I don't know why but these questions just keep running through my mind and the choices i make will affect how things go from here for me. 

First these are only my own thoughts and opinions. I may or may not be right but these are the questions i am having and to quiet them down i just need to ask them. So here goes......

What if God is willing to transform someone? Usually i too have asked to be changed overnight and of course it has not happened but what if it HAS to be a process which also would include the mental,emotional,spiritual and physical? I mean a total 100% perfect transformation overnight could have a number of down sides. (Would it involve a lot of pain that someone would have a very hard time with it as even the very bones and muscles would have to change a bit possibly after they have been set. And how much could there be when dealing with the gonads? Also how if it did happen overnight would you be able to prove who you are if no one else saw it happening?)
That being said then is it even possible? If God did create everything by His spoken word as is stated that happened in the biblical account. (Which does fit nicely with the mathematical formula for the theory of relativity. Speech creates sound waves which are a form of energy.  E=mc2.) If so that would mean that the one who created everything would know how all things work even down to the sub atomic particles and how they would go together and how to fix them because the one who created it would not be bound by the creation that He made. He would be able to change things because He would not be bound by the same laws of nature (He would be above and beyond it) that would seem impossible to my mind because that is not how things work in everyday life.
What would it take to believe that?  What would it take as an act of faith to act on it? How would it happen? Who would believe it? Anyone saying it is going to be thought of as either a lunatic,deluded or just plain mistaken by quite a few people (Not all by any means) Any one doing so is going to have to take a very large leap of faith into the unknown with very few guide posts along the way.
Who ever would go this way is going to most likely feel they are walking a very thin line or walking on very thin ice and may be isolated,ignored and down right ridiculed.

This is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak but i can't seem to turn them off and they keep coming around time after time.

Sarah.

If I may suggest, if a supreme being were to grant your wish to be completely and perfectly transformed, then surely it would be done perfectly?

Now, if that were to happen as a sort of mirracle, along the lines of one of the Biblical mirracles, then others would instanty notice. That would be concrete proof of the existance of the supreme being, which would defy the principal of not tempting God. Faith would be irrelevant since there would be absolute proof.

On  the other hand, if it were done so only your knew, then everyone ane everything you have ever interacted with would need to be changed also.

That leads to the metaphysical question, if you were to cease to exist, how many other things would also be different? This is generally posed as the point, that if someone were to go back in time and kill your grandfather, while he was still a child, you wouldn't exist and would never have existed.

Thanks Spacial,

Quote from: spacial on March 16, 2011, 11:28:39 AM

If I may suggest, if a supreme being were to grant your wish to be completely and perfectly transformed, then surely it would be done perfectly?

This is a good reminder for me that it would be perfect and that there should be no fear.

I think i do need to clarify one thing,as i do know God does not go around just granting wishes. If i believe that God has a perfect plan for me then i need to seek His will.  It only really leaves 3 ways of going,either i am to remain as i am at this point,or to trust Him to help me through the typical means of transitioning, or to trust Him to do so in a way that only He can do it.  All three have costs with them.

Could it be that God is telling us that He has already shown us enough that He is far more than able to do so, and He is waiting for someone to place it in His hands and to trust Him and Him alone to do it,which does mean giving up control of when and how it would work out. With the main purpose of given Him the glory as He is the only one who could do that kind of transformation.

Could be Sarah.

The perspective of some Hindu and Buddist groups is that God has given us our lives to improve and adapt. If you think about it, it's logical, otherwise we'd all still be living in trees.

Jesus certainly taught us to put our faith entirely in the hands of God. He cited the birds who are provided with the food they need. For my part, I have to confess, that I see most of Jesus' teachings as objectives. They mostly require an enormous leap of faith plus a lot of personal courage. I can only hope that I will achieve that.

I believe that Jesus also taught that our relationship with God was to be as personal as a little child before his loving daddy.
Which took me a very long time to accept. Being brought up in a very structured,ritualized, and with very rigid ideas from the time i was 2 and ended up going to parocial school in the same denomination,by the time i was 19 i was at a point that what i was seeing in the church was not what Jesus taught. I had seen more rejection,judgement and hypocrisy then i ever thought was possible. It also seemed that it was a formula and there was no reality. The love that Jesus talked about was not evident. Even so i still started down the path to prepare for seminary. I think now part of it was hoping to keep the GID under control. (Not really a good reason to try to become a pastor) After about a year of college i just couldn't do it anymore and i bolted from the church. Even so i kept being drawn back to Jesus not the organized church.  That was when i was about 21. (Between the ages of 20 and 24 i don't remember much only bits and pieces as there is a major block for some reason)


I had found that since then a lot of what i was taught i am finding was wrong,it's often based on human reasoning and at times there is nothing in the bible on what some things are based on. So i too am still learning and also relearning. A good reminder for me has also been that Jesus said to follow Him,not Billy Graham,Oral Roberts,Pat Robertson,Calvin, Wesley,Martin Luther,the pope,or any other person. I am to love them but to remember they are not perfect either.

It was kind of weird this morning as i know one of the things i need to work on is trust issues. We had just finished a bible study and the leader wanted to know what the group would like as a topic and wouldn't you know it the topic picked is trust. Which also is tied into faith,because if you can't trust then how can you have faith in the one that you need to trust?

The follow song really fits so much where i feel i am at.


Beyond Belief -- Petra

We're content to pitch our tent
When the glory's evident
Seldom do we know the glory came and went

Moving can seem dangerous
In this stranger's pilgrimage
Knowing that you can't stand still, you cross the bridge

(Chorus)
There's a higher place to go, beyond belief, beyond belief
Where we reach the next plateau, beyond belief, beyond belief
And from faith to faith we grow
Towards the center of the flow
Where He beckons us to go, beyond belief, beyond belief

Leap of faith without a net
Makes us want to hedge our bet
Waters never part until our feet get wet

There's a deeper place to go
Where the road seems hard to hoe
He who has begun this work won't let it go

There's a higher place to go, beyond belief, beyond belief
Where we reach the next plateau, beyond belief, beyond belief
And from faith to faith we grow
Towards the center of the flow
Where He beckons us to go, beyond belief, beyond belief

And it takes so long to see the change
But we look around and it seems so strange

We have come so far but the journey's long
And we once were weak but now we're strong

There's a higher place to go, beyond belief, beyond belief
Where we reach the next plateau, beyond belief, beyond belief
And from faith to faith we grow
Towards the center of the flow
Where He beckons us to go, beyond belief, beyond belief

Sorry got a bit off track.

I think the real question is what compelled and brought people that were just as scared,flawed,broken,physically sick or born with birth defects to come to a point where they could cross the line to even ask for the humanly impossible and believe in the One who can do what is humanly impossible?

Quote from: SarahM777 on March 21, 2011, 06:16:56 AM
Sorry got a bit off track.

I think the real question is what compelled and brought people that were just as scared,flawed,broken,physically sick or born with birth defects to come to a point where they could cross the line to even ask for the humanly impossible and believe in the One who can do what is humanly impossible?

It isn't impossible. Sometimes what we need isn't as obvious as we might hope.

If I am hungry, for example. I may ask for food. Now I might be hoping that a nice table will appear before me, laid out with a feast enough to satisfy anyone. If I suddenly find myself being offerd a job, where I can earn the money to buy the food, that is really the same. But I have to work for it.

That's my persepective.

Quote from: spacial on March 21, 2011, 07:08:35 AM
It isn't impossible. Sometimes what we need isn't as obvious as we might hope.

I do agree. That is why i do not think that even if God were to say yes to a transformation, it would also be not yet but in My time and My way.

The reality is that there are so many other issues involved with this and it is very complex as it affects every aspect of our lives. I don't believe that if let's say you are a smoker and you get lung cancer and you ask Him to heal you from the cancer but do NOT want to give up the smoking, He may want to heal you of the cancer but won't because you still want to continue to do the very thing that brought you to this point in the first place.  It may be that you have to stop smoking first before He would heal you.
So in the same way any one going this direction may have to go through all the same steps as any one going through the usual way. Dealing with the truth of what we are, past hurts, relationships,addictions etc. before ever seeing one single change in the body.  Adding to that He may also ask for us to be content with where we are today and that it is ok as He is in control of it (Contentment meaning acceptance not meaning happy happy joy joy) Patience in that we may have to watch a parade of others going first and reaching their goal and being able to be truly happy for them as you are waiting. And He may also chose to test our faith along the way and give us a chance to take another path. Being able to ask if the path that is before us is not from Him to close those doors.

Quote from: spacial on March 21, 2011, 07:08:35 AM

If I am hungry, for example. I may ask for food. Now I might be hoping that a nice table will appear before me, laid out with a feast enough to satisfy anyone. If I suddenly find myself being offerd a job, where I can earn the money to buy the food, that is really the same. But I have to work for it.

That's my persepective.

I do agree. He does give us times where we do have to do something like working for to get some of the things we need and want. It has to be balanced. Now if He were to give you a banquet is it meant only for your own benefit or does He mean for us to share that feast with those around us and share what He has done with those around us?

I still can't get past that if the biblical accounts are true what would get a 70 year old man to walk away from the home he know and go to a land he had never seen, another man to take 120 years and build a boat of a rather large size,a man to get out of the boat onto the water during a storm,a Roman Centurion to go and humble himself before a Jewish Rabbi to ask for healing, a woman believing that if she just could reach out and touch the hem of Jesus garment that she could be healed,or 4 dudes going on top of a building and opening a hole in the roof and lowering their friend down before Jesus so he could be healed?
What so convinced them that what they were asking for was right and good and that it could be done? It defies rational thinking.
But yet they did so. They crossed the line between rational thinking and a faith that defies logic. What brought them to that point?

Quote from: SarahM777 on March 24, 2011, 05:20:14 AM
I still can't get past that if the biblical accounts are true what would get a 70 year old man to walk away from the home he know and go to a land he had never seen, another man to take 120 years and build a boat of a rather large size,a man to get out of the boat onto the water during a storm,a Roman Centurion to go and humble himself before a Jewish Rabbi to ask for healing, a woman believing that if she just could reach out and touch the hem of Jesus garment that she could be healed,or 4 dudes going on top of a building and opening a hole in the roof and lowering their friend down before Jesus so he could be healed?
What so convinced them that what they were asking for was right and good and that it could be done? It defies rational thinking.
But yet they did so. They crossed the line between rational thinking and a faith that defies logic. What brought them to that point?

you answered it when you wrote "They crossed the line between rational thinking and a faith that defies logic. What brought them to that point?"

FAITH 

I had a little faith that God would solve my problems, but i cried and begged God for help and well it took me many years to realize that i needed to go through a gender change to get them solved and many more yrs to understand it was God who helped me. What i did find out was others who had great faith prayed for me and so even when i was weak they were strong in faith and God answered their prayers for me. They might not have thought that me going through a gender change would be Gods way of resolving my problems but it happened that way. Many times we think the gender change is the big thing when in reality it is only a small part that allows us to feel better and see the bigger part of Gods works in our life.  

Quote from: M2MtF2FtM on March 24, 2011, 06:27:16 AM
you answered it when you wrote "They crossed the line between rational thinking and a faith that defies logic. What brought them to that point?"

FAITH 

I had a little faith that God would solve my problems, but i cried and begged God for help and well it took me many years to realize that i needed to go through a gender change to get them solved and many more yrs to understand it was God who helped me. What i did find out was others who had great faith prayed for me and so even when i was weak they were strong in faith and God answered their prayers for me. They might not have thought that me going through a gender change would be Gods way of resolving my problems but it happened that way. Many times we think the gender change is the big thing when in reality it is only a small part that allows us to feel better and see the bigger part of Gods works in our life.  

I agree God worked out a lot in me. If it wasn't for that i would have taken my own live by now. I would have crossed that line a long time ago. I did also have some other factors that took some time to work through before i was even 100 % sure i was dealing with GID and not another issue. I had been sexually abused by my uncle,and my father was a poor role model and part of me never wanted to be male if that was what it meant to be male and i had to be sure i wasn't just rejecting being male because of those issues. After being able to work through though issues with His help i am now so sure that no one can shake me of the conviction that i am a female in a male body. And i do agree that the body may not be the first thing to change. God has not yet opened the doors for me to go through the changes for my body as of yet.  But even if my body can not or will not be changed in this life He will get me through this.

He has been faithful in that He taught me how to forgive and let go of the past hurts. I can now talk about them without the pain, i do have sadness about it as it should not have happened and there is a hope that they may be able to come to their senses and change their ways. I still hope and pray that my sister and i can be reconciled (But it is not in my hands)

I think that is the key to being able to have that kind of faith. Faith grows through seeing God get us through things. Faith and trust i think go hand in hand. I think that most of them had seen God work through other things in their lives that it was no longer a leap of "blind faith" but that their faith was rooted and grounded in knowing God and how He had worked before in their lives.

 

Quote from: SarahM777 on March 24, 2011, 05:20:14 AM
I still can't get past that if the biblical accounts are true what would get a 70 year old man to walk away from the home he know and go to a land he had never seen, another man to take 120 years and build a boat of a rather large size,a man to get out of the boat onto the water during a storm,a Roman Centurion to go and humble himself before a Jewish Rabbi to ask for healing, a woman believing that if she just could reach out and touch the hem of Jesus garment that she could be healed,or 4 dudes going on top of a building and opening a hole in the roof and lowering their friend down before Jesus so he could be healed?
What so convinced them that what they were asking for was right and good and that it could be done? It defies rational thinking.
But yet they did so. They crossed the line between rational thinking and a faith that defies logic. What brought them to that point?

Sarah,
I think what initially brought these people to the point of having so much faith to do these things was that God was a reality in their lives. They didn't just have a head knowledge of God, they had personal experiences and encounters with Him through out their lives. Or they had seen God moving in others lives that made Him become real in their lives. One might say they had had some type of spiritual awakening. I say this because there is a big difference between having the knowledge of who God is and actually having a personal encounter with Him.

Quote from: Katrina_Reann on March 26, 2011, 11:34:52 AM
I think what initially brought these people to the point of having so much faith to do these things was that God was a reality in their lives. They didn't just have a head knowledge of God, they had personal experiences and encounters with Him through out their lives. Or they had seen God moving in others lives that made Him become real in their lives. One might say they had had some type of spiritual awakening. I say this because there is a big difference between having the knowledge of who God is and actually having a personal encounter with Him.

Katrina_Reann

I do appoligize as i realize i should have finished my thoughts when i posted those questions.

I do agree with that. (It's kind of the Paul Harvey and now you know the rest of the story kind of thing) It was one of the things i was not taught even though i had gone to a parochial school and a very ritualistic church. It doesn't make sense on the surface for people to just all of a sudden to go and do what they did with out the foundation being laid. And one of the things that is often forgotten is that people like Abraham and Noah did NOT have the bible. They had to learn either from others and or God Himself. Which means they walked,talked and listened to Him to be able to know Him and what He wanted to do in their lives and they saw what He did so when God asked them to do those things they knew who it was that was asking them to do it and they knew they could trust Him. Which then can lead to taking the big leaps of faith. But it has to come from the small steps of faith in the beginning.

To me it also means that the bible was meant to be a window into how God works in peoples lives and how He relates to us and how we are to relate to Him. It was never meant to take His place.

You know the last time i read the bible i did it from front to back. The old testament taught me about sins of the father being carried over to unsuspecting children / sons and it taught me that many people were running around wild trying to find some sort of God and even sacraficed their kids to Baal and were pretty messed up and needed God to be a sort of Cop to guide the people who had no idea what was what. Then for a short while people had his son with them and they denied him and now we who have the truth yet have to believe have to have faith because we do know what is right and we really don't need god to be a cop to us and guide us but as people do fall far away from his understandings people can become like they were when they sacraficed their kids to Baal. yes its amazing how these three stages of Gods understandings took so long for mankind to experience but now those who have learned and refuse the truth and the way i can only say may God have mercy on them. Now on the other hand those who have never heard or never were taught can not be expected to suffer any rath except for evil they may do as they know it to be evil. There are some who are rightous and don't know God and they will see God one day and not be judged for their ignorance. they will be judged for their actions like all. Like those who know and rejected and those who know and didn't reject but fell short in their daily life. yes today we have the bible but we also have the truth and are not like a crazed race of people seeking the truth and sacrificing our children to baal. But then again maybe those who knowingly get abortions knowing its wrong will too suffer the rath of God as they sacrafice their kids to abortion Dr's. So what did the Bible teach you?

The bible has taught me that God wants a relationship with people, He wants to be a part of our lives and He was willing to go so far that He sent His son to take our place to restore that relationship. God did set boundries in that it was a gift freely given and can only be accepted by faith. His ways are love,mercy,grace,patience and truth. I have learned that i can not on my own meet His standards. That the good deeds i do can not justify me and only by faith am i justified before Him.

I have learned that Jesus is my example and to learn to be like Him and show others that Jesus is the answer. I am to love God above all else and all other people as myself. God loves diversity. Even within a short time the church was starting to have problems and they needed to be corrected. He is judge and jury. How i live my life is between Him and me and i am not to place what He has shown me to be wrong for me as being wrong for someone else because for them it may not be wrong. (I do need to give an example  I know for me i can not listen to country music as it does cause me to get very depressed so it is not good for me but it may not bother someone else and i can not tell someone else they can not do it just because i am not to do it)

It still boggles my mind that the very God who made the universe would even want to know me.

I remember earnestly wishing God would "Change" me into a woman. Of course it came down knowing God loved me for who I am and that He was ok with me making the respective changes that needed to happen.

Quote from: Jerica on March 26, 2011, 11:30:11 PM
I remember earnestly wishing God would "Change" me into a woman. Of course it came down knowing God loved me for who I am and that He was ok with me making the respective changes that needed to happen.

Jerica,

I do hope you are doing well and healing quickly. You have been in my thoughts and prayers.

I do remember a time when i was married and i wanted so much to be whole i had gone to a number of healing services and was anointed with oil and prayed over. It was so hard for me to ask God that if i was truly a male to heal my mind and make me whole. Of course i did not get that answer.  I went a few more times and did the same thing.  I was so broke up inside because i did not even want to ask that. I finally did get an answer in the form of a still small voice and the answer i got was
a rebuke.

The answer is NO. You are asking for the wrong thing. You are NOT a man but a woman in a mans body. This has been allowed for my purposes and plans. My grace is sufficient for you.


I know He loves me and calls me by name. He calls me Sarah Michelle. How He is going to take me through i do not yet know. I do know that whatever His plans are for me it is going to be an adventure whichever way it goes.

Aww well I hope He shows you the way, girl! *hugs*

I believe He will show me the way.

Although of course i do have these thoughts go through my mind from time to time.

Lord, I know you never promised me a rose garden,and you did say that the way was going to be at times very difficult,i believe you also said you would try my faith as gold that is refined by fire to burn off the dross,i know you have stretched me out, laid me out flat at times, and held me together when it seemed so hopeless and i wanted to just give it all up. I do know that you know what is best for me. Lord is it too much to ask that it could be just a tiny bit easier?

Of course then the answer comes If i made it easier for you would you learn to trust me as much?