Love Without Asterisks

Love Without AsterisksA podcast that walks alongside families and friends navigating the tension between their faith, their beliefs, and the people they love.https://lovewoa.com/en-usWhen Beliefs Carry Too Much Weighthttps://lovewoa.com/blog/when-beliefs-carry-too-much-weight/https://lovewoa.com/blog/when-beliefs-carry-too-much-weight/Some beliefs don’t behave like opinions. They behave like load-bearing walls. Not because you’re stubborn, but because you were taught that if this wall moves, everything above it might collapse.<br/><br/><img src="https://media.lovewoa.com/images/blog/image.webp" alt="When Beliefs Carry Too Much Weight" />Thu, 18 Dec 2025 06:00:00 GMT<h1>Some beliefs don’t behave like opinions. They behave like load-bearing walls.<br><br></h1><h1>Not because you’re stubborn, but because you were taught that if this wall moves, everything above it might collapse.</h1><div><br></div><div>You can usually tell the difference by how your body reacts when someone asks you to reconsider them. Opinions can be revisited with curiosity. Load-bearing beliefs trigger something deeper: a tight chest, faster speech, a reflex to defend or shut the conversation down. Not because you’re stubborn, but because you were taught that if this wall moves, everything above it might collapse.<br><br></div><div>In my conversation with Sara Cunningham in <a href="https://lovewoa.com/episode/169785/part-2-the-redemption-from-heartbreak-to-a-global-embrace">Episode 2, Part 2 of <em>Love Without Asterisks</em></a>, we talked about load-bearing walls using construction language because it’s the most honest way I know to describe what so many parents experience when faith, identity, and an LGBTQ+ loved one collide. In renovation, you don’t casually remove a wall because it is inconvenient. You stop, study it, ask what it supports, and ask what else is running through it. Because load-bearing walls are rarely simple.<br><br></div><div>They almost always carry more than weight. There’s electrical wiring threaded through them, powering whole sections of the house. There’s plumbing hidden inside, routing pressure you never see until something leaks. Pull the wrong section without understanding what’s there, and suddenly the lights go out, water spews, and the damage spreads far beyond the original cut.<br><br></div><div>That is what makes these walls so hard to address in real life.<br><br></div><h1>For many Christian parents of LGBTQ+ children, the wall isn’t just a theological position.&nbsp;</h1><div><br></div><div>It’s connected to family systems, church belonging, social access, reputation, and fear of being cast out of a world that once felt safe. Scripture interpretations run through it. Political identity and generational expectations are wired deep inside it, along with voices from pastors, parents, and youth leaders still carrying current decades later.</div><div>So when a child or someone comes out, the wall doesn’t just feel inconvenient.&nbsp;<br>It feels dangerous to touch.<br><br></div><h1>This is where harm often enters quietly.&nbsp;<br>Not through cruelty, but through delay.&nbsp;<br>Through silence.&nbsp;</h1><div><br></div><div>Through well-intended caution that asks the child to wait while the parent “figures it out.” The wall stays intact, and the relationship absorbs the pressure instead. Over time, the child learns that belonging is conditional, proximity is risky, and honesty comes with consequences rather than the safety of affirming, unconditional love.</div><div>What struck me in Sara’s story is that the breakthrough didn't come from having every answer. It came from stepping into curiosity and action anyway. From realizing that love didn’t require the wall to be solved before it could be lived.<br><br></div><h1>That moment of Sara’s at Pride, which would later become the beginning of <a href="https://freemomhugs.org/">Free Mom Hugs</a>, wasn’t demolition.&nbsp;</h1><div><br></div><div>It was the first inspection.<br><br></div><div>Renovation language matters here.<br><br></div><div>Because the goal isn’t to tear the house down. It’s to stop letting one wall do harm simply because no one ever taught us how to examine it safely. Renovation honors the fact that some parts of the structure mattered while admitting that others are failing, leaking, overloaded, or misused.&nbsp;<br><br>And sometimes, when you finally open the wall, you discover damage that predates the current conflict: rotten framing, unsafe wiring, aging pipes that can no longer hold pressure or flow. Issues that have long been there, just hidden behind drywall and certainty.<br><br></div><div>That discovery can feel overwhelming. But it’s also where real repair begins.</div><div>And this is where Sara’s story becomes more than metaphor.<br><br></div><div>Because the most important thing she did that day wasn’t removing a wall. She didn’t finish the renovation. She didn’t resolve every wire, pipe, or pressure point running through it.<br><br></div><div>She stepped around it.<br><br></div><div>She offered a hug.<br><br></div><h1>That hug didn’t collapse her faith. It didn’t short-circuit her beliefs or flood the house with chaos. It did something quieter and more powerful.&nbsp;</h1><div><br></div><div>It relieved pressure. It created space. It allowed love to move through the structure without waiting for every question to be answered first.<br><br></div><div>In construction terms, a hug is a temporary brace. A short-term support beam. It holds what matters while deeper work unfolds behind it. It keeps the house standing while you learn what can change and what must be reinforced. It says, <em>You are safe here, even while we figure the rest out.<br></em><br></div><div>That’s the invitation Sara modeled so clearly through Free Mom Hugs and a life committed to affirming, unconditional love.<br><br></div><h1>You don’t have to resolve every load-bearing wall before you choose your child. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is place your hands on what matters most&nbsp;<br>and let love carry weight for a while.</h1><div><br></div><div>Because when a child feels held, the house does not fall.<br><br></div><div>It breathes.<br><br></div><div>And that’s often how repair truly begins.<br><br><figure data-trix-attachment="{&quot;contentType&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;filename&quot;:&quot;C9607B96-90E5-4004-B07F-DEDBE5D8DADE_1_102_a.jpeg&quot;,&quot;filesize&quot;:884871,&quot;height&quot;:1330,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1766090788646-C9607B96-90E5-4004-B07F-DEDBE5D8DADE_1_102_a.webp?content-disposition=attachment&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1766090788646-C9607B96-90E5-4004-B07F-DEDBE5D8DADE_1_102_a.webp&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:2364}" data-trix-content-type="image/jpeg" data-trix-attributes="{&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;My wife, Deziray, holding the original Free Mom Hugs button Sara made.&quot;,&quot;presentation&quot;:&quot;gallery&quot;}" class="attachment attachment--preview attachment--jpeg"><a href="https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1766090788646-C9607B96-90E5-4004-B07F-DEDBE5D8DADE_1_102_a.webp?content-disposition=attachment"><img src="https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1766090788646-C9607B96-90E5-4004-B07F-DEDBE5D8DADE_1_102_a.webp" width="2364" height="1330"><figcaption class="attachment__caption attachment__caption--edited">My wife, Deziray, holding the original Free Mom Hugs button Sara made.</figcaption></a></figure><br><br></div><h1><strong>Watch the story behind this reflection</strong></h1><div>🎧 Watch Episode 2, Part 2 | <em>The Redemption: From Heartbreak To A Global Embrace</em><br>🎙️ Listen wherever you get your podcasts<br>🌐 <a href="https://freemomhugs.org/">Learn more about Free Mom Hugs</a><br><br><br></div>RenovationDeconstructionReconstructionLGBTQ+ParentsParentingWhen Rescue Becomes Ruinhttps://lovewoa.com/blog/when-rescue-becomes-ruin/https://lovewoa.com/blog/when-rescue-becomes-ruin/Two parents from Oklahoma City, both raised in red-dirt faith, sit down to reckon with how fear once disguised itself as love. In this episode of Love Without Asterisks, Jeff Click and Free Mom Hugs founder Sara Cunningham revisit the moments when their instincts to protect caused harm—the silence, the scripture-quoting, the waiting for the “right time.” Through the imagery of wild rescues and circling hyenas, they begin to ask who the real predators ever were, and discover that fear, left unchecked, can wound the very person it meant to defend. What follows is a story of unlearning, new instincts, and a faith rebuilt on courage...the courage to stay close when fear says to step back.<br/><br/><img src="https://media.lovewoa.com/images/blog/WOA | FearLeadsRescueHeader.webp" alt="When Rescue Becomes Ruin" />Thu, 06 Nov 2025 06:00:00 GMT<div><br></div><div><br>In Oklahoma, conversations have a way of hanging in the air. Dust and truth both take their time to settle.<br><br></div><div>This month’s episode of <em>Love Without Asterisks</em> features <a href="https://www.instagram.com/saraphrased"><strong>Sara Cunningham</strong></a>, the affirming mother who founded <a href="https://freemomhugs.org/"><strong>Free Mom Hugs</strong></a>. This worldwide movement began the day she joined her gay son at a Pride Parade wearing a homemade button that said <em>“Free Mom Hugs.”<br></em><br></div><div>But before that moment of redemption, there was a reckoning.<br><br></div><div>In this conversation, two parents from Oklahoma City, shaped by the same red dirt and the same red-state religion, trace how fear can wound the very love it meant to defend. Different homes, different kids…but the same blueprint for what “good Christian parents” were supposed to do. When her son Parker came out at fifteen, Sara did what I once would have done too: reached for Scripture, for certainty, for the illusion of control, all with the best of intentions.<br><br></div><blockquote><em>“I shamed him with the very best of intentions,”</em> she told me.<br><em>“He sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and he just suddenly seemed to get so small. And I saw that — but I was too wrapped up in my idea of homosexuality. And I can’t forget that.”</em></blockquote><div><br>That’s the part that stops you cold as a parent. Because some of us have lived it, while the rest of us have feared what it would feel like if we ever did.<br><br></div><h1><strong>The instinct to protect</strong></h1><div><br></div><div>In our conversation, I shared a story about an Instagram account I follow, called <a href="https://www.instagram.com/natureismetal"><strong>NatureIsMetal</strong></a>. It posts clips that give followers an unfiltered look at wildlife in all its beauty and brutality.<br><br></div><div>Occasionally, a video will start with a newborn animal in view. It’s adorable at first until you notice hyenas or jackals are surrounding it. The offspring trembles, cornered and vulnerable. And then, out of nowhere, the parent charges in. Stomping. Kicking. Ramming with horns. Doing everything possible to drive the threat away.</div><div>It’s instinct. It’s love in motion.<br><br></div><div>That same instinct, holy in its origin, can turn harmful when it mistakes what’s different for what’s dangerous.<br><br></div><div>When I referred to this story in my conversation with Sara, asking her if she saw any parallels, she didn’t hesitate:<br><br></div><blockquote><em>“Absolutely,”</em> she said. <em>“I did some real damage. I said things and acted in ways I regret even today.”</em></blockquote><div><br>I remember that feeling. The panic of realizing my reaction to my daughter’s truth had more to do with me than with her. The fear of what others would think. The reflex to protect my reputation instead of her heart.<br><br></div><div>My wife and I did what so many parents from red-state faith backgrounds do: we hesitated. We waited for clarity, for certainty, for the “right” time to talk. We told ourselves we were praying, processing, protecting.&nbsp;<br><br></div><div>But the truth is, we were stalling.<br><br></div><div>By the time we came to the table, the hyenas were already circling. The statistics about LGBTQ+ mental health...the ones we’d once brushed past as distant or exaggerated...were now close enough to have names and faces. We were late to the work of understanding, late to the work of undoing what fear had built.<br><br></div><div>And that’s when it hit me: our silence hadn’t protected anyone. It had only given fear the first move.<br><br></div><div>And it makes me wonder:<br><br></div><div>Who are the hyenas?<br><br></div><h1><strong>Naming the real threat</strong></h1><div><br></div><div>We were taught to spot threats outside the circle...culture, media, influence, “the world.”</div><div>But some dangers speak in familiar voices. Some of them even speak our language, wear our smiles, and quote our scriptures.<br><br>And so we start to ask harder questions about who we were told to fear, and who we should have been protecting all along.<br><br>Are the jackals the <em>world</em>…the one we were warned would corrupt our children? Because if we’re honest, the <em>world</em> looks a lot friendlier to LGBTQ+ people today than most of the churches we came from.<br><br>Are they the <em>friends</em> or the other adults we quietly resented…the other LGBTQ+ people who saw our children when we couldn’t? The ones who offered safety when we offered silence?<br><br></div><div>Or maybe, the predators were never outside the circle at all.<br>Maybe they were our fears.<br>Our shame.<br>Our friends’ and family’s opinions.<br><br></div><div>When fear leads the rescue, it almost always does harm.<br><br></div><h1><strong>Learning a new instinct</strong></h1><div><br></div><div>Fear may lead the first rescue, but love holds hope that it can learn a new instinct over time.<br><br></div><div>New instincts aren’t inherited; they’re formed.<br><br></div><div>They take humility, exposure, and practice, the kind that comes from staying close to what we once misunderstood and letting compassion recondition our reflexes.<br><br></div><div>Sara spent six years in that wilderness praying the gay away, scouring bookstores for answers, and watching her relationship with Parker fracture under the weight of silence and shame. That reconditioning finally began the day he told her, “Mom, I’ve sucked it up for 21 years being your son. I need you to suck it up now and be my mom.”</div><div>That moment changed everything.<br><br></div><div>Today, Sara leads Free Mom Hugs, traveling the country officiating weddings for LGBTQ+ couples whose parents still can’t show up. Legions of moms (and dads) of LGBTQ+ kids march in Pride Parades worldwide, offering hugs to those who can’t count on one from their own parents. She’s turned her regret into restoration, her fear into fuel, her faith into a global embrace.<br><br></div><div>And in the next episode’s <em>Part 2, The Redemption</em>, we’ll explore what that embrace looks like, how Sara went from silence to standing in the front row.<br><br></div><div>For years, I thought faith meant control. Now I see it’s courage…the courage to stay close when fear tells you to step back.<br><br></div><h1><strong>Love deserves better than fear</strong></h1><div><br>I’ve come to see that our instinct to protect can only take us so far.<br><br>Love requires something deeper: presence, humility, curiosity.&nbsp; The willingness to learn even when the lesson costs us our comfort.</div><div><br>As Sara said,</div><blockquote>“To not seek understanding leaves only one choice: to remain in fear and ignorance.”</blockquote><div><br>And love…real love…deserves better than that.&nbsp;<br><br></div><div>Love doesn’t charge and trample; it stays near, steady and still, until safety returns.<br><br><figure data-trix-attachment="{&quot;contentType&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;filename&quot;:&quot;IMG_5706.jpeg&quot;,&quot;filesize&quot;:6184558,&quot;height&quot;:3099,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1762480719511-IMG_5706.jpeg?content-disposition=attachment&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1762480719511-IMG_5706.jpeg&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:5510}" data-trix-content-type="image/jpeg" data-trix-attributes="{&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Jeff Click with Sara Cunningham of Free Mom Hugs.&quot;,&quot;presentation&quot;:&quot;gallery&quot;}" class="attachment attachment--preview attachment--jpeg"><a href="https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1762480719511-IMG_5706.jpeg?content-disposition=attachment"><img src="https://media.lovewoa.com/attachments/1762480719511-IMG_5706.jpeg" width="5510" height="3099"><figcaption class="attachment__caption attachment__caption--edited">Jeff Click with Sara Cunningham of Free Mom Hugs.</figcaption></a></figure><br><br></div><h1><strong>Watch the story behind this reflection</strong></h1><div>🎧 <a href="https://lovewoa.com/episode/426136/part-1-the-reckoning-when-fear-delays-love">Watch Episode 2, Part 1</a> | <em>The Reckoning: When Fear Delays Love</em><br>🎙️ Listen wherever you get your podcasts<br>🌐 <a href="https://freemomhugs.org/">Learn more about Free Mom Hugs</a></div>EpisodeFearSilenceHesitationRisksSara CunninghamFree Mom HugsThe Asterisk Has Left the Launch Padhttps://lovewoa.com/blog/the-asterisk-has-left-the-launch-pad/https://lovewoa.com/blog/the-asterisk-has-left-the-launch-pad/The launch codes are in. Engines ignited. Love Without Asterisks has officially cleared the pad. Here is where I’ll share stories, reflections, and resources for the journey ahead. Sometimes it will lift insights discovered between episodes, stretching beyond the podcast, and sometimes it will simply pause to celebrate the progress we’re making together.<br/><br/><img src="https://media.lovewoa.com/images/blog/1759002292071.jpeg" alt="The Asterisk Has Left the Launch Pad" />Sat, 27 Sep 2025 05:00:00 GMT<div>The launch codes are in. Engines ignited. Love Without Asterisks has officially cleared the pad.</div><div><br></div><div>Here is where I’ll share stories, reflections, and resources for the journey ahead. Sometimes it will lift insights discovered between episodes, stretching&nbsp; beyond the podcast, and sometimes it will simply pause to celebrate the progress we’re making together.</div><div><br></div><div>For now, I’m asking you to join me in three simple ways:</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Subscribe to Metamorphosis | </strong><a href="https://LoveWOA.com/metamorphosis">My free 8-week email series</a> that guides you through a renovation of love...making space for your LGBTQ+ someone. Each email brings stories, metaphors, and reflections to help dismantle conditions and build deeper connection. Think of it as a blueprint for loving without exception.&nbsp; (An audio version is provided with each email if you'd rather listen to it than read it.)<br><br></div><div><strong>Sign up for Love* Notes | </strong><a href="https://lovewoa.com/lovenotes">Short, thoughtful reflections</a> and updates straight to your inbox. &nbsp; This is how you'll be notified of new episodes and content, as well as receive helpful references and resources for your journey.&nbsp; Consider it the heartbeat between the bigger stories.<br><br></div><div><strong>Follow on socials | </strong><a href="https://www.instagram.com/lovewoastx">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@lovewoastx?_t=ZT-905UVXXII3L&amp;_r=1">TikTok</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@LOVEWOA">YouTube</a> are where I’ll be dropping clips, behind-the-scenes moments, and sparks of encouragement to keep us connected.</div><div><br></div><div>And yes...the podcast is almost here. <strong>Episode One drops October 1, 2025 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.<br><br></strong><br></div><div><strong>🎬 Watch the Trailer</strong></div><div><a href="https://youtu.be/Cj8P6nTojSo">The trailer is live</a>—and it’s the best way to feel the heartbeat of what’s coming. Take two minutes, watch, and share it with someone who needs to hear that love doesn’t need fine print.</div><div><br></div><div>🎙 <strong>Episode 1 | Peter Fulmer</strong></div><div><a href="https://lovewoa.com/episode/the-signal-is-the-love">Peter brings us a story</a> rooted in the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius: <em>“The obstacle is the way.”</em> What began as a stumbling block in his worldview became a doorway into deeper love, resilience, and hope. This episode sets the tone for everything that follows—you won’t want to miss it.</div><div><br></div><div>🎙 <strong>Episode 2 | Sara Cunningham - Coming Soon!</strong></div><div>Sara is the founder of <em>Free Mom Hugs</em>, but before the movement, she was simply a mom wrestling with what love required when her son came out. Her honesty, courage, and humor make for a conversation that’s both disarming and unforgettable.</div><div><br></div><div>This is only the beginning. The rocket’s off the pad, and where it goes from here...well, that’s what we’ll discover together.</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Subscribe. Follow. Listen. And above all, love without asterisks.</strong></div>LaunchEpisode