"Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition Quotes

“People look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. If we insist on correcting the outward appearance, we will destroy our child’s heart. Your child’s faith is a precious thing. Don’t let it be destroyed.”
― Susan Cottrell, "Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition: Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith

“Faith is fragile, we need to protect it.” No one has the right to rip it away. Think about how kind Jesus is, always kind, to the down and out. He does not chide them for their lack of faith but encourages the faith they have. And he defends them from the religious ones imposing standards. To follow Christ is likewise to be kind to those who are struggling and to defend them against the religious ones imposing standards. Jesus had the harshest words for those who would rip away someone’s faith. “If any of you put a stumbling block [literally, “set a trap for them”] before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6). Don’t let that be you.”
― Susan Cottrell, "Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition: Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith

“Faith is a precious relationship with God, planted by deeply personal interactions directly with God, fed and watered by hope and joy. Faith is our birthright as human beings created in God’s image. Our beliefs are a different matter. Our beliefs, our rigidly held interpretations, become our prejudice, our harshness, our judgment. Every generation has had to face and dismantle false beliefs about the universe (that the earth is flat), about people (that women are “deformed males”), and about God (that God is all about rules, which Jesus handily dismantles).”
― Susan Cottrell, "Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition: Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith

“DON’T DESTROY YOUR CHILD’S FAITH My Christianity had died the death of a thousand nicks and cuts. —Bart Campolo I’m convinced that it is not the hard things our faith requires of us, some crosses we are unwilling to bear, that destroys our faith. It is the “thousand nicks and cuts” that hack away at us, day after day—the shaming from family, the disdain in our own church, the requirements of the leadership or the youth leader—that make our kids (or us) finally say, “I’m done.”
― Susan Cottrell, "Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition: Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith

“God is not grieved because of “all the homosexuals.” Not in the very least. That’s religious people you’re thinking of. If God is grieved it’s because the beautiful, incomparable message of redemption and grace, the sweet peace of a loving relationship, has been truncated, rerouted into a message of behavior-modification and sin-management. For”
― Susan Cottrell, "Mom, I'm Gay," Revised and Expanded Edition: Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith