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There is no formula for keeping love alive. There is no formula for building a relationship that will last or die when the time is right. So many couples I know read book after book filled with formulas about spiritual leadership, roles, and communication techniques. This doesn’t help anyone. Conversations informed by these books are more like an exchange between play actors than anything else. You feel fine letting the author’s words be your words, and this makes you happy because you finally fit into the mold of ‘successful relationship,’ when really all you are doing is trading in reality for pretend monologues. Reality hurts. It’s awkward, unpredictable, and often ugly. I would rather skip the script, accept reality, and know, without a doubt, that my love is real, true, and full, not the sum of the parts of a formula that someone else made up.
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Nook, G’night.
(via sweethomestyle)
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I’ve completed 16 years of Christian school, gone on mission trips, believed in miracles, partaken of the body and blood, worshipped in all of the main Christian churches in Rome, attended church weekly for almost 23 years, read tons and tons of literature on Christianity in my free time, and been surrounded and raised by Christians my entire life, and I don’t think I am a Christian. If I am a Christian, I am the fringiest of fringe Christians. I am not confident in my belief in a single one of the Christian doctrines. I have been more hurt by Christians than I have been helped by them. I believe that if salvation is possible, it will find me, but all the roadsigns in churches and Christian institutions along the way point away from Jesus and toward a bunch of weird rules that, frankly, I refuse to follow. I find no support or hope in the church at large. I’ve stopped being angry because the church is no longer my sanctuary, my home, or any incarnation of my place. For all I care, the church can spin into oblivion without me, because, lord knows, I will NOT be wasting my time trying to find goodness in an institution that breeds contemptuousness and hatred at every turn. I would love someone to show me where the good in the Christian church is, but I honestly doubt it is actually there.
Catrin Welz-Stein
(via hifructosemag)
(Source: naomicamp, via thenewwomensmovement)
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