Love Between the Lines

Yesterday a dear friend received a letter from her granddaughter announcing that she is “transitioning” from female to male. As the granddaughter embraces a new identity, she wants to be called by a new male name. As you might imagine, this is a hard pill for this precious family to swallow. In her brief initial response to this young woman, the grandmother expressed her undying love for her granddaughter. Wow, what was once only a theoretical possibility – somewhere “out there” in our culture – is now knocking on many of our own doors.

For my blog posting today, I thought that I would share with you my response to the grandmother. Perhaps this will help some of you who find yourselves in similar situations and conversations. (I have changed both names for everyone’s protection.)

Dear Beverly,

Amelia’s sin is just like everybody else’s: blinding. She is no worse than I. We all think that sin will grant us liberty and happiness, but it always delivers bondage and sorrow. We can trace it all the way back to the first lie in the Garden: “Did God REALLY say …?” Nothing has changed about the nature of our underlying rebellion against our Creator – only the context of it has morphed into new levels of weirdness. Now we’re attempting to redefine male and female, and add a couple hundred other gender options while we’re at it.

You can tell from Amelia’s letter that she thinks she’s on the road to freedom now. Only God can open her eyes. Even secular authorities on the subject admit that people who’ve “transitioned” end up with some of the highest rates of depression and suicide. Amelia needs her family now more than ever.

Gender dysphoria is a real and tragic psychological condition, but unfortunately, Americans have decided to treat it with life-altering medicines and radical irreversible surgeries. This is sad on every level, and it demonstrates the pervasive fallenness of the human race. Sin breeds ignorance. We now have top scientists and government leaders denying the most basic biology.

Can you even imagine a medical doctor prescribing diet pills for an anorexic, or performing gastric bypass surgery on an anorexic, because the patient “FELT like they were fat”? He would lose his medical license and likely be jailed, for good cause. I only mention this to demonstrate that this “gender transition” craze is not driven by science or healthcare, but by a twisted ideology that has gained so much political power that it can nearly silence anyone who dares to question it. Two years ago a distinguished professor at the University of Louisville was effectively fired because he, at a professional seminar, dared to question the ethics of this movement.

No one should be angry with Amelia. Our hearts should be broken for her. She barely knows me, but I have been praying for her every day since I first learned she was struggling with this. Only the Lord can redeem this situation, and Amelia needs the Lord – just like I do.

You are right to express to Amelia your fervent love. You love her as unconditionally as a person can love unconditionally, and how blessed she is to have a grandmother who loves her like that! That doesn’t mean that you refrain from speaking the truth to her, at the right time and in the right manner, but you speak truth under the umbrella of grace. The Bible reminds us that God’s kindness produces repentance and that supernatural kindness is what you want to model. Good job.

The rest of us should be on our knees. The world is growing darker by the day, and our children and grandchildren will face deceptions and temptations we never imagined.

Come, Lord Jesus!

I hope that is helpful for some of you, or that it at least gets us thinking more deeply about a critical subject. Thanks for any input you have as well.

For grace and truth, with you,

Pastor Charles