I will try and explain later, but for now please pray for me, I need healing and endurance.
*hugs*
Kind thoughts, safe thoughts.
Whatever the problem is I wish you well, i hope you find strength and guidance heaped upon you
My life has been in a bad way this week. Started out getting sick due to allergic reaction to something in a blanket I bought in a thrifty store. I had to buy new blankets with what little I had left. Someone had stolen my sleeping bag, tent and umbrella. Same thief probably who targeted me before add I'm sleeping by the beach to save money and pay deposit on a place. So after I get sick, it gets cold and windy all week. Then I have the pleasure of getting sprayed by a skunk in the night as I'm walking to get back to sleep. UGH...... So then it really pours...
Decided to rain on me maKing me wet and cold with my stuff still smelly. On top of all of this I'm being questioned and attacked by strangers, family and friends. Friends are doing that Job thing to me accusing me of causing ALL of my own grief. Other family throwing it back at me that I'm not a two spirit...Not a woman...nothing except for what God made me. Then strangers attack me on a website I care not to name with even worse religious ideas that just hurt me to the core. I now find myself doubting my path again....EvEn though I have been feeling wonderful most of these 7 months. I wake up look at my body changing and get fearfull....worried about where is going...worrying about burning in hell...Even though during the day I'm fine and excited about my changes. I go to sleep now with others words in my brain. Gosh I'm a mess...and I can't do this much longer.....
Are you worried about burning in Hell because you're transgender?
I was brought up Catholic, and actually wanted to be a priest as a child. Honestly, this helped me to accept myself. Think of it this way: you have a choice to make. Either God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and therefore cannot make mistakes. Or there is no God. A "god" who can make mistakes is not the God of Christianity. So, if you believe in God, you must accept the impossibility for them to make mistakes. If you believe that God has any say in who you are, and thus actually cares enough to send you to Hell, then God knows and knew before your birth that you would be transgender (because this is simply a biological state). Can you imagine God creating anything specifically to condemn it to Hell? I can't. God knew that you would be trans, made you as such, and loves you as such. The important thing is *who* you are rather than what your biology is. Be moral, be forgiving, and don't judge too harshly - these are the things that are asked of you within the context of Christianity.
I know..and being intersex and two spirit is also something God knows about. I'm being accused ofc making a choice. I'm being told it's all a result of bEing mentally ill. I'm bEing told I'm bEing led astray. People won't accept that I'm happy and still a Christian. I guess part of me still accepts that as truth. But I have been Content and happy till now...especially wHen challenged about progressive Christianity.
I'm bEing battered by many things physical and mental.
Big Hugs. I agree don't be hard on yourself just because of what others are doing to cause you pain. It's not your fault. As someone else said, God made us this way and isn't a sin so you have nothing to be a shamed of.
Mariah
I don't see any reason to believe you or anyone else would go to hell just for being transgender. I haven't been able to find any Bible passages that condemn - or even mention - being transgender. Even if being transgender somehow is a sin (though I see no reason to believe it is), we still are all born sinners. If someone tells you that you are going to hell for your "sin" of being transgender, then, by their logic, they and everyone else are also going to hell as well.
The Bible makes it quite clear that some things are sinful. For example:
"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." - Romans 1:28-31 (ESV)
Some Christians may tell you you're going to hell for being trans, but how many of them have never felt envious of anyone or coveted anything? How many have ever acted with malice when they were angry with someone? How many have never gossiped? How many have never been boastful? How many have never disobeyed their parents? How many have never acted foolishly? And here's another good question - how many believe they're going to heaven? Chances are that they all believe they're going to heaven despite having committed most, if not all, of the sins listed here, yet they tell you you're going to hell for something that the Bible doesn't even say is a sin. That is not righteousness. That's hypocrisy. The first few verses of the next chapter reveal this:
"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and iforbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." - Romans 2:1-5 (ESV)
Towards the end of the next chapter is a message that's important to remember when you have doubts about whether or not you'll go to heaven despite being a sinner.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." - Romans 3:23-28 (ESV)
This passage makes it quite clear that, as we are all sinners, we ultimately receive our salvation as a result of our faith, not through living a sinless life (as living a sinless life is impossible for any human).
Perhaps these passages would be good ones to show to your family if they're acting judgmental toward you.
Hi Shawn. Just finished praying for you. You are fine! God created you as you are. Others will say things because it may not jibe with what they believe a Christian should be or look like. You are a unique individual that God has plans for. Life will throw some curve balls but we don't have to let them overwhelm us.
:)
Feeling better today....I'm letting go of people's flames....giving them to Elsa...heh
Good to hear! :)
I'm glad to hear it Shawn. Hugs
Mariah
I'll admit that I have no faith but as a teenager I was a member of a Pentecostal church and took part in street outreach, the church leaders always said that only God could judge, to presume the authority to judge others was clearly a sin.
I told the church youth leaders that I was gay rather than admit to being trans, they would pray for me but never judged me. They always said that Jesus died for my sins and it was for God, not man to decide on the fatre of my soul.
Anyone who sits in judgement of you is not worthy of your time or attention
Many prayers of hope and well being, as we are created in his image to fill the garden, when we pass from the garden to his realm and back we nothing more than the core of who we are, dang sure not this deformed mass of flesh, but pure energy and love. aligning this flesh to our core energy brings us closer to true life as we spend our garden time in this realm. as far as sins we have been blessed with the sacrifice and rising of his son in all of us for sin to be foregiven. I dont fear him nor feel that I am in sin for my belief that this path is by far better than where I was a couple years ago. I am once again walking on a lighted path with my spirit guides and god bringing comfort and protection to my spirit and soul
hope this may help open thoughts in a understanding of our connection between heaven and earth in a new light