{"id":2794,"date":"2014-07-09T08:22:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unfundamentalistchristians\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2014-07-09T08:30:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:30:44","slug":"from-the-christian-mother-of-a-transgender-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unfundamentalistchristians\/2014\/07\/from-the-christian-mother-of-a-transgender-teen\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Christian mother of a transgender teen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This letter was sent to John Shore<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nDear John,<\/p>\n

Sometimes I think that being able to see from the perspective of a mother what my daughter (who is now my son) went through before his admission of his true self shows why God is with us, no matter what.<\/p>\n

My son was never an ordinary daughter. I did not, for instance, ever know what the current fashion style of teenage girls was, because \u201cshe\u201d didn\u2019t wear teenage girl clothes.<\/p>\n

But the darkness, the two years of depression, and of wondering if I was going to come home to find a suicide attempt or worse, was very real and frightening.<\/p>\n

Once my daughter admitted who he really was, however, the one thing that I knew in the back of my head\u2014even though at first I couldn\u2019t quite come to terms with it\u2014was that a great relief had taken place. All of a sudden, the eyes of my child were more alight, the shoulders no longer hunched over. And the laughter was back. The beautiful belly laugh that was silenced for two long long years was back.<\/p>\n

Although that great happiness came back, the change was still hard for me to come to terms with. I wondered what Christian friends would think. My son sent out a message to all the people whom he wanted to know, and they have been nothing but supportive and loving.<\/p>\n

That is what being a Christian is all about. Accepting the person. Loving them through the dark times, and supporting them when and if they come to terms with who they are.<\/p>\n

We are all children of God, and for me to say that my child will not get into heaven because he cannot live with the body assigned to him is ludicrous. His heart for God, although having been shaken, is strong, because of the wonderful Christians in his life who accept him as the person he is.<\/p>\n

I now often think of Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you, beyond words, to all the Christians out there who know the difference between God\u2019s love and man\u2019s hate. You are literally saving lives.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank you, beyond words, to all the Christians out there who know the difference between God’s love and man’s hate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1528,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-issues"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the Christian mother of a transgender teen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Thank you, beyond words, to all the Christians out there who know the difference between God's love and man's hate.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unfundamentalistchristians\/2014\/07\/from-the-christian-mother-of-a-transgender-teen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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