The Longest Email Ever: Dating A Trans* Person

The subject line read “Help”, and it was delivered from an email address that began with the word ‘hacked’ (not a great start). What’s more, the first lines (from this individual) described themselves as a ‘not-frequent-enough’ church attender as well as a being ‘pretty hot’ J. In the longest email I’ve ever received, the words strung together were cogent. With them were personal and historical data points about themselves and people I know. It included a coming to faith story as well as observations about LGBTQ+ ideology and community. It ended with a perceivable sigh…..’I am exhausted. I don’t know what to do’. Hence the subject line, help.

This (biological; Christian) man is romantically intertwined with a trans-man. This story is becoming more common in our day. What would you do? Where would you go for guidance?

Thankfully, we have two Scriptures that have come to ground and guide our (WGA’s) interactions with folks:

“We don’t know what do Lord, but our eyes are on you.” — 2 Chronicles 20:12; ESV

“To whom shall we go, Lord, you have the words of eternal life.” — John 6:68; CSB.

Drawing from those two Scriptures, I read the email. I read it more than once. More than four times. I longed to peer beneath the words, to get at the mood and the mental state of this ‘author’ as well as the person they referenced. I fact checked. I reached out to the people he said knew him and me. This wasn’t a hack, it was a real person. We agreed to meet for lunch at a local pizzeria.

Lunch  

Over the past few months, I’ve been influenced by this line, this posture, from Eugene Peterson:

“As a pastor (or person), you’ve got to be willing to take people as they are. And live with them where they are. And not impose your will on them. Because God has different ways of being with people, and you don’t always know what they are.”[1]

Yes, Jesus is radically gracious in his desire to accept and love us. He is also radically truthful about his warnings on sin and God’s judgement. He doesn’t lower the bar on holiness. He made a way to make us holy that isn’t dependent on our performance. Consequently, how I, how we hold that, as we walk into these conversations, is vitally important.

What did I do? Like a counselor does, when taking on a new client, I did an intake. As we ate, I sought to understand before I was understood. I asked A LOT of questions before I offered any recommendations or observations. He shared with honesty and was receptive to what I had to say. While he was guarded and self-justifying in some ways, he wanted to meet again. His self-protection made sense to me, as this was our first interaction, and he had abusive parents and grew up in a cult.  His interest in meeting again seemed to indicate God was wooing and giving him wisdom.

Training + The Gospel

While it’s impossible to capture the whole of that interaction in this forum, there are traces of both training and the gospel here. How so? It’s been said that we don’t rise to the level of our talent, we fall to the level of our training. What’s that mean?

This interaction does highlight the importance of training. Mainly, to become familiar with, to learn, to study, to pray, to understand the stories of LGBTQ+ people as well as their aches. All this so that we might be with and speak (coherently) to an individual who sends us an email like the one animating this post.

Secondly, it does draw us to the importance of the gospel. “If you are in Christ, you have a Friend who, in your sorrow (or confusion), will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at distance. Nothing can hold him back. His heart is too bound up with yours.”[2]

It’s in moments like these that we can (like God in Eden) hear and ask two questions: where are you? Tradition in Judaism and early Christianity understands the first question as an invitation to see reality as God sees. And, leading to the second question, who told you that you were naked? Said another way, how have you deviated from my (God’s) design and destiny for your life?   Grace & truth.

During our interaction, this man was starting to see how God sees… that what God is possibly doing in him and in this person, is far bigger than he could imagine. Now, from that interaction, he continued to stay with this person. However, after we met yesterday, he had called it quits with them a few days ago. Now, not every situation ends like this. But, how we ended yesterday was with this man saying, “I think God is starting to show me that He (God) is enough for me. I want that.” God has different ways of being with people, and you/I don’t always know what those are. However, what we can know is that Christ has the words of eternal life. He is the only one that can speak those to the deepest parts of us.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus is The Way (emphasis mine).

[2] Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 239.