I have a confession to make.
Last night I went to bed mad, smug, full of pride and feeling vindicated. This morning I woke up convicted, peaceful and needing to say I’m sorry.
All of these emotions, a crazy hate fueled (on my part as well) roller-coaster, had to do with shopping or not shopping at Target. Wow. Really?
As a Holy Spirit-filled born again Christian I have a calling to evangelize. I want everyone to know the love and peace I’ve been shown by my best friend Jesus. So I cringed with every post about boycotting Target, an issue that I guess started with the NC governor cracking down on gender specific bathrooms.
This issue is so complicated. I do not have one reason to believe that a trans-gendered person (who has most likely had to grapple personally and publicly with this same issue for much much longer than it’s become our religious/political/fear-mongered cause du jour) would ever do anything more in the women’s room (since that’s what we are mostly talking about here) than cause embarrassment, and probably be embarrassed by the embarrassment caused and hurry through her/his business.
I am also a world traveler and I have raised a brood of world travelers who have taken the good news, the gospel, to the nations. Gender specific bathrooms are hard to find in Paris, let alone Cambodia or Swaziland. I have been driven to the brink of CRAZY about how this is such a first-world issue.
This Target problem soon became one of protecting our children. While there have been incidents of women mostly being molested while in the ladies room, this is not the norm. First of all there are usually large crowds in ladies rooms, hence my reason for sometimes using the room with the trousers on the door, which I guess now could get me in big trouble in NC.
Women are much more readily molested in parking lots and alleyways and even outside their own apartments. So would we boycott any place a trans-gendered person (who is unlikely ever to molest anyone) or a predator might hide?
None of this makes much sense to my far too complicated reasoning.
My problem is this. I am in full out judgement mode. In an effort to protect my good Christian name so that I can better represent my own version of redemption, I am mad at you all that are posting and boycotting things about Target.
There was one post (of a person I don’t even know) that had something like 12,000 comments in the thread. About Target. There was a bunch of hate thrown around, and some of it was my own self-righteous vitriol.
And for this I confess and ask for forgiveness. I am no better right now than those I am publicly judging. My heart is full of anger, and it doesn’t feel like righteous anger from my loving Lord and Savior.
I need your forgiveness today. I need His forgiveness every day. I have been a poor practitioner of what I proclaim to preach. We need desperately to love one another, and right now, it needs to start with me.
I still think this whole Target thing is a non-issue and I will continue to shop there (I mean, really, who doesn’t love Target?) and use the bathroom if I need to. But I’m going to try to put this anger to rest, and ask Him to help me to lose the pride and smugness I’ve been feeling for about a week now. Over Target. Wow. Really?
Wow….I didn’t know your original post had come with so much angst, Pride and smugness. You may have been feeling it but you weren’t projecting it. Kudos to you for reigning in those feelings and putting things in perspective wisely on the Facebook front. Apologize for what was in your heart, but at least you didn’t wear it on your sleeve. 🙂
Thanks, Jamie. I so often err on the side of loving on my unbelieving brothers and sisters and judging my brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s something I’m working on. Grace upon grace.
My thing about the bathrooms is that it seems that we are trying to say transgender people are not deeply troubled individuals but normal and deserve to be treated as another sex altogether or as many very militant people believe we should get rid of male and female and just be humans of no gender thus making having sex with anyone ok. I think is deeply the sign of our very sinful world that we are told any other view is bigotry and should be shunned thus I think bringing about the one world church of the end times where anything goes. Although tolerance and non discrimination are good things they seem to always be directed against the bible. The bible does warn men from dressing up like women. God also says He will give us over to these sins if we continue to pursue them just some foid for thought
I’m not really stuck on the tolerance issue; I’m stuck on the absurdity of it in regards to the bathroom issue. 75% of the world goes to the bathroom wherever they can get out of sight. If we look at a trans-gendered person’s “sin”, just like that of an unwed mother, it is just more visible than mine, in this case pride and judgement. (although that might be very visible to people other than my own bad self). I do believe that no-one would choose to be feeling like a woman in a man’s body or a man in a woman’s body. It must be an awful thing to come to terms with. This is one of the things I will need to ask the Lord about when I see him face to face. I don’t get it. Also can you imagine the anguish they face daily in which bathroom to choose (if we are talking bathrooms). I sin willingly and readily and knowing better. I am much more tolerant (my sin of judgement again) of people who don’t know the Lord and are not following him and obeying his word, because why should they? It is up to him to do the work to convict, forgive and clean up the mess. Since I am a discerner and born-again and because God doesn’t want me to remain in my own self-induced mire, it is up to me, with the help of the HS to get right. He keeps pretty tight reins on me because I am prone to wander.
Thank you for your words. I appreciate where you are.
Thank you, Karen. Your gift is encouragement and you use it to encourage me, haha!