Carried Along

Many people find it odd, but even though we love the quieter Montana life, my entire family loves exploring big bustling cities. Recently, we travelled to San Francisco, one of our favorites. The excitement, the smells, and the people watching never fail to deliver. As we navigated our way through Union Square, The Tenderloin, Golden Gate Park, and Haight Ashbury, I thought of the myriad of groups who have made their way to San Francisco over the years. The Forty-niners, the Beatniks, and the hippies all traveled there to, well, reinvent themselves. And while there are those who grew up there, the San Francisco streets still hold many individuals, from professionals to homeless, who are there to be just that, individuals. It only takes a few hours of wandering its streets to realize that you do not come to San Francisco to find prince charming and a white picket fence, you come there to embrace the appearance, beliefs, and lifestyle you always thought you wanted but didn’t dare to have in your hometown.

We live in an age of reinvention. For decades, we have used lypo-suction, plastic surgery, and weight loss drugs to transform ourselves. In this age we go to therapy to “recover” from our religious upbringing, our toxic families, separating ourselves (sometimes completely) from the things that once made us us. And it doesn’t stop there. We are also encouraged to question traditional roles, all of them including sexuality and even the sex we were born with. It’s almost as if being sure of something-our faith, our family, our identity-is shameful.

As a high school teacher, I am surrounded by reinvention. Each year I have the privilege of meeting a group of vastly different students. Many are devout and confident while others are grasping at anything that might give them peace-weight loss, the perfect tan or makeup routine, the right look, the perfect grades, the right boyfriend or girlfriend, Ivy League acceptance, freedom from parents, an alternative lifestyle or religion, and, yes, even a change in gender.

The beauty of my job is that I don’t get a choice of who I interact with. These relationships are nothing less than acts of divine appointment. From the moment they step into my room, I can only pray that God gives me the wisdom to meet their needs-educationally, physically, emotionally-the best I can in the time I have with them, no matter who they are. So for me, each and every student who enters my classroom is an opportunity-an opportunity to learn, serve, and pray. And yes, many of them are uncomfortable in their own skin. What else would I expect in this confusing fallen world? Psalm 139:14 tells us, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Regardless of how uncomfortable my students are in their own skin, I know how greatly God values each and every one of them. As a result, my time with them is a privilege. After all, who gets to interact with, serve, and pray for such a diverse population on a daily basis? Not many.

After 27 years in public education, I have nothing but compassion for anyone in a phase of “reinvention” of any kind. I have read their journals. I have heard their stories. They have heard the condemnation, especially from the church. They have been shunned, bullied, and disowned. They have been sent to private schools, therapists, and treatment. And yes, some have been told they will go to hell and that they deserve to die, more often than you might think. And while some of these messengers may believe they were only spreading truth, the message these individuals received is “There is something wrong with you. There is no place for you in God’s kingdom.”

A few years ago, our family unknowingly ran into the end of the pride parade in Seattle. Our kids were 5 and 8, so some of the things we saw that night were definitely disconcerting. The next morning, we cautiously walked out of our hotel to find the streets quiet, as if nothing had happened. As we started our adventure, we ran into a man with a sign. His sign had verses about the sin of homosexuality. We engaged him in conversation, and he said he was in Seattle for the month of June to “share the truth” with the LGBTQ+ community. Being as I was on vacation, I didn’t spend much time talking to him, but as someone who interacts with the community he was targeting daily, I definitely had a few thoughts:

1. The LGBT+ community are people. When my son went to public high school, I told him the community he would be around “were just people.” The same goes for this community. You could hold a sign telling them they are wrong, or you could get a job in a coffee shop or a restaurant and get to know them. You might find that they actually are interested in God and his truth but can’t find a way to bridge the impassable gap they have been told is there between them and God.
2. They don’t need you to side with them politically, they just need someone who cares. A few years ago, I had a transgender student who came to me in tears. She felt a certain teacher was singling her out. She was making her redo assignments for no reason, etc. . . . Now, whatever the perceptions of this student at the time, the irony of the situation was that this teacher’s blatant political leanings, which should have aligned her with this student, meant nothing. This student knew who cared, and that was who she relied on in a time of need.
3. Sexual identity issues and gender dysphoria are serious and deep-rooted. Yes, some teens go through “phases”, but some have felt different from a very young age. To make matters worse, nuclear families are more and more rare. An average class roster for me indicates 5 of 20 students living with both of their biological parents.  This year 12.5% of my students had experienced trauma like the death of a parent, removal from the home for abuse or neglect, or intensive treatment for mental health issues. I am not God.  I have a few months with most of my students. My few months with them will change very little, or nothing at all.  This is what I know: I am where God wants me. I need to be faithful in service and prayer.  Discomfort is a part of life in a fallen world. To be “in the world” is to be around brokenness, our own and others’. 

So, from someone who cares deeply about those in various phrases of “reinvention”, my question is “Who will we share the gospel with? Only those we are comfortable with?” My prayer is that, as believers, we move towards all people with compassion because as Romans 10 tells us, ^” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’  . . . For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:14-15). 

I know that for many believers, this age of reinvention seems unprecedented.  It has thrown the church into the defense instead of the offense.  We want to protect our families so fiercely from these radical ideas that we almost excuse ourselves from passages like The Great Commission of Matthew 28 and the one above.  But as someone who is interacting with these groups daily, I am confident, as Paul said that God will continue his work of completion in all believers, including all of those he has called and is calling who are in some stage of reinvention.