Bind Me To You

The following story comes from an interview gathered for our graduate work. The names have been changed.

Jack was assigned female at birth, and there were times in his childhood, when he was very young, where he would come to me and just cry, and I would hold him. And he’d say, “Heavenly Father made a mistake. I'm supposed to be a boy. What's wrong? What's wrong?”

I didn't know anything about being transgender at that point. So, I’d take him to the family proclamation and say, “Look, you were a girl before you came here. You get the best of both worlds. You can be a tomboy and you can be a mommy and a girl. You can do both, and it's so exciting!” I could tell that never, ever soothed his inner turmoil, but I hoped that it did, and I prayed that it did.

Eventually, Jack came out as trans male in his teens, which began a transition for the whole family.

For a while, listening to the brethren, it was really hard for me. And being at church hurt. It's the thing I love so much, it's who I am, but when I'm there, even the scriptures hurt. It's like touching a hot stove. You do it once. It hurts. You do it twice and pretty soon, before you know it, you've got this open gaping wound and I didn't know what to do with it. I considered taking a break from church for a little while.

A few days later, my husband Robert, told me, “I need to tell you this. I was driving to work, and this came into my mind: Satan uses our weakness to put a wedge between us and Christ. God uses our weakness to draw us to Christ.” I had heard that a million times, but as I sat there, I felt it from my head to my toes. This is it! This pain and sorrow, this cognitive dissonance, I can use it to turn to Christ and let it bring me to Him and to my child.

I decided I’m not turning away from it. I’m going to use it to draw me ever so closer to Him. From that moment on, when I was struggling in church or I was reading a scripture that made me worried about my child and his eternal salvation, I turned it over to Christ. I tell him, “This is scaring me. This is hard. This hurts. I don't know what to do with it. But I know you do. Please bind me to you. Make me stronger.”