The holiday period has passed and a new year has begun. But perhaps this has been a season of sorrow in your life, as it has for me. I wish to write this article to you—especially as we contemplate the days ahead with trepidation.

Perhaps your child didn’t return home for Christmas and, though it’s February, you left the lights up just in case she does. Your eyes have become tired of tears as memories of your beloved one are wrapped up in arguments about sexual brokenness.

What can I say to parents grieving the news that their son is about to transition? That their daughter is marrying a transgender man? The fluctuations of gender identity destroy what we hold dear and what God himself created. There aren’t enough brushstrokes to settle the rising dust of human depravity. Indeed, those who follow Christ face a continuous barrage of conflict and suffering.

We know what the Bible teaches about gender, but how do we live in this world? What should we speak or do—particularly when our hearts are breaking for our loved ones?

Oh, so much has been theologized. We know what the Bible teaches about gender, but how do we live in this world? What should we speak or do—particularly when our hearts are breaking for our loved ones? Now is the right time to hear Jesus’s words from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). 

Blessed Mourner

Beloved, I know it’s hard. Don’t stop your tears from falling. Yes, bury your face within the palm of your hands and weep. In the darkest times, when our faith is being tested and we’re hard-pressed to consider God, the Holy Spirit works in our hearts to produce steadfastness, preparing us to acknowledge the Lord’s authority and rule.

So permit yourself to mourn. If there are troubling, heavy words your heart needs to spill out, may I encourage you to lift them in prayer to the Lord? He will incline his ears to you (Ps. 17:6). Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (James 4:8). Remember Paul who, with a thorn in his flesh and a messenger of Satan harassing him, was “content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” because God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:10). Out of this context—weakness—we sing with hope as David did, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Ps. 23:4).

Blessed Righteous

By the Spirit, Christ sustains you and enables you to fight for him. His power is made perfect in you as you stand upon the threshold of utter weakness, still proclaiming with all your heart that Jesus IS your King.

Even your weakness and grief are part of the good fight! “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad” (Eccles. 7:2–3). In the Lord’s hands, the sadness you suffer refines your soul. It causes you to grasp for a glimpse of eternity and makes you yearn for renewal in Jesus, our soul’s strength. It reminds you of the Lord’s promise—from all eternity past to all eternity future, we “have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15b).

Your suffering may look like an untamable monster today, but rest assured that its days are numbered. It is transient.

Truly, as you endure trials that can tear apart relationships and challenge your faith, remember that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17–18). Your suffering may look like an untamable monster today, but rest assured that its days are numbered. It is transient. For “all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Pet. 1:24–25a, Isa. 40:6–8). The battle belongs to our triumphant Lord.

Blessed Peacemaker

Until Christ returns, beloved, we are to fix our eyes upon him who commands death to be no more and whose Word remains unchangeable. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28a). By having this mind among ourselves we do suffer, upholding the call to seek the lost, pointing them to life in Christ. You may be hated for this as your child leaves home. You may be persecuted by your own family and afflicted by every ungodly law. But it is precisely when you’re being given over to death for Jesus’s sake that the life of Jesus is manifested in your mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:11).

Beloved, remember Christ. He promises life to us:

This will be your opportunity to bear witness. . . . You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. (Luke 21:13, 16–19)