Listen, Learn & Love Hosted By Richard Ostler

My friend Shannon Sears (age 51, out in 2022, father of three, lifelong church member with decades of church service, divorced, no longer active LDS) joins us to share his story. Shannon hopes that sharing his story will “help younger queer people see themselves as God sees them.” Shannon talks about how he felt not only broken, but “irreparably broken” and how he “never really thought of himself as gay—just terribly flawed”. Shannon shares 35 years of feeling this way (from being a young teen until the age of 50) and the immense and inescapable shame he felt for being gay (even though he was trying to be perfectly obedient). Shannon talks about how the shame kept him from feeling joy and peace in his life and falsely believed that God couldn’t love him. Shannon talks about feeling suicidal and close to acting on that plan—but praying to God and asking how God felt about him and receiving a powerful answer “I love you. I never intended to fix you. You are not broken. They may not want you, but yo