And I continue to believe the best people are free.

Hi everybody, welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Today the hard thing we are going to be discussing is queerness and shame.

In particular, the kind of false shame that many of us learn from religion.

It's like we're handed this shame and we're told it's from God.

So we just take it without questioning it and we carry it throughout our lives.

And we end up walking through life a little hunched over, burdened, tired,

angry about all the heaviness.

My wife Abby, for example, she's a pro athlete, champion, a beloved leader, an American icon.

So many people adore her, people have been shearing her on for decades.

But right beneath the surface of her is a little girl who learned that God rejected her.

And she carries that bad news and her bones to this day.

As you will hear in this conversation today.

There's lots of laughter and lots of tears in our conversation today, so get ready.

Tears for me are a sign that the work is happening, that progress is being made, that healing is imminent.

It always makes me cringe when anybody says,

hush, shh, don't cry, don't cry.

Why on earth not?

Crying is organic baptism.

It's how we were made to feel it all and begin again.

Last week I heard Ashley Ford say,

we are never going to be okay if we don't talk about what hurts.

...