I walked in silence as God unfolded the last piece of origami from that experience for me. God stopped me writing at I AM because I’m not a man. One year prior, I had come out of the closet kicking and screaming, holding onto the doorframe with a white knuckle grip… but the truth had finally come out. As I walked, I was awed by what I was being shown. Creation had conspired to show me the truth, fifteen years before I was willing to admit it to myself.
Read more "Epilogue"Is this a cautionary tale of a Christian who gave themselves over to sin? Is my life proof that god is as angry and vindictive as so many of you fear that he is?
Is this yet another story of a repressed member of the LGBTQ community imploding in true Drama Queen fashion before they explode out of their closet in an orgasm of glitter and perfectly tweezed eyebrows?
Is this the story of a selfish asshole?
Is this the story of a flawed human?
How the hell should I know and why are you asking me for your answers?
As the three of us came back together, I chose my wording carefully.
“I don’t want to lay down the victim card.
“I won’t say that they took my spirituality from me. I’ll say that I let them have it. I made the choice to let them take it out of my hands.
“I need to take it back…
“What about Jesus?”
I asked him what he meant by that.
“Why can’t we just hold to what Jesus says and throw away the rest of the bullshit? Why isn’t there a church that does that?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. His question was too innocent and too deep for my pat answers and rote theological treatises.
Read more "Interlude 5"Zeroing in on my fear, my mentor kept pushing me to express my gender the way I truly felt inside. I told him ‘no’ every time, growing more and more firm in my answer. Now he and I both knew why… I was terrified of the people who would reject me, mock me, and dismiss me. I was terrified of the people who would brand me as Less Than. I wasn’t in the closet any more in word. However, in deed, I was still hiding. In plain sight.
Read more "Higher Power"“Do you know how I know you have a problem with alcohol?”
I shook my head.
One of the other group members, a former military guy and admitted alcoholic, spoke up, “Because you didn’t dump it down the sink. Shit, man, that’s a valuable liquid as far as guys like you and me are concerned. We wouldn’t dump liquid gold down the drain.”
It had never occurred to me to dump it down the drain.
He gave me a few simple thoughts on everything he had just learned about me.
“You sit down with Carrie and you don’t end that conversation until she commits to your marriage or commits to a divorce.”
He also gave me some advice about being transgender.
“It is not your responsibility to change the world. When people hear about the level of pain you’ve been experiencing, they will grab the easiest answer they can find in order to distance themselves from your pain. Let them have it.”
Read more "Intervention"I finally understood why God led me to that particular Grief Symbol. Just like that weed would always be on the farm, I would always be Trans. The only way to not be Trans would be to kill my heart, which would destroy everything beautiful in my life in the process. I thought about Jesus’ teaching about weeds and wheat, how they grew together and couldn’t be separated without killing everything.
Read more "Interlude 4"I felt the Holy Spirit whisper two words to me: Men’s Ministry.
I didn’t want to do Men’s Ministry. It was the shittiest role in any church in America. Men by and large disliked the church and what we offered them through it. Shit, I hated what we offered them through it… that’s why I had started my ministry outside of any church. We could say four letter words without getting into trouble at The Inner Kingdom. We could watch a movie that showed boobies without anybody getting their panties into a wad. We could sit around fires and talk about deep things without having to use a fucking sports metaphor every goddamn time.
Read more "Folly"Realization dawned on me. If I lost my direction, God’s currents still directed me. If the wind blew its hardest, the water would still hold me. If I sank, I would sink into God’s love. Even if I crashed onto the shore and out of the water, God’s rain would wash me right back into him.
Read more "Interlude 3"
Dallas Begnaud 