Confused People

Today I start several days of training with Choose to Wait. We want to use the curriculum with many aspects of our ministry. As I look over my introductory packet, I realize that we are going to be asked to journal our personal journey.

My own is quite confused, and when I was growing up, the surrounding culture was not filled with nearly the multitude of confusing and contradictory messages that it is today. I never thought I was lesbian, bisexual or transgender. I was never sexually abused, thank God. Yet my journey was still confused.

Two things stand out. One, my dad tried constantly to teach me to say "No" to boys and all the things he was sure they were going to try to do to me and with me. I have realized since then that it was pretty ridiculous to think I was going to say "No" to boys when I couldn't even say "Hi" to them. I was so vulnerable in those days. It is only the grace of God that protected me.

Second, along the way I have struggled tremendously with my role as a woman in God's world. I've gone to some pretty wild extremes in the past trying to find my place. I think a lot of that goes back to the way my parents related to one another. I deeply resented the way my dad treated my mom, and over the years it has resulted in so much struggle. Gradually I've come to some kind of balance on it, I think, although I don't claim to have resolved all the issues.

Knowing how deeply my experiences have affected me, and realizing how mild they were compared to the confusion proffered in today's world, compounded with the truly terrible, undescribable unthinkable experiences so many kids have had to endure, I feel a real need to get a better handle on these issues.

The training goes beyond just saying no to sex outside of marriage. It goes down to the core of being men and women created AS men and women by God. I'm looking forward to learning more.

The majority of African kids we work with don't even have a father who is active in their lives. Most are with single mothers (and some on their own in child-headed families), children of prostitution and casual sex, children whose fathers deserted them when the going got tough, children whose fathers were killed in cattle raids and in war, children whose both parents died of AIDS. Most have never lived in and many have never seen a normal family with both parents intact. Of course, this is not the majority of African families, but it is because we work with vulnerable children or children in crisis.

I thank God that gender confusion has not yet become popular in Africa as it is in America, but there are groups that are pushing it. Unless God intervenes, it is probably only a matter of time until gender confusion begins to grow there, too. It is scary to me to think what it would be like for such confusion to grow in a soil fertilized by such family breakdown. The results could be scary indeed.

I don't claim to have it all down, but this I do know. God created us male and female, different but equal in value. His plan is always good.

I am praying that the training I'll be receiving will help to clear some of the confusion for those who call me "Mama".