#FromLabToLaunch

A poem I wrote to support this ministry-
They told me holiness looked like covered shoulders, crossed legs, and silence.
They handed me shame stitched into Sunday school lessons, wrapped in purity rings, threaded through whispers like: “Don’t tempt boys.” “Good girls don’t want that.” “Your body is dangerous.”
Dangerous.
As if skin could be a weapon simply for existing. As if a crop top could summon evil.
As if cleavage could cancel grace. As if desire itself was a stain too dirty for God to touch.
But tell me— who taught us to fear the bodies God called good?
Who decided holiness could not live in hips,
in thighs, in sweat, in longing?
Who decided arousal was rebellion? That nakedness was automatically shame? That sex only becomes sacred once the government signs paperwork and a pastor says amen?
Who made these rules?
Because I have read the stories. I have seen a God who sculpted flesh from dust with holy hands. A God who called creation good before a single thread of clothing ever existed.
Bodies were never the problem. Control was.
Society fears bodies it cannot police. Bodies that dance too freely. Bodies that love too openly. Bodies that refuse to shrink themselves into “appropriate.”
Appropriate according to who?
A culture that profits off insecurity while condemning pleasure? A church that teaches shame before anatomy? A world that sexualizes bodies and then blames them for being seen?
No.
I refuse to believe God created nerve endings by accident. I refuse to believe desire is demonic. I refuse to believe consent, tenderness, safety, respect, and love could ever be sinful simply because they do not fit someone else’s comfort zone.
If there is consent—real consent. If there is safety. Respect.Care. Love.
Then where is the crime?
Why are we still teaching people to fear themselves?
This ministry—this work—is about tearing shame from the altar where society placed it.
It is about saying: your body is not dirty. Your desire is not a curse. Your sexuality is not the opposite of sacred.
It IS sacred.
Holy does not mean untouched. Holy means worthy of reverence.
And bodies—queer bodies, fat bodies, disabled bodies, scarred bodies, trans bodies, aging bodies, desiring bodies—
are worthy of reverence.
Because God does not blush at the humanity God created.
We do.
And maybe it’s time to stop apologizing
for being alive inside our skin.
Maybe it’s time to preach a gospel where shame is not holiness, where purity is not fear, where sexuality is not exiled from spirituality.
Let’s commit to loving ourselves as God created us.

As good, as sacred, as sexual- as unashamed.
Maybe it’s time to remember:
Our bodies were never meant to be prisons.
They were temples.
Breathing. Feeling. Wanting.
Sacred.
May we learn to revere the first place we were ever created to exist in.

Our holy, sacred, and blessed temples.