Happy National Coming Out Day! - Whitney Easton Is Silent No More

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Happy National Coming Out Day (NCOD)! To everyone who took the leap of faith and came out, congratulations to you! Today you did something courageous and exciting. Proclaiming who you love may it be someone specific that you're revealing or gender in general, I am proud of you!

For those of you who are not coming out today, I am also proud of you. Making a decision for yourself to stay closeted is also a huge decision to make. We might not know your reasons for it, but I chose to believe that you have very valid ones. I want to make sure that you know that there is space for you in this world to operate and be as unseen or low-key as you would like to be. When so many people today are waving the pride flag bright and high in the sky, there can be a lot of pressure to come out of the closet before you're actually ready. Not giving in to peer pressure, or the influence of society to do that is commendable and equally as courageous. I hope you know this too. Knowing who you are inside, even if only to yourself, is also a really great gift to yourself.

While today is Friday and we usually have a First Kiss Friday story for you, it's also NCOD. I felt it special to share someones coming out story with you all today! That is where my dear friend Whitney Easton comes into light. Whitney and I are very close friends. We talk just about every day of the week. She is one of the people in my life that I can call in tears, or full of laughs - she holds space for each for me. Having friends that offer this in the relationship is invaluable, I encourage you all to find that. Whitney is a Los Angeles based writer. She founded Wisdom With Whit, her freelance writing business where she writes about life, wellness, wholeness, and now, coming out of the closet in her 30s.

One thing that brought Whitney and me together the most I would have to say is that we are both LGBTQ Christians. What's that mean? Well, it's straightforward. We both identify as LGBTQ, and we are both Christians.

Here's the thing, though; when she and I met, she wasn't out at the time. I just knew that I had a friend who was a Christian and accepted me just as I was. Gay as ever... and I love God. I hadn't had any idea that this relationship I was benefiting from was also providing support for Whitney. I had merely been being myself, my vulnerable, authentic self. Isn't it amazing what is being woven together as we allow ourselves to be seen by others? Something takes place without us controlling the ship. The waves of life just do their thing.

As I said, Whitney is a writer, and recently came out to a few friends of hers (myself obvi included). She hadn't officially posted anything online or made any public statement about it until yesterday. That's when her article "I'm an LGBTQ Christian and I'm Ready to Start Talking" was released on the popular website "Medium." A subsidiary of Medium, "Our Human Family," commissioned her to write the piece. And my God, did she do the damn thing! This article is amazing! She speaks about her frustrations around the intersection of homosexuality and Christianity (something that often comes up on our show). What really moved me was where Whitney end's on her current relationship with God. And that, I will give you the gift of hearing for yourself.

Read Whitney's article online here http://bit.ly/2IHqQtT

Connect with Whitney online http://www.instagram.com/wisdomwithwhit

Whitney's website is https://www.wisdomwithwhit.com/

One Human Family has more articles from more writers here https://medium.com/our-human-family

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