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Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Monday, August 28, 2006
I was cross-dressed as a child.

I’ve just gone through the E06 conference at church and in it, God opened up some really serious bandages where the wounds underneath have not healed, most of them even after many, many years. But I’m not gonna serialise my journey here. I’m just gonna tell you one story. You see the title of this post, and the opening line – I’m not trying to also tabloidise my life. Running expose sob stories about childhood is not what I’m doing here. And if I may disclaim before I go any further, I had a happy childhood. Compared to other kids, my parents stuck together, I was shown lots of love and my friends in school were usually great. But I have one story to tell you today about my childhood and I don't want to sugarcoat my life and only talk about happy things.

I was cross-dressed as a child. I must have been about five or six or seven and I was told that I was needed to help try on a dress. It was for a friend’s daughter who was “about my age, about my size”. Active little boys don’t wear dresses. As simple as that seems to understand, I was eventually coaxed into wearing the dress in the name of being an obedient kid. It was horrible. And I felt so shamed.

My perpetrators laughed at me for a few minutes and then told me to change back and then confessed that it was a joke. I think to some of them, it’s still a joke today. But it scarred a very little boy, and when the E06 conference took the bandage off this incident, it was still a gaping wound – fresh as yesterday.

Was God there when the cross-dressing happened? Was he watching? Why wasn’t I protected from this kind of bullying? Just because he’s a little boy, and he’s wearing a dress, it’s cute? It’s not cute. What kind of sick worldview allows the humiliation of children like that?

On the last night of the E06 conference, during the concert, they brought out this little girl on stage. Something like a surprise feature song. She sang Jesus loves me. She must have been about five. And as she sang, something in me broke and I fell on my knees.

I didn’t have the benefit of Sunday school when I was a boy. I didn’t grow up knowing that “yes, Jesus loves me”. So, did he love me then? Did he love me when I was a five year old myself, getting cross-dressed? As the little girl sang, I saw myself as a little boy in a dress, standing awkwardly, ashamed, shamed and stripped of my dignity as I paraded myself. Who was protecting me then?

I heard the voice of God speak to me, in the middle of my sobbing, telling me “son, I felt shamed too. Son, I was stripped of dignity too. Son, I want you to know that I felt everything you felt, exactly as you felt it, and I hurt with you. Tonight, I’m crying with you”.

Who is this God that he hurts with me like he experiences my experiences? Who is this God who goes through hell with me because he loves me too much to let me go through hell alone? He kept speaking to me: “Son, I will protect you. I will protect you. I will protect you”.

In the bible, when Joseph and his brothers reconcile, he tells them “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, for the saving of many lives”. If I finish this story now, it is no more than another cheap tabloid story with a sensational plot. But if I believe that God meant it for good, for the saving of many lives, then I am compelled to say this as well.

The day I made Jesus my God, he became my protector. More than that, he also became my redeemer. Today, he is redeeming me from years of hurt and anger from being mistreated as a child. He is returning to me the self-worth and self-image that was destroyed in two minutes of shame. I don’t know what kind of life you’ve had and I won’t pretend to know it. But I know my life. And I want to tell you that I know Jesus knows what he's talking about when he says he knows humiliation, betrayal, shame and hurt.

If it feels like somewhere in the past, a part of you has died, today, maybe Jesus is saying “Do you want a new life?” I want a new life. It’s so easy to say I want a new life, but when your heart is put to a decision to receive Jesus for that new life, suddenly, it’s so hard. But I’ll tell you, go find me someone else, some holy man or god or deity, who knows what it’s like to be humiliated for no reason like maybe you were, and I’ll tell you to follow him instead. Find me some other teacher of life who knows the shame of being stripped and hung out in public to be laughed at like I was, I’ll tell you to follow him. You won't find any other god who knows what it means to be shamed. Only Jesus who knows how you feel, because he too was bruised even before you were bruised. This same Jesus has new life to give you, if you only choose it.

If you do, then pray this with me: Jesus, I make you my God, to protect me from shame, to defend me from harm, and to heal me from hurts. If you are really real, come and be my God. Amen.


Please don’t comment on this post. I didn’t tell this story as a dialogue with the world, I told it as a testimony. Please also refrain from using my name if you are testifying this to others who don’t know me. But if they know me, you have my permission to share this with my name attached. Thanks.

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Genusfrog [ 10:10 am ]

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