What to Do When the Solution is the Problem?
Earlier today a friend of mine shared a post with these words, and they are good words. They were originally posted by a group that helps people in recovery. They spoke of how we weren’t designed to live alone or in isolation. How we all need community, and for those in recovery from addictions a Christian community that can help point them to Jesus for the strength to overcome what they struggle with.
I can’t disagree with that one bit.
However, I ALSO know that there are a lot of people out there, you may be one of them, who do feel some, most or even all of those things listed. I know certainly that I have in the past, ALL of them.
It’s an unfortunate truth that life isn’t easy for anyone, and Christ’s Church should be the very place to help people who feel downtrodden, unwanted or judged. People who are depressed, unloved or alone need community among Christians, where they can get support, where there are people to help them keep their eyes on Jesus.
When someone tells you that the way you are, the way you were born isn’t approved by God, that can really mess with you. Especially if you believe them.
When someone tells you that the way you are, the way you were born isn’t approved by God, that can really mess with you. Especially if you believe them.
But what is a Christian to do if the very source of their feeling defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed, unworthy and subsequent depression IS the Church?
For some of you, I know that it is. That you’ve been beat up by Christians telling you that you are being disobedient to God because you’re transgender.
Psalm 139:14 is a verse most of y’all have probably heard or know: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Some people don’t understand that each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made DIFFERENTLY. People don’t choose to be transgender and they can’t choose to NOT be transgender.
Sometimes Christians will be right up front and tell you what they think (and won’t even be very nice about it) while telling you to go away until you “get yourself right with God.”
Others will say they love you, that you’re welcome to attend their church, but they don’t approve of you. They don’t realize they are saying the same thing as those who won’t even let you in their front door. As Christians, the reason they don’t “approve” of you is because they feel God doesn’t approve, justifying their own opinions. It’s just a warmer and fuzzier way of saying God doesn’t approve of you, therefore we don’t either.
When someone tells you that the way you are, the way you were born isn’t approved by God, that can really mess with you. Especially if you believe them.
God DOES approve of you. He knows who you are, and people just don’t get that.
Many Christians are stuck on God created them male and female, and forget that when God created man, it was in a perfect world. Personally, I don’t have a problem saying being born transgender is a birth defect. It ISN’T normal, but it isn’t a sin either. It just is what it is. There are so many things that happen in the womb that we know nothing about, somehow Christ’s Church needs to come around and rather than scrape for verses to support something they don’t understand and like (the dictionary calls that bigotry), it needs to have the same love and compassion and approval for people who are transgender as it would for anyone not born as “wonderfully made” as others.
The Christian community is for some a part of the problem, but that same Christian community can be the solution for so many of their Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering.
