I am a Christian

Some time ago my mom told me about this post called, I'm Christian Unless you're Gay. Those are pretty powerful words. The more I thought about them the more I realized that sadly, that is the mentality of a good majority of people. Those of us who are Latter Day Saints have been commanded to love everyone. But how often do we categorize our everyone down to a ridiculously small amount of people? Everyone doesn't mean only the people who talk the same way you do, dress the same as you, have the same religion, or moral standards. It literally means every single person on this earth. 

When I think of having to love everyone I sometimes become overwhelmed. I have the people I don't like and those who rub me the wrong way, but they are still people with feelings who need to be loved, just like me. 

Now loving doesn't mean we agree with everything a person does. Far from it actually. This Single Dad Laughing, author of I'm Christian Unless you're Gay, said it best,

"Come on. Don’t we understand? Don’t we get it? To put our arm around someone who is gay, someone who has an addiction, somebody who lives a different lifestyle, someone who is not what we think they should be… doing that has nothing to do with enabling them or accepting what they do as okay by us. It has nothing to do with encouraging them in their practice of what you or I might feel or believe is wrong vs right.

It has everything to do with being a good human being. A good person. A good friend.

That’s all."

One of the things we all want most in the world is to have a friend. To be accepted. To feel loved. In order to have these things we need to be willing to not judge, because we all do something that someone else will think is "different." He continues,

"Well, guess what.

There are things we all do or believe that other people consider “sinful.” There are things we all do or believe that other people consider “wrong.” There are things we all do or believe that other people would be disgusted or angered by."

Can any of you say you haven't done something others consider wrong lately? If so, I don't know why you're still on earth. Most of us would like to consider ourselves loving and caring people, but how many of us, whether it's knowingly or unknowingly think this way?

“Oh, but you’re not gay? You’re clean, and well dressed, and you have a job? You look the way I think you should look? You act the way I think you should act? You believe the things I think you should believe? Then I’m definitely a Christian. To you, today, I’m a Christian. You’ve earned it."

I hope I have never acted that way towards someone. The sad thing is, I probably have, but I've decided to work on it. I, Brittany Thompson, am going to work on being more accepting of others for their thoughts, personalities, and beliefs. Everyone deserves a chance. Everyone has something special to offer. I just need to do the digging and find out what it is.

Towards the end of the post he says this,

"...what you’ll find, and I promise you this, is that the more you put your arm around those that you might naturally look down on, the more you will love yourself. And the more you love yourself, the less need you’ll ever have to find fault or be better than others.  And the less we all find fault or have a need to be better than others, the quicker this world becomes a far better place to live."

I want to love myself more. I want to get out of the awful rut of comparing myself to others. I want to be a positive contribution to the world. If I can do that by loving others then I will.

A little bit of love can do A LOT of good.  

His post was very thought provoking for me and it made me want to be a better person. Here's the link if you'd like to read it. It's a little lengthy, but I would definitely recommend it! http://www.danoah.com/2011/11/im-christian-unless-youre-gay.html