?What benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?

For the outcome of those things is death.?

Romans 6:21

Dear friends & ministry partners,

First of all, let me say ?thank you? to each and every one who prayed for and financially supported us as we exhibited and offered a workshop at this year?s Christian Medical and Dental Association conference in Cincinnati. We had a full room of godly professionals eager to hear what we had to share from a Biblical, grace-filled perspective on human sexuality and identity.

The CMDA was a huge success for us as numerous meaningful connections and relationships were formed. Many people took our information and told us they would be meeting with their pastor to explain our ministry and recommend they reach out to us for the equipping we provide to Christian leaders and the Church.

I mentioned in our last email update that I had the privilege of joining Rev. Mark Ongley and Debra Baty for a full day UMC/GMC event entitled, ?Leading with Love ? Building Bridges to Sexual Wholeness?. This was a fast-paced day with great content, fellowship, sharing, and lots of opportunity for Q & A. In fact, this was so well received that an enthusiastic attendee immediately got to work and has already secured another event location and date for a similar day of ministry on August 5 in Eastern Ohio.

Finally, the C12 Current?23 conference was also a time of blessing, relationship-building, and networking with Christian business owners from around the country and other parts of the world ? all deeply desiring to see God use their businesses as a ministry for His Kingdom work. Many people asked about the work I do. This led to a number of deep conversations about struggling family members or friends, and the need for the Church to be far more equipped to offer effective ministry in the area of sexuality and identity.

Please pray for the discussions and decisions taking place for me to offer a workshop at the next national event, as well as being a resource for local chapter leaders on how to Biblically and winsomely navigate issues of sexuality and identity in a Christian work environment.

The weeks and months ahead are very full. Next week, I leave for a 12-day ministry trip which involves two events, each with several hundred pastors. We will again set up our ministry table and offer teaching in both general sessions and workshops.

Our family summer ministry travel schedule is filling up as well, as we make plans to drive back to the northeast for five weeks in July and early August.

CULTURAL CORNER

At Transforming Congregations and Love & Truth Network, we have been working toward an idea that?s been on my heart for quite a while. As we witness the culture shift further and further away from God-honoring principles that support the greatest opportunity for human thriving (whether overtly Christian or not ? ?the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous? ? Matthew 5:45), the reality of human depravity becomes more obvious. The rejection of basic biology and natural law, which clearly reveal the abundant differences between men and women, is leading us toward chaos, not freedom.

We are also clearly told in the Scriptures that ?pride goes before destruction? (Proverbs 16:18), that ?God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble? (James 4:6), that we are to ?humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time? (1 Peter 5:6).

We are living through a time when sexual immorality of every variety imaginable is not only practiced and mainstreamed ? with identity confusion abounding ? but this behavior is also wildly celebrated and even pushed on kids. In our ?independence? from God and idolatry of lust masquerading as freedom, we have lost our ability to feel a healthy sense of shame over sin. Drag-queens are welcomed to ?preach? and give ?children?s messages? in churches ? many of them progressive United Methodist churches.

As you know, June is right around the corner ? dubbed ?Pride month? as an entire season to celebrate and flaunt LGBTQ+ sexual sin and identity confusion. But June wasn?t enough ? there are many other days of the calendar earmarked as LGBTQ+ celebration or remembrance now as well. For example, all of October has been recognized as LGBTQ+ ?History month?. Yet no date on the calendar has gained more worldwide recognition as signifying LGBTQ+ pride as the month of June.

My team and I have been planning to offer a life-giving alternative to what God tells us leads to decay and destruction. This June we?re introducing the ?Humility & Honor? initiative. A video highlighting this concept can be found at LoveAndTruthNetwork.com/HumilityAndHonor.

We will focus on the theme of ?Humility & Honor? throughout our weekly podcasts in the month of June. These will be essential Biblical teachings, so they will be ?ever-green? in our ongoing communication. However, they will be given particular emphasis during seasons of pride and celebration of brokenness and rebellion against God?s good and beautiful design.

We are not developing this theme or initiative to in any way disparage confused and hurting people. I was that person ? living for whatever could fill up my emptiness and take away my loneliness in the moment. But my behavior led to greater and greater degrees of brokenness, emptiness, and confusion. Pride and glorification of sin are never life-giving. Affirmation of sin isn?t love, nor is harsh judgement. We will be lovingly offering a lifeline and gracious support to strugglers identifying as LGBTQ+ (and their friends & family) as we journey together with Jesus on the road of humility and honor that He has invited us into.

SOFIE'S STORY

Joy Comes in the Morning

My husband and I are expecting a baby girl in June. Her name is Rinnah. It is a Hebrew word that I came across last year while reading Psalm 30. Verse 5 of this chapter reads, ?For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning?.

My Bible has these things called Word Wealth throughout, where certain words are highlighted, and you are given the Strong?s [Concordance] definition and where else it is found in Scripture.

The Word Wealth on this page highlights ?joy? in Psalm 30:5: ?rinnah (ree-nah); Strong?s #7440: A shout of rejoicing; shouting; loud cheering in triumph; singing. Rinnah describes the kind of joyful shouting at the time of a great victory. Zeph. 3:17 literally says that God will dance over His beloved people with singing or a shout of joy. Rinnah may best be illustrated by the testimony of the redeemed, returning to Zion from captivity. Rinnah is the word for both singing and joy.

Joy. The opposite of what we were feeling this time last year. But God has a way of turning the deepest despair into the most radiant joy.

A couple of months into our marriage, in early 2022, we found out we were pregnant. When I went for my first check-up at 10 weeks, the ultrasound revealed that the baby had died around week 7. We were devastated. After that appointment we cried our way to Bob Evans and continued crying all over our pancakes.

I was still recovering physically from my miscarriage in April 2022. The emotional recovery took much longer. I was hurt and angry. A part of me felt like this may have been punishment for things I had done in my past. Another part of me knew that was not God?s character, but I did question His goodness.

I clung to scripture that talked about pain and that spoke comfort. When I came across Psalm 30:5, Rinnah stood out to me and I knew?if God ever blessed us with a little girl, her name would be Rinnah.

You see, I never imagined I would have a little girl. I never imagined I would be married... not to a man, anyway.

I grew up in a Christian home, as a missionary kid in southern Africa. I was in love with Jesus. But somewhere along the way, I lost my way. I became more interested in what others thought of me. I began playing soccer on a women?s team where women who were much older than me showed me attention that began to fill the void inside my heart that I had stopped allowing God to fill. Eventually, I found myself completely captivated by these new feelings that had been awakened inside. I began to desire the affection of other women.

Mind you, before this, I broke up with a guy for just attempting to kiss me because I was afraid it would come between me and my relationship with God.

For a while, I tried to hide it. That didn?t last long. I began drinking and showing up to church to lead youth or to play on the worship team completely hungover. I got kicked out of both. I begrudgingly went to church after that but got out of it any chance I could.

When I was 18, I began dating someone who lived in South Africa, older than me, a doctor. I hid this relationship for a while, but it came to light after I stole money from my parents and ran away from home to visit her. I destroyed every good and godly friendship I had. I hurt my siblings and my parents daily with my harsh words and deceit. When it came time to leave Swaziland and come to the US for college, I was relieved to go and I think my parents, though they loved me very much, were relieved to have me go. I knew I would be back. My girlfriend and I were engaged, after all.

I attended a Women?s college in Baltimore. I got dreadlocks. Tattoos. I thought I was hot stuff. I cheated on my fiancé. I didn?t know how to make it right, so I distracted myself with fling after fling after fling. I made some friends outside of school ? a lesbian couple who were into swinging, drugs, and strip clubs. I got into a relationship with a dancer I met at one of these clubs that almost ended in me getting shot by the person she was in a relationship with the whole time we were supposedly dating.

During my senior year of college, I was in a somewhat stable relationship and started going to church again. It was an LGBT church, but for the first time in years I was opening my Bible and journaling. Even in the darkness I was living in, I began to feel Him beckoning me. There had been moments throughout the previous years when I felt Him, but I would do whatever I could to silence Him ? drink more, party more, whatever it took.

This time I was hoping He would tell me that I could have both ? Him and this lifestyle that had become so comfortable, that had become my everything. I mean why not? The world and even many in the church told me this was fully possible.

What my girlfriend and I did not realize was that God was pursuing both of us. Ironically, our sisters had met in Louisiana ? both in ministry school and on fire for God. They were praying fervently for us, along with so many others. My girlfriend went to Louisiana to a conference at her sister?s church. While she was away, I felt in my heart that something big was about to happen. Change was in the air. I was terrified. She returned and told me that God had spoken to her while she was there ? this relationship was not what He had for us.

I was scared out of my mind. And then I got sick. I had a bad case of the flu and for 2 weeks. I could do nothing but lay in bed and think?and listen. During this time God showed me an open window and the impression I had on my heart was that He was holding this window open for me, but if I did not choose to go through it now, it would close. Not because He was giving up on me, but because if I didn?t listen now, my heart would become so hard I would no longer recognize Him calling me.

One night, I came across a sign in my dorm elevator for a Christian event on campus. By the time I saw it, it was already halfway over. I went to my dorm room and tried to ignore this feeling I had inside that I needed to be there, but it was too strong.

I went. It was the end of service ? the altar call. The speaker was reading Matthew 28:11 ? ?Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest?. It felt like all of the weight and hurt from the past seven years suddenly landed on my shoulders, and I couldn?t stand. I fell to my knees, sobbing, and prayed a prayer of surrender that would be the beginning of a journey I never thought possible.

Over the next months, year, I fell often. And every time I fell, He was there to remind me, not of how disappointed He was with me, but how much He loved me.

One weekend I fell pretty badly ? ended up reconnecting with someone from my past and getting very drunk. On Sunday morning I woke up, filled with shame, and texted my mentor and family that I was done trying.

My mentor told me to get my butt to church.

When I walked in, there was a guest speaker singing a song ?I want to fall in love with You all over again. Help me to fall in love with You. Sweet Jesus, sweet Savior, Creator of everything?. The simple yet profound words of this song broke my heart, and again I found myself weeping on the floor. After she was done ministering, she came to me and asked me to meet her outside. As I wept, she prayed over me and spoke words I will never forget.

She told me that though I didn?t believe it, God has made me beautiful and feminine and that He was restoring my femininity.

Then she said something that almost made me laugh. She said I would be married one day, that there would be a wedding. And that he would love me for me. I wrote all of this down in my journal, but I didn?t necessarily believe it. I was beginning to rediscover the goodness and the faithfulness and the perfect love of God, but I had a hard time imagining He could change me that much, that He could love me that much to restore in me all of the things I had given up on many, many years earlier.

I got dreads and dressed a certain way to try and be someone I was not. I thought I could be tough and make my heart impenetrable by my exterior. Yet, there were times I wanted someone who was more masculine, but then I would feel completely inadequate and worthless because these guys were looking for someone beautiful and feminine, and in an attempt to make up for these qualities I thought I inherently lacked, I tried to portray myself as the opposite.

I never imagined I would be married. First of all, I didn?t find men attractive, and second of all, I didn?t think any decent Christian guy would want to marry me?with my dreads, tattoos, and scars.

Between that moment and 2021, there were many times that I doubted. Like when I was talking to a guy who checked all of the boxes except that He told me I couldn?t talk about or share my testimony because it was in my past and did not need to be brought back up?ever. Or when I dated a guy that checked all of the boxes except, he let me walk all over him and God made it very clear to me that I would need to be with someone who was not afraid to correct or stand up to me.

Oh submission. It has been such a hard lesson.

During COVID, I met a man. He and I ran for the same running group where we lived. He had a past, too. And he never once made me feel shame over mine. He often cooked for me and brought the food to my job so we could have picnics during lunch breaks. We read the Bible together and he began attending and getting involved at my church. He would go out of his way to serve me however he could. Very quickly, I knew this was going to be my husband.

We got married in October of 2021. The same lady who was ministering that day in church, who God used to tell me I would be married, came to our wedding and sang that very same song that penetrated my heart so deeply so many years earlier.

The wedding. Beautiful. Marriage. Boy was I in for a surprise.

Marriage is by far the hardest, most challenging thing I have ever, ever walked through. And we?re not even 2 years in! If you want to know everything that is wrong with you?just get married. It all comes to light. And it is not pretty!

I liked being served when it suited me, but other times I wanted things my way and if not my way, too bad, get over it. Submission was a much bigger problem than I thought?it is much easier to argue, fight till I get my way, try to prove him wrong?

Easier, indeed. But exhausting. Painful. There is no fruit there. We have come a long way in this one and a half years of being married. I think the biggest lesson has been that love is a choice and that my feelings can no longer drive my actions. Feelings are fickle and cannot be trusted. Love is crazy hard, but it is so worth it.

Regardless of how I feel, I must choose to love and to be loved. Isn?t this how it is in our relationship with God, too?

You see we serve a God who transforms. He transforms what we think is impossible to be transformed. He takes our stony hearts and breaks them so He can soften them to be molded into His likeness. He takes what the enemy meant to harm us and turns it for our good.

He took my rebellious spirit and taught me how to walk in gentleness and submission. He took an insecure, scared girl who pretended to be tough and confident, and shows her how to find her worth, identity, and authority in Him.

And in this past year, He has taken my sorrow, my despair and turned it to joy, to dancing, to gladness.

Verse 11-12 of Psalm 30 reads, ?You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.?

I will not be silent. He has done too much!