Chris,

You don't know how much I have been grabbing hold of the words of this post.

Even when my church and wife have been against me accepting myself.... and I've really had to wrestle with it... I always come back to this:

"What we want to do is trust in Him. We aren't perfect, but HE is our perfection. We will never see perfection in this lifetime, but we don't have to...God understands us completely. "But isn't that just an excuse?" Not if you don't want it to be. To me it's more like a big, big relief! That my God is big enough to love me, accept me, and keep me in all my human weaknesses. Is He really that big? Yeah...I think He is. If He is really the God who created all there is, ever was, and ever will be....yeah, I think He is. And I think we, of all people, are just the kind of people Jesus would want to hang out with if He were to come here to visit. Absolutely."

AMEN! Preach it Brother!

Blessings and thanks
Cat.