Quote from: Anima on July 03, 2009, 06:41:51 PM
I feel that I can't just walk into a church and say to anyone that one of my biggest problems in life is that I am a guy and feel like I am a woman. Maybe 0.01% of the people would have something reasonable and non-judgmental to say, so obviously I would never take the risk of being honest and instead I would say that I'm depressed, like I say to most people.
One of the incidental problems of organized religion - and it's a function of human nature, not religion itself but the two together often produce some bad juju when mixed...anyway, the problem is one of expectations and facades. For all the (true) rhetoric about love your neighbor and grace...the human weakness is to elevate yourself be lessening others (true within and without organized religion.
The result of this is that very very few risk being truely authentic with each other (though it's talked about all the time). Most everyone wears a mask which lives up to the expectations.
What this means for you is this - the folks you are worried about being judgmental and stuff? THOSE folks are hiding something behind the mask too. Whatever they say in reaction to you, you have done something that would be a good example for them - you took off the mask.
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But is it ever mentioned in the bible that people should not feel like they feel they are something they physically is not? As far as I know God likes people that are honest. So why can't it be like that with everyone else?
(From a Biblical perspective:) because human beings are weak, failing, error prone creatures. It is, in the end, why we need a Savior and a God. One of the things that a lot more years and a little more wisdom has shown me is that other people need just as much grace as we do.
They just don't always know it.
I know maybe it doesn't work for everyone but the place I came to is a place where I'm taking off the mask. If I'm going to be judged, let me be judged for what I really am.
IMO, unless you have something you simply dare not lose, honesty is always best. Maybe even then.
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Anyway. I just wanted to write something to see if there is other christians that feel the same really. Not sure if I could write something more clever. Obviously not 
I definitely relate. I spent 20 years trying to adhere to the doctrine (of men I know believe) that what I felt was evil and perverted and that I could be delivered or healed if I just "got right" - I did everything within my abilities to be right and begged for that healing and it never came.
The thing is, all along that path I had to wear a mask. Present the right facade to those people around me who would have, at the very best, have pitied me for my weakness.
I don't blame them. they are products of the only worldview they have ever known. But it is what it is. To quote Jack "they can't handle the truth"
So yes, be assured, you are so not alone.
Post Merge: July 04, 2009, 03:47:50 PM
Quote from: heatherrose on July 04, 2009, 04:48:13 AM
I was going to go off on a tangent and rant
about the "Pointy Headed Sheeple" that claim
to be "Christians" and how they....
"I Am" is greater than my vitriolic ranting.
No matter what any say, she loves her creation and
will always accept his children as they come to him.
That's what grace is all about. At least, it's the only way the Biblical God makes any sense to me.
But I have to remind myself that just as I'd like the pointy-headed crowd to show me grace, I need to show them grace as well.
