![sexy hung gay men tumblr sexy hung gay men tumblr](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4e/1a/ba/4e1abaaa2484a862fb9e2f35609eec18.jpg)
God would watch after me, too, so long as I believed in him. Jonah and Daniel and Mary Magdalene were brave, humble, and saved by their faith. We prayed about whatever was on our minds or in our hearts, so I usually prayed for Mamaw and that no one else in my family died.Īs odd as I thought Patti was-she always looked like she’d been crying right before you walked in-I was drawn to the way she told those stories and how their kind messages applied to me. Patti shared stories about God that made me feel better about wherever heaven was. I’d mostly write letters to my Mamaw, who’d died a couple years before sometimes I’d write letters to God, asking why he’d taken her. At my first session, she gave me a journal with a dolphin on its cover and told me I could write anything I wanted inside. Patti taught us in the basement, furnished with papasan chairs and a small table. Then her daughter and I played in the backyard until her dad got home from his mortgage-company job, and Patti climbed back into her bed, which had the most pillows I’ve seen in one place. Patti made us lunch, and we had Bible study while we ate. My mom dropped me off on her way to work. I spent so many summer weekdays at their home, which was decorated with an alarming number of dolphins. When I was eight, I started attending the Bible-study group she held for her daughter. She lived in a nice brick house at the end of a long gravel driveway with a weeping willow in the front yard. Patti had frizzy blonde hair and fibromyalgia and an unshakable fear of the year 2000. But the side of me that is Christian-the word I use most easily to describe myself-stumbled over my words, trying to find one specific anecdote that would make that question make sense. I understand why you’d ask the question.įor my every East Tennessee impulse to defend my faith, I have what is now an equally strong New York impulse to talk on past these moments. I could practically hear the youth pastors from my past speak in unison, “ How blessed to be in this moment, provided through the grace of God, where this young man has queried you about your faith.” As we stood there, chatting over a cubicle wall and sipping on expensive promotional liquor in CVS plastic cups, my colleague said, in what amounted to nothing short of an invitation to put evangelicalism in action, “I just don’t understand how someone could believe in that.”įormer me would have mounted a spirited reply, but I’m not former me. The party line is that the only way to the afterlife is through Jesus, and the only way to Jesus? Well, it could be through me. It’s been years since I’ve considered myself evangelical, but the indoctrination is hard to shake. But I’d been trained for moments like this. It’s not something I am particularly vocal about, but it’s also not something I’m not vocal about, you know? In some ways, I think of it as doing improv or supporting the Patriots: If you talk about it in public, get ready for eyes to roll. A guy at work recently asked why I’m Christian.