Keep breathing, don't lose focus...

 

“They call me damaged, I let them think what they like. They call me difficult because I don’t fit in the lines, but I didn’t get this far without any scars. I’m not brittle, well maybe just a little.”

“I tell myself keep breathing, don’t lose focus. I’m alive, I’m not a diagnosis. Keep breathing, don’t loose focus, I’m not a diagnosis” -Icon for Hire, “Brittle”

 

This week has been brutal, truly. During meditation a few days ago I felt the spirit near to me and he told me that I was about to have my faith tested, to see if I would truly remain in the church for the rest of my days. Whenever I have moments like this I can never be completely certain if what I’m hearing is just an inner monologue, some sort of connection with the sub-conscious, or if it is truly the Holy Ghost speaking to me in that still small voice. More often than not, it seems to be the last one, at least it has been since returning to church.

At first I went into this week from a very high note of hope and excitement about church and my faith. I was told on Sunday that I was cleared to have a calling and that it was possible that I might get to go through the temple for endowment.  I even did the temple recommend interview with my bishop as the first steps to having my request sent to the first presidency. But in the back of my mind I knew that my hopefulness wouldn’t last. I knew that the spirit spoke true and that I would be tested. It’s now Wednesday and I feel like I’ve been running through the gauntlet of “do I belong here?” “Maybe I should just stop going,” “Maybe I was wrong and I’m just deceiving myself,” “Maybe they are right that I have committed a terrible sin by transitioning genders.”

Those feelings of hope faded rather quickly Sunday night and I felt what can only be described as the spirit departing from me. There was no sin or transgression associated with his departure (was literally reading scriptures) but it was an unmistakable shift. I feel attuned enough to the spirit these days that his absence is very noticeable. And so I knew that the trial was beginning, and I was right. It started subtle enough but tonight it came to a breaking point.

 While I do not believe that I have lost a friend, I am certain that I have lost an ally in my efforts to make room for transgender people in the church. That stake historian that was writing a piece about me has decided that the church policies don’t permit her to write my story any longer. There were other complicating factors but the point is, she was solidly in my corner, and now I’m not so sure she believes I belong in the church anymore; at least not as who I am right now. Only time will tell where everything lands but I feel truly discouraged. She tried to inform me about this with as much grace and kindness as possible, I believe, but the sting was only slightly lessened.

This came as a sequel of sorrow to numerous interactions on Instagram with people who tried their very best to convince me that I don’t belong, and that any belief that I do is simply delusional on my part. I can usually handle one of these every so often. It’s easy to roll my eyes and move on, but when there are multiple in a short span of time… it’s harder to just roll with the punches. Eventually one of them lands. One of these people suggested that it wasn’t possible for me to be righteous while also having transitioned genders. I’m grateful to report that my interactions with this person have shifted and they are trying better to understand. But they are the exception and their question made me second guess myself.

And so here I am, on the precipice of losing hope, trying desperately to dig down deeper than ever before for some degree of resilience to keep going. So, like the song lyrics go: I tell myself, keep breathing, don’t loose focus, I’m alive, I’m not a diagnosis.

The crazy thing is that back in the past when I struggled with remaining active in the church it was because of some failure of character or failure to overcome some temporal temptation. It was always about sex, drugs, or wanting freedom from a seemingly oppressive religion that seemed to think anything fun at all was a sin. Today, none of those things even resonate. I couldn’t care less about any of them, yet here I am struggling to remain active, and why? Because I’m worried I don’t have the endurance necessary to walk down the figurative street that is the church while the masses crowd around me to curse, demean, and spit on me. I don’t know how Christ did it. How did he endure the humiliation of having the very people he was trying to save mock, curse, and smite him as he carried that cross?

It brings me to tears to even consider what that must have been like for him… and all the while he endured it with patience, compassion, and longsuffering. He forgave those who drove nails into his flesh and mocked him during the final hours of his mortal life. He truly was God.

It feels like an impossible standard to measure myself against, and yet I feel constrained to do just that. We came here to be perfected didn’t we? We came here so that we would be tested to see whether we would choose righteousness or sin, right? If his endurance of unspeakable humiliation is the standard, then shouldn’t I be grateful to be tested in this way? Very few people have had to endure what I am going through… and just like I am looking to Christ for the right way to make it through, those transgender saints who follow after me will be looking to how I managed it. If I lose hope and walk away, then what does that say to them? Will my failure lead them to leave the church because they don’t see any hope of finding a place within it? My heart aches at the thought that my decision to give up could be the reason someone turns away from God and Christ instead of believing that they’re experience is important and they belong.

And so, I must go on. This is the cross that I must bear, and I must keep walking down this street. I must not give up and cave beneath the pressure. I can’t let the God I love above all other things be disappointed that I wasn’t strong enough, not after all that Christ went through for all of us. I can see that not all the faces in the crowd are twisted in hatred. Just beyond the thronging masses that spit on me and condemn me, I can see kind faces filled with sadness at what they are seeing. I can hear their words of reassurance that not everyone in the crowd feels the way the loudest voices do. I can see that some who came to participate are having a change of heart. I can hear that underneath the angry shouts there are prayers for kindness and tolerance… and so, the answer is humility. The answer is forgiveness for those who wound me. The answer is faith that after all the trials, and suffering, and pain… there will be rest, there will be recompense, and there will be crowns of glory where moth and rust cannot corrupt.