward. Pull back and our altitude will rise. If you want to bank left or right, do it gently. If you bank hard, you could take us for a real fun spin though.” He said it like the move might be something worth trying.

“I don’t think so,” she said flatly, disagreeing with every fiber of her being.

“I thought you said you were adventurous,” John chided.

Leah laughed tensely. “Adventurous is rock climbing or base jumping. Putting your plane in the hands of someone who has never flown—that’s just foolish.”

“I disagree. You’re doing a great job.”

“Not sure your insurance carrier would agree.” She could feel the shaking of the muscles in the front of her shoulders, but a slow, smooth movement of the yoke kept it from being quite as obvious.

“Well, then they’re fools. I trust you with my plane and more,” he admitted.

Leah’s eyes shot up toward those mirrors. He didn’t look like someone who had said something they didn’t intend. Of course, that observation didn’t make her brain restart in a timely manner. She just blinked, once, twice. “Glad you approve,” she managed to mumble around her own myriad of thoughts.

John chuckled; hands still folded behind his head like he was just enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon as the world slipped by beneath them. He was silent for a time, then spoke up again. “Take a look at those dials in front of you.”

Peeking up at him in the mirror again, she noticed he’d slid his sunglasses back into his hair and looked right at her. Her green eyes lowered once more, skating over the panel with the ease of someone held at gunpoint. John proceeded to talk her through a basic understanding of the dials and knobs, then directed her through an easy bank onto a new heading.

Flying got easier after that. It still intimidated her, but Leah felt the tension easing gradually. She piloted the plane for about ten more minutes before John finally sat back up again. “Want to try your hand at a landing?”

Fuck no!

“I’ll pass,” Leah told him a little tightly.

“All right then. Let me take her,” he said in a smooth tone.

“All yours.” She let go of the stick like it suddenly burned her, holding both her hands up in surrender as she sank against the back of the seat finally.

He landed them at a grass covered dirt strip carved out of a thick section of forest. It was bumpy, but she blamed that on the locale, not his skill. Once he’d taxied toward the hangar, they disembarked, and Leah waited to get both her feet back on solid ground before she hauled off and punched him in the shoulder—it wasn’t hard, but it was more than just playful.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Leah lectured, wearing a bit of a pout as she crossed her arms over her chest.

John chuckled and pulled her toward him. “You’re a natural.” His arms folded around her in a gentle embrace

“Don’t try and butter me up with compliments.” Leah narrowed her green eyes in a failing attempt to be upset with him.

He brushed her chestnut hair behind her ear, then let his fingers trail down the length of her neck. “I would never.” The seriousness in his tone didn’t match up with the mischievous look in his blue eyes.

“Uh-huh.”

John pressed a gentle peck to her pouting lips.

For the moment, that appeased her reproving gaze. Of course, John Seed was quick on the uptake; reading people seemed to come naturally to him. He did it again, letting his lips linger on hers with each subsequent chaste peck.

Eventually, Leah leaned into his embrace and slipped an arm around him as she cast a curious glance around them. “Where are we?”

“About halfway between Helena and Fall’s End.”

She raised her eyebrows at him in an effort to get him to be more forthcoming.

“It’s a little duster strip. Doesn’t see a lot of use these days.”

“Mmhmm. And you just happened to stumble across it?”

“Or,” John replied in a sing-song tone, “the owner’s a friend.”

He kissed her on the tip of the nose, and she pressed her hands over the soft blue fabric of his vest. She liked being in his arms, feeling him close.

“So, what are we doing here?” she asked tugging at the top button.

John’s index finger curled under her chin, lifting her lips to his again. “I told you we’d get dinner.” His words were as slow and gentle as his touch. He took her hand in his and led her toward the hangar.

“I don’t see any restaurants,” she said as they strolled across the ground.

“Nope.”

“Then how do you propose to get dinner? Little late in the day for hunting,” she joked. “And I left my rifle at home.”

“There’s a pond not far off.”

Leah’s pace slowed. He can’t be serious.

John grinned at her as they neared the building. In disbelief, she looked away. She could fish, but it wasn’t really something she enjoyed all that much. That’s when she noticed a picnic basket sitting atop a workbench on the back wall.

“John?” Her voice came out somewhere between curious and surprised.

“I’m kidding.” He gave her another crooked, beautiful smirk, squeezed her hand, and led her deeper into the hangar. “For someone who likes adventure, you ask a lot of questions.”

Leah giggled. “Blame the training,” she chided with an easy shrug.

“Here.” John picked up a thick blanket and handed it to her. She had to let go of his hand in order to carry the weighty coverlet.

John went to the refrigerator in the corner and pulled out a dark bag with a long handle that he slung over his shoulder. Leah leaned toward him and raised her eyebrows trying to catch a peek in the fridge and see if there was anything else of note tucked away inside.

“You know they say curiosity killed the cat,” he teased, closing the door again quickly.

“They also say that the future belongs to the curious. The ones who aren’t afraid to try life. Explore it, poke at it, question it, and turn it inside out.”

John’s gaze on her held a gentleness as he leaned against the table. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard that one.”

Leah grinned at him. “Well, I also had a teacher in middle school who told us that curiosity was the wick in the candle of learning.”

He laughed softly. “Take it I’m not the first person to point out that trait.”

She smiled widely, with a healthy trace of pride, and shook her head at him. “Not even close.”

Picking up the basket, John held his empty hand out for her to take. Leah did and laced their fingers together, but she curtailed her questions for the moment in order to just enjoy the quiet, the landscape, and the company.

Read the rest on Ao3

#Far Cry 5 #Far Cry 5 fanfiction #John Seed #Leah Rook #Badger Scribbles #Snippets #Huge thanks to my brilliant betas #Feel free to leave a comment #I love those #Thank you so much for reading #This story does include some steamy bits #but I left those out of the snippet #You can find that in the full story on AO3 #Thanks again!

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love-bokumono-fics · 3 years

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WIP Wednesday - Friends of Mineral Town Part 1

But I also want to take time to feature some of the WIPs that haven't been updated in a little bit, but still deserve some time in the spotlight.

Part 1 of WIP Wednesday is going to be the first 10 fics showing up on AO3, and Part 2 will be the next 10 fics!

Happy reading!

Do you have a FoMT WIP that didn't get featured today? Drop the link to it in a Submission box! We're always happy to feature submissions!

Pot-Puri - by Sakrovishte; WIP, 5/?, 14k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, A Wonderful Life

Relationships: Pete | Jack/Popuri, Muffy | Muumuu/Pete | Jack; Characters: Popuri, Pete | Jack, Muffy

Additional Tags: First Love, Love Triangles, Jealousy, farm struggling

Summary: Chickens and chicken eggs were all Popuri knew. She knew a simple way of life. A good life but there was always that little voice that cried out inside of her.

Doug's Inn - by FriendOfBats; WIP, 3/?, 10k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Cliff, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley, Cliff, Rick, Popuri, Kai, Gray

Additional Tags: POV Multiple, Drama & Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Eventual Romance, Bittersweet, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, Bad Decisions, Slice of Life, Angst, Character Development, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Secrets

Summary: Claire "Shelly" McPherson decides, once and for all, to leave the big city and her past behind her. On a whim, she buys a one-way ticket to Mineral Town and books a reservation at Doug's Inn. It's there that she meets new friends and discovers, in the idyllic little town, the secrets that everyone is harboring... secrets not even the town bartender has heard about.

Sakura Sisters - by LuluRuru; WIP, 4/?, 12k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationship: Ships will be revealed soon!; Characters: Claire, Naomi, Brandon, Cliff, Doctor | Trent, Gray, Kai, Rick, Elli | Elly, Jennifer, Karen, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Popuri, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Mineral Town Residents

Additional Tags: Family, Slow Burn, POV Alternating, Updating tags as I go

Summary: Mineral Town is the destination for these two sisters. Claire appears dainty and sweet but really is childish and a loudmouth. Naomi appears shy and uncaring but is perceptive and a go-getter. The two of them are here for different reasons, but both of them have to manage Sakura Farm together. Will Claire be able to find her childhood friend and the boy who saved her? And will Naomi be able to find her true calling in life? The road ahead will be tough, but these two can do anything if they put their minds together. After all, that's what sisters are for, right?

Wildflower - by EmeraldHaze15; WIP, 7/?, 14k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationship: To Be Decided; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Harris, More to come, Basically the whole of Mineral Town, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Popuri, Rick, Mary the Librarian | Marie

Additional Tags: Tags Contain Spoilers, Abusive Relationships, Running Away, Bruises, Hurt/Comfort, mentions of prior abuse, Emotional Scarring, Trespassing, Domestic Violence, Pseudonyms, Tags Are Hard, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Mineral Town, Peril, No Smut, Panic Attacks

Summary: The world is a scary place, especially when Claire is all alone. But maybe she can begin to heal in a little place called Mineral Town... Rated 'M' for heavy, dark themes and emotional trauma

Barriers - by krose13; WIP, 23/?, 165k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon DS Cute

Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Gray, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff; Characters: Claire, Gray, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Kai, Karen, Popuri, Mary the Librarian, Rick, Basically the whole Mineral Town cast, plus Forget-Me-Not Valley

Additional Tags: Drama & Romance, Complicated Relationships, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Not for the kiddos, Fluff and Angst, Jealousy, Unplanned Pregnancy, trying to fit a realistic pregnancy in hm time is a challenge but we doin it, POV First Person, Mutual Pining, Drug Use, Dreams and Nightmares, Drowning, I’ll probably have to add more tags as we go along but

Summary: Unlike everyone else in town, Gray wants nothing to do with the new farmer. He can't stand Claire, despite all her attempts to befriend him. But when one small mistake leads to an even bigger problem, he might be seeing a lot more of her than they both had planned.

A Blacksmith's Guide to Happiness - by Practicado; WIP, 42/?, 242k

Rating: Explicit; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Gray, Claire the Farmer/Doctor Trent

Additional Tags: Love Triangles, Sexual Content, Virginity, Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, Angst and Humor, Healing, Romantic Friendship, Sarcasm, Love, Friendzone, Jealousy, Falling In Love, Religion, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Complicated Relationships, Trying to make these relationships as realistic as possible LOL, dry humour, like a lot of it, Really don't know where I'm going with all of these tags lmao, Age Difference, But the main character thinks it's okay bc she's naive, but everyone else knows better smh

Summary: Rough city boy meets innocent farm girl. Disagreements, conflicts, and trials that threaten to come between them ensue. Gray is a cynical blacksmith apprentice who's been around the block a couple of times. Claire is a naïve farmer who doesn't even know where that block might be located. Both have suffered from a pain-filled past, yet they learn to heal with the help of each other. Despite their continuous fighting and inability to see eye to eye, something beautiful still manages to blossom between them. That is, until a certain doctor enters the picture. Slow-burn romance containing explicit language, sexual content, serious character development, and an overuse of sarcasm. Takes place in the aughts: Mineral Town, 2004

The Wayfarer's Way. - by callieicos; WIP, 12/?, 52k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town

Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, I'll add more tags the more I write, Slice of Life, Eventual Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Pining, Hurt/Comfort, Reunions, Character Development, Neurodiversity

Summary: Traveling to Mineral town was a huge change for Cliff. Whether that's a positive change or negative one is beyond him. Still, he makes the most of his stay and along the way, learns to open himself up to others again. Claire, Mineral Town's newest resident and farmer, is learning how to become more independent, while also finding people who accept her. Together, Claire and Cliff learn to become friends and get a feel for their vastly new lifestyles together.

The Shy Newcomer - by durotos; WIP, 122/?, 565k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Categories: F/M, Multi

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Cliff; Characters: Claire, Cliff, Gray, Karen

Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Romance, Coming of Age, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, very slow burn, PROBABLY THE SLOWEST BURN EVER, Multiple Pairings, Mental Illness, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism

Summary: Claire, aching for something new in life, moves to Mineral Town and realizes at once that she has left everything she has ever known. At heart, a story about a young woman discovering that there is more to life if she just looks around her. A story of true love, friendship, hard work, and being part of something bigger than yourself.

Summer Days - by fieldberry; WIP, 9/?, 20k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Kai, Claire the Farmer & Kai; Characters: Kai, Claire

Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Eventual Romance, Drama & Romance, Drama, Romance, Slow Romance

Summary: Claire isn't sure what to expect when she risks it all and moves to the countryside--certainly not a handsome, charming young man watching stars on the beach one lonely night. A spark ignites between the two ex-city folk, and through the ups and downs of the following summers, grows into something much more.

Seedlings and Sprouts - by TheBeckster; WIP, 10/?, 8k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: Gen, Multi

Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Story of Seasons (2014), Star Wars, Trio of Towns, The Tale of Two Towns

Relationships: Carter/Doctor | Trent, Claire the Farmer/Cliff, Fritz/Raeger, Gotz/Vesta

Characters: Cliff, Claire, Doctor | Trent, Carter the Pastor, Fritz, Raeger, Gotz | Gotts, Anakin Skywalker, Beru Whitesun, Owen Lars, Georgia, Iluka

Additional Tags: yes this collection includes a star wars crossover, Tumblr Prompt, prompt collection, I'll figure out tags later

Summary: A collection of tumblr prompts I've filled over the last couple years based on Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games. Every chapter is a different prompt. Should be posted in chronological order from oldest to newest. Prompt themes and ships will be included in the chapter titles.

#wip wednesday #harvest moon #story of seasons #friends of mineral town #sos fomt #fomt #story of seasons friends of mineral town

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