Creating a Climate of Grace for Your Gay or Transgender Child
The following is an abbreviated excerpt from Chapter 9 of our new parents’ curriculum, Shattered Dreams, New Hope: First Aid for Parents Whose Son or Daughter Has Embraced an LGBTQ+ Identity, which is now available as a free digital download. In this excerpt, we invite you to consider how you can pursue your child and model the love of God through your relationship.
Likely, your relationship with your child looks different than it once did. Tension and distance may exist between the two of you. You may need to rebuild the foundation of trust and honesty with them. As the parent, you must be the one to initiate this reconciliation. View this responsibility as a blessing, as a chance to recreate the relationship in a new and more beautiful way, upon your own relationship with Christ.
As you actively pursue a ministry of reconciliation, one of the first steps is to create a climate of grace in your relationship. Essentially, this means that you communicate to your child through word, action, and deed that your relationship is a safe place for them. Regardless of their new position in life, you will continue to love them and be involved, even if their choices aren’t what you wanted for them. You can be a refuge for them when they need help or when life doesn’t go as they planned.
Below, we list four major components in creating this climate of grace.
Offer the Gift of Relationship
A climate of grace begins with offering the gift of relationship, without the requirement that your son or daughter first repent and turn from their lifestyle. Of course, repentance is required for complete reconciliation, but as God pursued you even while you were a sinner and enemy to him (Romans 5:8), you can extend this grace to your child. Do you find that you are waiting for your child to repent or change their ways before you offer this gift? Just as God does not break his relationship with you in response to every sin, so you can take steps toward your child even in the midst of them choosing a direction you do not support.
This is not to say that the relationship will be defined by all-out acceptance; rather, by relating to them in this way, they do not have to hide their feelings, questions, issues, or actions from you, even though you disagree. One major objective for doing this is for your child to return to you for future conversations, which may lead to more willingness to hear you out.
Model Your Own Need for God’s Grace
A second aspect of this climate of grace is modeling to your son or daughter that you need the same grace and forgiveness from God. You know that, every day, sin and unbelief plague your own heart, which also means that you can express thankfulness for God’s forgiveness and continued relationship with you. This truth gives you a deep humility in how you relate to others, especially to those like your child who choose to live outside of God’s Word. A posture of gratitude is the antidote to becoming the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
On a practical level, this means that you will acknowledge times when you have sinned and done wrong, while bearing in mind that your actions have not produced your child’s sexual struggles. Perhaps you need to ask for their forgiveness. Were there times you responded harshly or insensitively to your child’s chosen identity? Have you spoken words that belittled them? Has your response been one of open anger and disappointment?
As fallen beings, we all sin against our children, so we are called to confess and reconcile with them also. Reconciliation is a blessing in itself, leading toward openness and newness of relationship. It is a way to start over afresh, to make right what was once wrong.
Enter Fully into Your Child’s Life
A third aspect of this climate of grace requires that you willingly enter into your child’s life and interests. This will mean asking questions about his or her friends, partner, LGBTQ+ community, etc. You cannot have a viable relationship with your child apart from taking an interest in what he or she considers important. Again, engaging in this way may bring up fears about you approving of your child’s decision, but consider the ways in which Jesus entered closely into the lives of people who were not followers of God. Read John 4 about the woman at the well. Consider the slanderous description charged against Jesus, that he “ate with sinners and tax collectors” (Matthew 9:11, 11:19). Recall that he had fellowship with religious authority figures who were against him (Luke 7:36–50). Do you see how Jesus met with, related to, and cared for those who were outcasts and enemies? This enables you to engage with all of your child’s life, even the difficult parts.
Acknowledge Reality
Lastly, in order to create a climate of grace with your child, you must acknowledge the reality that this is who they say they are, what they believe about themselves, and how they want to be known. Acknowledging who they want to be is not approving of their new identity. But if you find yourself wanting to deny that they now define themselves as gay or identify as another gender, and you would rather continue focusing on who they were before, you may find that your relationship with your child stalls rather than moves forward. Instead, you can reframe for your child what true acceptance looks like by loving them and accepting, not affirming, their choices while still standing firm in truth. In doing so, you will demonstrate the way in which God accepts them as well.
For a climate of grace to exist between you and your child, you must meet them where they are. Make-believe and denial will further impair your relationship. So while you continue to hope and pray for a change within them, you must also accept that they are now identifying as gay or as another gender.
