You may find this fellow sisters testimony very thought provoking. Ex-transgender woman shares her ASTONISHING testimony. In this video, Laura Perry Smalts speaks on her story, the hope that can be found in Christ, the truth about transgenderism, and more. https://youtu.be/QgINj51kWlU?si=AYiDECSaJl3KAaBp
Her thinking is similar to my own with regard to what is taking place now in our culture, involving late/rapid onset gender identity issues. I did not listen to every segment of the video and I don't know if she addressed the influence of cultural Marxism in creating and sustaining the phenomenon. I don't see anything in the table of contents suggesting that she did.
Things don't "just happen". There are causes and effects. She is talking about one branch of the effects of sin, and I write about a different branch. There is a common root cause -- sin -- but the details branching out from there can be very different. Her transition was late onset. Mine stemmed from early onset transsexualism. What she experienced was centered in her mind. Mine was rooted in physical pathology, very likely iatrogenic in nature.
Iatrogenic or not, there was damage to at least two regions of my brain, and to my endocrine and reproductive systems. I have not been able to "de-transition" out of the effects of that, although I certainly did try, causing harm to others in the process. (That part of my story I withheld in the interest of the privacy of those others.)
Our outcomes are similar -- establishing and growing in a close relationship with God. Our pathways to that end have been very different.
You have had quite the journey in your life and I thank you for sharing your adventures, lifestyle and spiritual life. You seem courageous and determined to be yourself and I say "good on you".
We were born in the time period of "Better Living With Chemicals" and I do remember hearing that phrase repeatedly. Many people have been damaged over the years with toxins and so it continues.
There was "better living through chemistry". There was even a movie by that name.
I had been quite shy growing up, and I was quite the coward when I became involved with the local trans community at 53. That changed radically, especially after I discovered the cancer risk that nobody was warning me about. I don't believe that transition was necessarily the "right" thing to do, but it may have been the only thing I was willing to do, and it would appear that God used it, and even provided me with the money to pay for it ($50,000+), along with my last two "office jobs" before semi-retirement (having lost my pre-transition job, as was common for people transitioning). I was a deist at the time, and not appreciating any of it. I didn't come to my senses until seven years after transition. It didn't matter.
There was a particular point in time where I began to overcome the fear, and that was when I made the trip downtown to file the papers with the court to change my legal name. That was the peak of the "hill", and it was downhill from there, mostly, except for the cancer diagnosis (seminoma).
Once I was past thinking I was going to die, however, and after a lot of crying, I did what I had to do for the cancer (left-orchiectomy + radiation), consulted with the SRS surgeon again, and scheduled the other surgery that I had actually planned on having without delay, since half of the cancer risk was still there. I ended up completing transition and obtaining the final court documents two months earlier than I originally expected.
It all worked out, and I didn't make that happen. I don't know what's next, but I know where my hope lies.
[I'm using the medical terms and SRS acronym intentionally. They are easily found in searches.]
You are welcome. I think you have something there. I want to laugh about a certain small group that I belong to. We all seem to be "don't fits" of one kind or another. Paul used stronger words:
1Cor. 1:27-31 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.”
Every church I have belonged to or contemplated belonging to has been a mixture of some kind. In the past I kept asking and asking "where is Your Church?" It is clear to me now that the ἐκκλησία ("church", but really "assembly") of Mt. 16:18 that Jesus was to build was not to be located within church buildings and congregations but in the "temples" of the people in whom the Holy Spirit indwells. These people can be and always have been found both within and outside of church buildings and their congregations, faithful and apostate.
This categorization is binary -- "with" and "without". And yet there appear to be shades of "with". How do these temples/non-temples relate to the four churches that you mention?
Mt. 16:18 "And I say to you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." (Mounce translation)
1 Cor. 6:19 "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own?" (Mounce)
You may find this fellow sisters testimony very thought provoking. Ex-transgender woman shares her ASTONISHING testimony. In this video, Laura Perry Smalts speaks on her story, the hope that can be found in Christ, the truth about transgenderism, and more. https://youtu.be/QgINj51kWlU?si=AYiDECSaJl3KAaBp
Her thinking is similar to my own with regard to what is taking place now in our culture, involving late/rapid onset gender identity issues. I did not listen to every segment of the video and I don't know if she addressed the influence of cultural Marxism in creating and sustaining the phenomenon. I don't see anything in the table of contents suggesting that she did.
Things don't "just happen". There are causes and effects. She is talking about one branch of the effects of sin, and I write about a different branch. There is a common root cause -- sin -- but the details branching out from there can be very different. Her transition was late onset. Mine stemmed from early onset transsexualism. What she experienced was centered in her mind. Mine was rooted in physical pathology, very likely iatrogenic in nature.
Iatrogenic or not, there was damage to at least two regions of my brain, and to my endocrine and reproductive systems. I have not been able to "de-transition" out of the effects of that, although I certainly did try, causing harm to others in the process. (That part of my story I withheld in the interest of the privacy of those others.)
Our outcomes are similar -- establishing and growing in a close relationship with God. Our pathways to that end have been very different.
You have had quite the journey in your life and I thank you for sharing your adventures, lifestyle and spiritual life. You seem courageous and determined to be yourself and I say "good on you".
We were born in the time period of "Better Living With Chemicals" and I do remember hearing that phrase repeatedly. Many people have been damaged over the years with toxins and so it continues.
There was "better living through chemistry". There was even a movie by that name.
I had been quite shy growing up, and I was quite the coward when I became involved with the local trans community at 53. That changed radically, especially after I discovered the cancer risk that nobody was warning me about. I don't believe that transition was necessarily the "right" thing to do, but it may have been the only thing I was willing to do, and it would appear that God used it, and even provided me with the money to pay for it ($50,000+), along with my last two "office jobs" before semi-retirement (having lost my pre-transition job, as was common for people transitioning). I was a deist at the time, and not appreciating any of it. I didn't come to my senses until seven years after transition. It didn't matter.
There was a particular point in time where I began to overcome the fear, and that was when I made the trip downtown to file the papers with the court to change my legal name. That was the peak of the "hill", and it was downhill from there, mostly, except for the cancer diagnosis (seminoma).
Once I was past thinking I was going to die, however, and after a lot of crying, I did what I had to do for the cancer (left-orchiectomy + radiation), consulted with the SRS surgeon again, and scheduled the other surgery that I had actually planned on having without delay, since half of the cancer risk was still there. I ended up completing transition and obtaining the final court documents two months earlier than I originally expected.
It all worked out, and I didn't make that happen. I don't know what's next, but I know where my hope lies.
[I'm using the medical terms and SRS acronym intentionally. They are easily found in searches.]
Amazing journey! Yes, God will supply all your needs.
A privilege to hear your story
Thankyou and much love
Perhaps it is we that didn’t fit in to mainstream society so well that wake up to its corruption?
You are welcome. I think you have something there. I want to laugh about a certain small group that I belong to. We all seem to be "don't fits" of one kind or another. Paul used stronger words:
1Cor. 1:27-31 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.”
So moved reading. Tears. Song. Yes yes yes yes 🕊🙏❤️
Every church I have belonged to or contemplated belonging to has been a mixture of some kind. In the past I kept asking and asking "where is Your Church?" It is clear to me now that the ἐκκλησία ("church", but really "assembly") of Mt. 16:18 that Jesus was to build was not to be located within church buildings and congregations but in the "temples" of the people in whom the Holy Spirit indwells. These people can be and always have been found both within and outside of church buildings and their congregations, faithful and apostate.
This categorization is binary -- "with" and "without". And yet there appear to be shades of "with". How do these temples/non-temples relate to the four churches that you mention?
Mt. 16:18 "And I say to you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." (Mounce translation)
1 Cor. 6:19 "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own?" (Mounce)