- Joined
- Dec 10, 2019
- Messages
- 3,005
- Gender Pronouns
- She, Her, Hers, Herself
- Gender Identity
- Female
Three years ago, when I came to the conclusion that running from my need to transition would never end, except in suicide, I made the acquaintance of a now good friend. She was a mature transgender woman in her 60s, who had been further around the block than me. And she was a well educated Christian full of faith and full of the Spirit.
I was telling her how I didn’t want to go on, I didn’t want to face what lay ahead of me. The rejection, the loss, the hate, the agony of being something despised. And she told me something that I will never forget. She told me about how she faced the same fears and doubts, and almost killed herself rather than go forward with transitioning. But she ended up living, and came to the realization that she was the way she was for the sake of helping others like her. All the sorrow, all the pain, all the wounds, made her the perfect woman to minister to others feeling the same pain. She said, “this is what I was saved for, this is why I survived. And now I have great joy in it”.
I was thinking about that conversation today, and it reminded of a section of the Bible that speaks well to the endurance of us who keep going to show love to those who are hurting. It’s been three years now since I had that conversation, I am now among the survivors helping those tossed in the waves. And every time I know that I have made even a small difference in a person’s life, it brings me so much joy that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t lived.
Hebrews 12:1-3
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
I was telling her how I didn’t want to go on, I didn’t want to face what lay ahead of me. The rejection, the loss, the hate, the agony of being something despised. And she told me something that I will never forget. She told me about how she faced the same fears and doubts, and almost killed herself rather than go forward with transitioning. But she ended up living, and came to the realization that she was the way she was for the sake of helping others like her. All the sorrow, all the pain, all the wounds, made her the perfect woman to minister to others feeling the same pain. She said, “this is what I was saved for, this is why I survived. And now I have great joy in it”.
I was thinking about that conversation today, and it reminded of a section of the Bible that speaks well to the endurance of us who keep going to show love to those who are hurting. It’s been three years now since I had that conversation, I am now among the survivors helping those tossed in the waves. And every time I know that I have made even a small difference in a person’s life, it brings me so much joy that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t lived.
Hebrews 12:1-3
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
