Honesty before God

[Alicia Marie]

  Although words may fail me, there is something that I would like to know. This is in reference to how you felt prior to acknowledging being TS as compared to after.

  Once you acknowledged being TS did you feel a liberty or honesty with yourself and God that was maybe hindered or missing in prior times.

  Also, did it make the mercy of the Lord more precious in your eyes?

  I guess the reason I ask is because it seems as though acknowledging something deemed as an affliction or infirmity might make the mercy of the Lord more real, important and cherished than for those who seem to have a life that outwardly seems in alignment with the word of God.
  Maybe I am wrong but I tend to think that some (maybe even myself) take the mercy of God for granted at times.
 

[finewine]

If you are "as god made you" then how could one be out of alignment with the word of god?  Surely god's love is not conditional, especially on the basis of a congenital incongruity?   Of all the various issues one might have with acceptance, I would think it safe to assume that a god would be the least of your concerns.

[Alicia Marie]

To be honest it was while I was listening to Amazing Grace that I was reflecting on quite a few things about myself. A self assessment, if you will.
I realized that there are things in my own life that conflict what the general population of Christianity calls wrong and I felt more appreciative of the grace of God when I realized I have no control over it and just decided to rely on the grace of God. That grace is precious to me (even more so now) when I realize that in some things I may never be delivered from or healed of. It's not just lip service as talk is cheap, as they say.
As for being made in alignment with the word of God, if I didn't need a Saviour Christ would not have had to die for my sins and I would not need to repent.
I do realize though, that the word says that the creature was made subject to vanity and that the heart is deceitfully wicked, the carnal mind enmity with God and the spirit of man lusteth to envy. Therefore, I do know that without faith in the blood of Jesus and the breaking of his body I cannot see God. That isn't the point of this post though. It is the inner feeling of grace becoming more precious when I stepped out of denial and knowing that there are things I cannot change regardless of how I try.

[NicholeW.]

Life is grace, my friend. Appreciate the abundance of that gift, regardless of how you choose to define the deity that granted it. And thank you for sharing that grace here as well.

[Tammy Hope]

I don't know as I could actually use the word "honesty" in the context of me first thoughts on your question.

I can't, of course, claim I have always been totally honest before God But on the whole, I don't think that's part of how i worked this ting out in terms of my faith.

For most of my life, I bought into the (man made) doctrine that what was wrong with me was a perversion - somehow I had been infected with a sinful desire. Clearly that was counter to God's will, so if I simply "got right" with him, he would "heal" me of my perversion.

After 20 years of that, and no healing in sight, I began to - for other reasons at first - re-examine my understanding of how much of what I believed was actually God's expressed will and how much was a cultural schema that was the product of man's society.

I now see being trans as, if you will forgive the term, a "birth defect" and no more a function of being outside God's will than if I had been born with spina bifida or a cleft pallete.

but in the former days, I was always very upfront with God saying I didn't want to be out of his will and begging for his help, and when I began to realize my error, I had a long frank "talk" in which I basically said that I was acting in light of my best understanding and not looking for an "out" to disobey. I suppose one could argue (from the conservative point of view) that I am blinding myself but all I can do is examine my own heart and i believe I'm acting in honest good faith.

Beyond that, I do believe that grace is the foundation of our faith. If he's not the God of grace I understand him to be then following him is, for me, useless. So I have every confidence his grace is big enough to handle my failure, when (not if) I fail.

Further, without airing dirty laundry inappropriate to this board, I confess that in other areas I am doing what my more conservative brethren would call "presuming on his grace". Perhaps it's an over-correction for so many years of being so over-zealous and there will be a balance between the two at some point but for now, I'm a long way from "clean living"

but even in this, I try to be honest with him. I am either right that he is not nearly as uptight about sexual behavior as the church is, or i am rationalizing. If It's the latter, his grace is big enough to cover my logical weakness.

Make of that what you will.

[Lisbeth]

I cried so the first time I took communion as Lisbeth! To stand before god as who I really am for the first time. But more grace or mercy? No, who I am is who I am and how god made me. Not something that needs forgiving.

[Alicia Marie]

  I do wish to thank those of you who have taken the time to share your feelings. They are those in which few straight Christians think of and really do not understand. There is just too much misinformation out there among those who do not struggle with these things.
  It's easy for those professing Christ to say that he can heal people when all is going good. And, while he can, it's another thing to believe it when the healing doesn't come in a manner in which we expect.
  In my case, the real awakening came when some deliverances and healings didn't come. Instead, the blessing was that deliverance from being judgmental and the mercy of God being manifested in a far more precious way while in my weakness. As Paul wrote, when I am weak he is strong and therefore my strength.
  Once again, thank you for the input and may God bless.

[Lisbeth]

Hmmmm... There was an assistant pastor who thought he was going make me his first success in his new Deliverance Ministry. I didn't give him the chance. Deliverance Ministry isn't anything but good old-fashioned exorcism by another name. And having been to seminary I knew that the idea that someone who is already a Christian can need to be exorcised is a heresy. I was not going to cooperate with someone practicing spiritual violence against me.

[Genevieve Swann]

Accepting myself has not made me any more spiritual. God is all loving, mercifull and forgiving.  "in alignment with the words of God." I don't know about that. I have never spoken to her when she has spoken back. All the words I've seen were written by others.