{"id":3792,"date":"2026-07-18T04:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T04:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3792"},"modified":"2026-07-18T04:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T04:10:12","slug":"opinion-love-is-not-agreement-how-to-cherish-someone-you-disagree-with-deeply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3792","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Love is not agreement \u2014 How to cherish someone you disagree with deeply"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sometimes the people we love change in ways we don\u2019t understand. They tell us things we wish weren\u2019t true. They challenge beliefs that feel fundamental to who we are.<\/p>\n

Read more Massive 7.3 earthquake hits Mexico: Here\u2019s what we know<\/a><\/p>\n

In those moments \u2014 feeling pulled between our convictions and our relationships \u2014 what in the world do we do?<\/p>\n

I meet people wrestling with this question frequently. The pain such tension generates often pushes them down one of two \u201cquick\u201d paths: drop their convictions or drop their relationships. <\/p>\n

Sharon Morris, 80, and her 42-year-old daughter, Anne Marie Denman, followed a slower and harder road somewhere better. <\/p>\n

And as I learned in my conversation with them for the \u201cA Braver Way\u201d podcast, that road began with a rupture neither of them had any idea how to heal. <\/p>\n

\u2018I had to obey God\u2019<\/h3>\n

When Sharon first heard her daughter was coming out as gay, she described writing to her, quoting scripture and \u201cbasically saying how wrong this was,\u201d recounted Sharon, a lifelong Catholic in Ohio. \u201cAnd I remember Anne Marie calling me back and just bawling, crying. She was devastated by my reaction, and I really didn\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharon asserted her convictions to her youngest daughter, the \u201cangel\u201d of the family, who once had plans to become a nun. But her daughter responded not with repentance, shame or apology but with pain. <\/p>\n

The confusion this mother felt as a result led her to call her son, Jonathan, a Catholic priest. Everyone in the family was so close to Anne Marie. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to lose her, Mom,\u201d he told her. \u201cShe needs your love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fueled by this conviction, Sharon joined Anne Marie, then a 26-year-old lawyer, in something deeply uncomfortable: a series of weekly breakfasts where mother and daughter tried to abide a difference neither was sure would resolve. <\/p>\n

One time, Anne Marie was so upset she walked out of the restaurant. Sharon thought she\u2019d lost her for good, then watched, relieved, as her baby girl reentered the cafe and sat down. <\/p>\n

Years passed with neither woman changing her mind about faith or sexuality. But the hours they spent wrestling this rift together showed them something important.<\/p>\n

They each learned, without a doubt, how desperately the other wanted to hang on. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnne Marie had a girlfriend who became serious,\u201d Sharon recalled, and Anne Marie invited her mom to meet her. \u201c\u200aMy husband told me that I should not go, that that wouldn\u2019t be good. It would just be encouraging her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharon saw good sense in her husband\u2019s counsel. Before the breakfasts, she might have followed it. <\/p>\n

But now she was feeling a different, more challenging message from another trusted voice.<\/p>\n

Read more Her mac and cheese is top-ranked on Google. Now this Utahn is competing on national TV<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI had to obey God,\u201d Sharon said. \u201cAnd what God was telling me was that I needed to go and love who she loved to understand her.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she did. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got out of the car and I felt an image of Christ walking beside me and taking his hands.\u201d When she saw this woman, Sharon said, \u201cI loved her with the love God had for her. I had eyes to love her that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018That was his way to try to love me\u2019<\/h3>\n

When Anne Marie\u2019s parents and six siblings learned she had come out, they each disapproved. She didn\u2019t just see them as family then \u2014 \u201cThey were my best friends,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Would she need to grow apart from them to build the life she wanted?<\/p>\n

Anne Marie worried she would \u2026 and hoped to God she wouldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

Her mom, she knew, was trying to understand her. Meanwhile, her dad, whose charity and hospitality was legend in his community, kept giving her books urging her to reconsider.<\/p>\n

Anne Marie would take the books \u2026 and thank him. She threw them away later, but never let him know.<\/p>\n

I asked Anne Marie why. She said she felt her dad had \u201cdeveloped a view of the world that, in my view, drew premature conclusions on certain things, but that also had a lot of wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I try to \u2026 let him be himself and not toss out all of it, even though some of his conclusions caused a lot of pain to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did she need to argue, Anne Marie wondered? He already knew where she stood. Over the years, father and daughter had built the capacity to disagree fiercely and honestly about anything, including politics and sexuality. (Anne Marie, to her conservative parents\u2019 chagrin, is politically independent, leaning left.)<\/p>\n

So in those moments, Anne Marie could look past the books to the person handing them to her \u2014 a father trying to stay faithful to the deepest truths he knew \u2014 sharing, as he often did, what had given his life so much meaning. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was his way to try to love me,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Anne Marie\u2019s ability to see her father\u2019s gesture this way meant the world to Sharon. <\/p>\n

The choice to look again and again at each other, honoring both their convictions and their relationships, changed everything. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope in my life I can see people more and more as who they are,\u201d Sharon said, \u201cand not just some figment of who I think they should be.\u201d <\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Moana\u2019 exposes the limits of Disney\u2019s remake machine<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When beliefs clash, we might feel pressed to choose between convictions and relationships. One family found a better way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nOpinion: Love is not agreement \u2014 How to cherish someone you disagree with deeply - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3792\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opinion: Love is not agreement \u2014 How to cherish someone you disagree with deeply - American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When beliefs clash, we might feel pressed to choose between convictions and relationships. 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