What will you give up?

I was listening to an interview this past week and one phrase stuck out for me.  "What will you give up?"

For most of us the idea of giving something up that means a lot to us challenges us and can bring quite a bit of conflict to our humanness.  What happens when this something is particularly engrained in us and something we think cannot be given up?

As I drove to work today, I was pondering life and the complexities of it.  I am amazed at what God has done in the areas of my life that I have given over to him.  Some out of obedience and some with kicking and screaming while others were easy to give up out of a love relationship with an eternal Father.

Today, I got thinking of my gender and my worth as a man.  What came to me was this thought..."Kenny, you could have changed your body with hormones and surgery, but you cannot change the composition of your DNA...the blueprint of how God made you, unique and fully male!"  Maybe with science and the way things are headed we can manipulate and change things around by a human perspective...focusing on being creator rather than acknowledging that we are created beings...designed by God for His glory.

I look at my hands, my features and other bodily parts and recognize the masculine traits on the outside, but what about the ones on the inside that fought with the outward expression.  I couldn't stop the formation of hair on my chest, or the sharpness of my jaw, the thickening of my torso, the shape of my being was in conflict with my inner self that cried out for the softness of the feminine.  I began to hate how I was created rather than be in awe of how I was created.

When God profoundly spoke to me in 2005 and called me out of my Egypt into the wilderness, I knew it was about giving up.  It was to give up control of my life and how I had created and worshiped my life.  It was no longer me that was in charge but God who knows infinitely more than I do and who cares for me with deep compassion.

I had to give up the notion that I was gay and I had to give up the notion that I could have a sex change.  These things were deeply ingrained in me for years.  I remember vividly a time when my mom after catching me wear her clothes say "they have operations for that!"  She doesn't remember saying it and I think it was said mostly out of the fear of the unknown, yet it penetrated in my being and this nagging sense of insecurity reared it's head.  It stuck with me.  This idea of what if.

Yet, I looked in the mirror and saw something very male.  I watched every talk show that was geared toward transsexualism and I was fascinated by what I saw and heard.  Could it be that I could do it too?
But what I began to witness was the manipulation of the body to conform to the minds thoughts.  Essentially, I saw men in women's clothing.  I saw the effects of what female hormones could do, yet, the movement, the bone structures, the work it would be to transform felt like a lie to me.  It wasn't negating the deep feelings inside or the turmoil, yet, it seemed to me that there was something else that played a factor.  Could it be the environment and behavioral structures of their early years played a factor?  I had to examine mine.

In doing this examination, I had to give up the notion that my environment had nothing to do with my struggle and disorded sense of gender.  I had to realize that how I was parented and my own interpretations of events were part of the factors of my development.  I had to give up and see God at work in and through my life as a man.  The complexities of the journey given over to Him so He can help navigate and direct my steps toward health in all areas of my life.

Giving up...ya, I've had to give up a lot.  I don't regret any of it, nor would I wish my life to be something else.  Truth be told, God is constantly revealing things in me that I need to give up...and in giving up, I receive so much more than what I could imagine.  He fills me with joy, peace, love and gives me good things to replace the stuff that is tarnished, old and broken down.  I won't say it's easy and it won't hurt.  On the contrary, it usually does and quite a bit actually.  But what comes out of the ashes of pain is often a beautiful aroma of praise.

So, what are you giving up?  What is God asking you to give over to Him?

Abomination?

Just listened to an old interview on The Hour with Dr. Alicia Salzar.  It was dated June 2007 and was promoting the movie she Directed called Abomination.

As I listened to her talk, there were things I agreed with.  Using shock therapy as a way to change your sexual preference isn't human, nor should it be used EVER.  But what was bothersome was the degree of what was left unsaid.  I was actually left feeling quite saddened by that fact.  She left us devaluing thousands of people. 

Now you may think..."Kenny...many LGBT people have felt devalued for many years and still do!"  I want to ask you to stop for one minute...and think...does this make it right to devalue another person?  Do two wrongs make a right?

As we dialogue with people and come to know their hearts, their dreams and desires, it becomes quite evident that their lives are complex and rich with experiences that have helped shape them to who they are at that moment.  We cannot delineate and separate those experiences from who they are today.  Each of us is affected by our parental lineage and what they did as they raised us.  We also take into full account that children are the best recorders of information but the worst interpreters and yet we live in a society that would say...they can be trusted to interpret correctly and as such, we place in their hands decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. 

Dr. Alicia Salzar left me with the idea that anyone with a faith or religious belief that would cause us to live our life toward holiness is a negative and hurtful thing.  When in reality, finding our place at the Cross of Jesus is a wonderful and freeing place.  Knowing that we find our selves FREE is good news indeed.  As we let go of shame and guilt, we can walk with greater dignity and love for ourselves and for others.  Even with continued struggles, no matter what they are. 

Maybe the bigger issue is that for years the "church" has proclaimed that once saved your life is without struggle, which left those who did continue to face issues in their life, wondering and question the authenticity of their worth and faith.

For many years, I looked at everyone around me as perfect, without blemish and spot and this left me feeling that I never measured up to the standard of what it was to be a Christian and especially as I struggled with my gender.  It wasn't going away so what was I not doing right? 

How I've come to look at it now is a place of grace and mercy.  This took years of self discovery and submission to Jesus.  Yes Submission.  In today's culture, it is a word that makes people cringe.  With self expression, self motivation, self help, self...self...self...we internally view that we are more important than any other being...even God.  So to submit my sexuality, my gender identity and my worth was significant to me.  It wasn't any longer a feeling of self sabbatoge or that God was this mean creator who wouldn't allow me to identify as a gay man, rather, a wonderful creator who called me into the fullness of who I was as a man and defined my sexuality in His terms. In submitting I am honoring Him not in a fear of discipline, but rather out of love and respectful acknowledgement that He is holy and just. 

Another aspect of the interview that was left out was the impact Dr. Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Institute has had on this generation.  For years he has been lauded as the pioneer of the sexual revolution when in reality he has affected many people's lives with his studies on male sexuality in negative ways.  Kinsey's research included sexually abusing many men.  He is also linked to the Nazi experiments that were going on during their regime...


Quoted from CWA...it states...

THE NAZI CONNECTION
This statement referred to Kinsey’s correspondence with Dr. Friedrich Karl Hugo Viktor von Balluseck, a Nazi who was in charge of a small Polish town during World War II. Von Balluseck, according to testimony during his 1957 trial for a child sex murder, molested boys and girls from 1927 to 1957. 4

As reported by the Franfurter Allegemeine Zeitung on May 22, 1957:

“Dr. Balluseck…[recorded measurements] of his crimes committed against children between 9 and 14
years old … in four thick diaries … of a pseudo-scientific character … while in correspondence with the American sexual researcher Kinsey … about his research, which as he said himself, took place over three decades.”5

Another German newspaper, the Berliner Zeitung, reported on May 16, 1957:

“Kinsey had asked the paedophile specifically for material of his perverse actions. The presiding judge, Dr. [Heinrich] Berger, noted that it was Kinsey’s duty to get Balluseck locked up, instead of
corresponding with him.”6

In an attempt to soften the impact of the crimes, the current director of the Kinsey Institute, Dr. John
Bancroft, told the Indianapolis Star on September 19, 1995, that the information in Tables 30-34 came from one pedophile, a man called Mr. X, later revealed to be Rex King.  Regardless of the number of pedophiles involved, it is clear that they had a skewed perception of child sexuality, that Kinsey encouraged the abuse, and that they left sexually abused children in their wake.
                                           .
4 Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D., Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences (Crestwood, Kentucky: Institute for Media Education), 2000, p. 165, based on German newspaper articles.
5Quoted in Kinsey, Crime & Consequences, p. 166. 
6 Ibid, p. 167.

If people did the research past the surface, we would in society deem Dr. Alfred Kinsey a criminal and yet we still applaud his efforts in the sexual revolution.  REALLY? 

I think if we took the time to face the realities of who he was, we'd have to re-examine EVERYTHING that he put forth as 'GOOD', which wouldn't make us feel good.  You see we would have to be faced with the truth and reality of what was not substantial work or respected research. 

So let's get real and honest for a moment.  My struggle with same gender attraction used to define me and cause me to believe I was born gay.  As I have discovered and faced the ways I was parented and how I perceived the world around me and interpreted events that took place, I have uncovered the real Kenny.  I'm not pretending, rather extremely honest with myself and with others about my life.  This includes the realities of walking in submission to the one I call Father...a God who doesn't make mistakes, but the one who calls we worthy, loved, cherished.  I am his favorite son!  Blemishes and all!

It's sad really that so much untruth is formulated by those who think they "know it" yet when in truth have perpetuated hate and superstition. 

I wish Dr. Salzar could see the joy and peace that I have in my life.  The ways my faith has been positively affecting not just me, but my family and those around me and essentially causing me to love those deemed unlovable.  Maybe one day!