As Christmas draws near, you may dread another holiday separated from LGBT loved ones. Even if they’ve expressed interest in joining you, they may have set conditions and made demands you don’t want to accept. So your heart is heavy, your spirit wounded, and your mind confused. Is there any hope for this to be resolved? Yes. There is always hope. No one is ever beyond God’s reach. Consider the story of the Magi. Matthew 2:1–2 says, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,…

My biggest problem in life has been pain. Pain from hurts, fears, traumas, and loneliness. Gender dysphoria was where I found relief from the pain and received pleasure. As a sixth-grade boy, I don’t know why I enjoyed thinking about being a girl and wearing female clothing. All I know is that I was the weird boy, the one that didn’t fit in anywhere. I just wanted the pain to stop, and I had this desire that when I followed it into my fantasy land, the pain would go away. I didn’t understand about choice. I knew it was wrong.…

Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID or gender confusion) causes a person to become uncomfortable in their actual born gender. GID can be caused by a variety of reasons, including: low self-esteem, seeking same sex per acceptance, distant same sex parent, sexual/physical/verbal abuse, personality or obsessive disorder, etc. GID is not a one size fits all mentality. If a person continually says and believe they were born to be the opposite gender, they distort the truth in their own mind. Even children are self-diagnosing themselves and telling their parents that they are the opposite gender of which they were born. Special interest…

The collision between the church, countless families, and their loved ones in the LGBT community continues to demonstrate the powerful impact, especially on Christian businesses, of the US Supreme Court’s re-definition of marriage to include same-sex unions. Christians who deny the legitimacy of or fail to affirm the homosexual lifestyle are routinely denounced as homophobic, intolerant, even hateful. This intimidation tactic used for almost every LGBT-related issue should alarm us. It continues to rip apart Christ’s church by encouraging some denominations to endorse the LGBT lifestyle. Sadly, these churches shift away from their biblical stance, aided by religious leaders with…

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Colossians 4:6 (ESV) Megan called me one afternoon to share her concern for a female coworker who was transitioning to become a man. “She’s my friend,” Megan said, “She wants me to use her preferred male name and pronouns, but I care about her health and emotional well-being. How can I demonstrate my love, respect, and concern for her without compromising my convictions?” I identified with Megan’s struggle because I, too, had wrestled with how to speak the truth…

“I am not really alone, because the Father is with me.” John 16:32 (GNT) Have you ever been in that place? Being mindful of Christ Jesus’s presence can be difficult when our mind takes us in the direction of our pain. Feeling alone and distant from God after his daughter came out as transgender to him, Patrick reached out to me. He felt numb and couldn’t understand how his precious little girl had grown up into an adult who desired to be a man. Instead of being mindful of God’s presence, his mind went to all the should-haves and could-haves.…

The International Journal of Transgenderism has published evidence that many patients regret their sex-reassignment surgery when they discover that the surgery failed to solve their real problems. Some subjects confessed that they had second thoughts about having the surgery. However, because they feared that they might never get another chance at the surgery, they kept those second thoughts to themselves (Kuiper, & Cohen-Kettenis 1998). My own father believed that becoming a woman would make his life more satisfying and fulfilling. He, like so many others, then discovered that fulfilling his fantasy did not give him the inner peace he’d sought…

I was waiting to board a flight when I noticed two young men that appeared to be a couple. One of the men appeared to be approximately 18 to 20 years old. He had a dark complication, black hair, and brown eyes. But perhaps most noticeable about him was the strong feminine body language he displayed. He gracefully moved his hand toward his boyfriend’s face in the exact manner that a woman would slide her hand gently over her male partner’s face. His partner was a handsome 25-year-old man. His appearance was such that a mother might pick him out…

When transgender behaviors emerge in a church, its members are often startled. Some become uncomfortable and confused. Church leaders are likely uncertain of how to respond. A basic question many ask is, “What does the Bible have to say on this matter?” The primary Bible verse that appears to address the issue of transgender behavior is Genesis 1:26–27, which says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the…

As summer approaches, love is the air. Does this sound familiar? Love should be something expressed in each day of life. Loving someone as God loves us does not change, not in reality? Many have been told in no uncertain terms, if we don’t accept the decisions of a loved one in a same sex relationship or transitioning to the opposite sex, we don’t truly love our love one. But in truth, our love does not diminish due to how he or she has decided to live their life. Yet cultural tells us otherwise, and sometimes this causes the family…