For almost 20 years, I have worked in ministry and as a therapist with men and women navigating sexual and gender minority experiences. Many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rightly seek to understand how God’s plan applies to sexual and gender minorities.
At the heart of these conversations is a question many disciples wrestle with in different ways: Does God’s plan really include someone like me?
It’s a question I’ve heard not only from sexual and gender minorities, but also from other single adults who wonder if marriage is in the cards for them, as well as those navigating divorce, infertility, disability or mental health challenges.
There’s a common but mistaken assumption that God has one plan for “cisgender heterosexual” individuals, and a fundamentally different plan for “LGBTQ+” individuals. This arises from the belief that sexual and gender minority experiences are so inherently different that it would necessitate distinct divine plans for each.
Although well-intentioned, this perspective risks further isolating already vulnerable sexual and gender minorities, overlooking the universal principles that apply to all of Heavenly Father’s children.
President Henry B. Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has taught, “a loving Heavenly Father has set the same path to happiness for all of his children. Whatever our personal characteristics or whatever will be our experiences, there is but one plan of happiness.”
“That plan is to follow all the commandments of God,” something that applies to all, “regardless of circumstances,” he added.
New openness, new tension
One young man I worked with, David, had always felt different, even as a child. While the other boys in elementary school bonded over sports and shared jokes, he couldn’t quite connect with them in the same way.
As he entered puberty, the gap seemed to widen. His friends began talking about their crushes on girls, but David’s feelings didn’t align. He started noticing other boys in ways he knew his peers didn’t. This realization was confusing and isolating. He had no reference point for his attractions, and the sense of isolation he experienced only deepened his feelings of shame.
Desperate to fit in, David buried these emotions and tried to live a life that seemed expected of him. But deep down, he felt like he was missing out on something important.
In high school, he met others who shared his experiences and began to see himself in a new light. Learning to name his feelings — being “gay” or “queer” — felt liberating.
Embracing this identity felt like a way to stop hiding and start living. He embraced pride culture and could feel the shame begin to melt away. He began to feel like he was finally being true to himself, and that he finally found a community where he was fully accepted for who he was. It felt like life was opening up, offering new experiences he had always been afraid to explore.
However, these new experiences were in tension with the teachings he encountered at church. Latter-day Saint teachings in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” — that marriage between a man and a woman was the only union ordained by God — sharply contrasted with David’s deep-seated feelings. The very idea of being romantically involved with a woman felt unnatural and uncomfortable to him.
The more he thought about his future, the more trapped he felt. Would he have to stay single and miss out on one of life’s most important experiences? The thought of an eternity alone, or in a relationship that felt forced, terrified him.
As these feelings deepened, so did his questions. Why would a loving God create him to feel this way, only to deny him happiness? David wondered if the plan of salvation could be bigger, more inclusive than what he’d been taught. Maybe it wasn’t him who needed to change, but the way people understood God’s plan?
This is when David began to think there was a different plan that applied to him, because the one he learned about at church sure didn’t seem like it did. As he moved forward in a direction diverging from his faith, he held onto the hope that, one day, his church community might recognize that his journey was also a path within God’s broader plan of happiness.
An impossible, forced choice
David’s experience is not unique. Far from abstract debates, these questions surrounding sexuality, gender, identity and faith are lived realities that impact individual hearts, family connections and sacred promises.
I fully acknowledge the complexity of lived experience in reconciling sexuality, gender, identity and faith — and the necessity of allowing sufficient space and grace for individuals to work out with the Lord what can be a very challenging and sensitive journey. Even so, my study and work of many years has left me ever more persuaded that the doctrines of marriage, family, chastity and eternal gender are life-giving and empowering when understood in their full depth.
Yet for too long, too much of this important conversation has been shaped by cultural ideologies that cast sexual and gender minorities as hopelessly trapped between faith and authenticity, while obscuring eternal truths. Such framings simply don’t do justice to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, which declares that every child of God can flourish, covenant and find joy in him.
David didn’t want to miss out on life’s experiences — romantic love, deep relationships or the kind of personal fulfillment that came from truly knowing and being known. At the time, the tension between compromising who he was, or living a life that didn’t give full expression to his deepest feelings, felt unbearable.
A surprising reconciliation
But over time, something in David shifted as he began to open his heart and mind to a new way of seeing and understanding his experience. As he began to appreciate how much contemporary cultural narratives and worldviews were shaping his understanding of his experience, he also started to give more earnest space for how a deeper understanding of the plan of salvation and a gospel worldview could provide greater meaning to his experiences.
Something began to shift, starting with a more intimate relationship with God and Jesus Christ. He began to see his experiences in a new light — with more perspective. Instead of seeing his life as a choice between being true to himself or obedient to God, he began to see how those two paths might not be as separate as they seemed.
The gospel, he realized, wasn’t just about fitting into a preconceived “mold”; it was about growing into his divine identity as a son of God with infinite potential, even if that path looked different from others — his own divinely “customized curriculum,” as the late-Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ, once called it. The teachings he had struggled with for so long started to take on new meaning as he started to develop a deeper, more personal connection with God.
The world told David that being “true to himself” meant giving expression to every natural feeling or fitting into the labels he had adopted in high school. But as he learned more about his eternal potential, he saw a different path — a way to live more honestly and authentically, not by rejecting parts of himself, but by embracing the fullness of who he was as a child of God.
David came to understand that the challenges he faced were not meant to exclude him from God’s plan of happiness, including the teachings in the Family Proclamation, but to refine him and help him grow in ways uniquely suited to his journey. As he grew more confident in his divine identity, the pressure to fit into a specific mold began to lessen, and he found peace in the knowledge that there is one plan of salvation for all of God’s children, and that plan includes him.
As David continued to grow in his understanding, he experienced a profound transformation. He began to focus less on the fear of missing out on certain experiences and more on how he could create a life as a disciple filled with meaning, purpose and growth. His value wasn’t determined by his relationship status, but by his divine potential to develop attributes like love, patience and compassion — recognizing that if the gospel is a gospel of love, then the invitation to surrender to God was an invitation to more love, not less.
Through prayer, study and a deepening relationship with Christ, David experienced what the scriptures describe as a “mighty change of heart.” His circumstances didn’t change overnight, but his perspective did. The despair he once felt about his future turned into hope as he realized that his story was still being written — and he could trust the story that God was helping him write. He didn’t have to have all the answers — he could trust that as his story unfolded, a brighter future would bring a resolution beyond anything he could currently imagine.
One of the most significant changes in David’s life was realizing he didn’t need to choose between pride and shame — he could let go of and transcend both. Instead of feeling like the church needed to change to accommodate him, he found peace in trusting that God’s plan for his happiness was greater than he could see right now.
This realization didn’t happen overnight, but as David learned to live in this space of trust and growth, he found himself free from the conflicts that had once weighed him down. He no longer felt the need to define himself by worldly identities and labels, but instead found his deepest identity in his relationship with God. And in this space, he discovered that the deepest parts of himself — his longings, his relationships, his struggles — could actually bring him closer to God, rather than push him farther away.
Joy you can count on
Broader cultural narratives often suggest that such alignment is impossible, or at least unlikely, arguing that the church’s expectations are unrealistic, unjust, or harmful. My conviction, born of years of study, ministry, and personal experience, is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches one of the most beautiful theologies in the world — one that, at its core, has the potential to offer immense hope and positivity, even as human beings navigate so many of life’s greatest difficulties.
The experience of my own life and so many others I’ve personally witnessed is that such flourishing is not only possible but promised — when our lives are rooted in Jesus Christ.
I have deep personal conviction that President Russell M. Nelson was right when he taught that “we can feel joy regardless of what is happening — or not happening — in our lives.”
Joy is not withheld until circumstances change. It is available now — in the wilderness, in unanswered questions, in discipleship that feels costly — because Christ, in his infinite love and enabling grace, meets us where we are.
As one Christian writer articulated, “Joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God.” Without a broader vision of flourishing, we risk building our lives around the absence of pain and distress instead of the presence of a fuller joy, meaning, growth and purpose.
As we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ this season, may we remember more than ever that he is the source of all true joy, the anchor of true identity, and the foundational hope that transcends every cultural tide. If we can learn to see ourselves and one another as Jesus does, we will discover that the gospel not only withstands scrutiny, but unleashes the most thrilling and life-giving possibilities for healing, growth and wholeness in him.