Bruce Jenner is not a woman. He can say he is a thousand times a day, but he’s not a woman. He can go on every talk show and news outlet and say he is, but he is not. He can surgically remove his penis, get breast implants and wear makeup, he is still a man. Nothing, I mean nothing is going to change him into a woman. He’s a mentally disturbed man that needs help. He is not a woman.

God designed men and women differently, in case you didn’t know. We women are capable of growing and birthing babies with our bodies. Every one of our 37.2 trillion cells are coded to show we are a woman.

Every month, we women go through a process that indicates our womanhood. Whether we like it or not, our bodies, prepare for having babies. Every month, our uteruses fill a lining with blood to prepare for housing a baby. Every month a tiny egg travels down our fallopian tubes, waiting to get fertilized. When it doesn’t, our bodies release hormones to tell our uteruses, nope, no baby, time to shed that lining. Our bodies shed the lining, and after it does, it starts all over again, building up a cushion for a potential baby.

I thought it was interesting, I found this quote on a website: kidshealth.org, that talks about things related to, well, kid’s health. One of the articles explains a woman’s period and this is what they said at the beginning of the article:

“Menstruation (a period) is a major stage of puberty in girls. It’s one of the many physical signs that a girl is turning into a woman.”

Our periods are “one of the many physical signs that a girl is turning into a woman.” That couldn’t be any clearer. I know for a fact that Bruce Jenner does not have a period. He never has, nor will he ever. He can change as much as he would like on the outside of his body, but every one of his 37.2 trillion cells are coded male. He can’t change that. He never will be able to change that.

There is so much that goes on in our bodies whether we are male or female. At around puberty, our pituitary glands began releasing hormones that are either male or female. These hormones signal our bodies to start developing into a man or woman. Men grow facial hair, and their voices get deeper. Women began to menstruate and develop breasts. Our bodies are perfectly designed systems, to create us into grown men or women. Inside our brains and each of our 37.2 trillion cells, everything works together to grow us into the males or females we were designed to be.

If you are a man, who thinks he’s a woman, that’s strictly in your addled mind. All of your 37.2 trillion cells knows exactly what you are. Your pituitary gland secrets male hormones because it knows exactly who you are. You do not have ovaries, a uterus, or fallopian tubes. All of your inside organs and cells are a strictly male system that coordinates with the codes of your pituitary gland and cells. Everything Bruce Jenner has done to himself is strictly external. His entire body is male and always will be.

When I worked at the pysch hospital years ago, we had young patients with anorexia. Most of you know, anorexia is a state of mind in which a person believes they are fat, but really aren’t. They starve themselves to get thinner, because they truly believe they are fat. This is called a disorder, and the kids that had it were hospitalized to save their lives. Death is a common outcome, if a person doesn’t get help.

If anorexia is considered a psychological disorder in which is person believes they are fat when they aren’t, why do we treat transgenders differently? Transgenders believe they are the wrong gender when they aren’t. There is a 40% suicide rate among transgenders. Why are we pretending this is normal when these people are in crisis? They need help. They don’t need to be elected “Woman of the Year” (Bruce Jenner). They’re suffering a serious psychological crisis and need help before they off themselves. And the number doesn’t change whether they so called transition or not. Either way, 40% of them kill themselves.

God designed our bodies perfectly. Our cells, hormones, glands and organs all work together to create either a male or female person. There is no in between. There is no question. Everything in a male’s body is coded male. Everything in a female’s body is coded female. We need to help these people who think they are different then what their body is coded to be. Bruce Jenner is male and it will never change.

I am getting a new body. That thought occurred to me as I was driving to church today, turning on the air conditioner, because I was so hot. Then, I quickly turned it off, because it was so cold. I’m getting a new body. As I see the one I’m in aging, which to me seems quickly, the thought of a new body is thrilling.

This current state of my body will not be forever. The increasingly large bags under my eyes will be gone. The gray hair-gone. The aches and pains that seem to harass me on a daily basis-gone. I look at my son who seems to have the energy of a squirrel, I’m jealous. The cashier at the grocery store today asked me what my plans were and I told him I planned to nap. That really was my plan. And I actually got it accomplished.

Aging for the Christian isn’t so bad. Well it’s bad, but it’s only temporary. It’s not the state we will live in forever. Those of us who are believers get a new body. How fun is that? I have a friend who has a diet that limits her to basically two things she can safely eat. She told me she longs for heaven, when she can eat anything. I’m up for that.

The Christian life offers the believer so much hope. We have hope that this life isn’t all there is. We have hope for eternal life. We have hope for heaven and not hell. We have hope for a new body. Hope to see our Christian loved ones that have gone on ahead of us. Hope to see God in person, the One who saved us.

We don’t take it with us. We get a whole new body. I asked my kids one time, what they looked forward to about heaven. My son says he likes the idea of teleporting. Jesus is our example of what we have to look forward to and He seemed to teleport in and out of buildings, appearing, then disappearing. What a concept!

“A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” John 20:26

See, teleporting.

We weren’t meant to age. Aging is part of the curse we received once Adam and Eve sinned. Death was not part of the equation at that time. But their sin brought about death and aging. Thanks to them, we now live half our lives in a gradual state of decay as we march towards death. That’s a depressing thought. But it’s not permanent.

We get a brand new body. One that is immortal. One that isn’t decaying. We get to live forever and do it in style. I for one, am thrilled at the prospect.

For those of us who are true believers, we don’t have to mourn, our decaying bodies. We’ll get a new one. One that will last for eternity. One without the bags, the tiredness, the aches and pains, gray hair. All those things come from the fall. We’ll have face lifts without looking like the Joker from Batman.

Who is looking forward to this besides me?

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

I don’t think I’ve ragged on the movie, “The Shack,” enough, but I want to switch modes today and talk about a movie Christians SHOULD support. It’s just out in theaters and might not be there for very long. It’s called, “The Case For Christ.” No ambiguity in this movie. No convoluted pictures of God and the Trinity, (like “The Shack”). This is a solid Christian movie.

I won’t give away the movie, but I’ll give you a sneak peak at what it’s all about. Lee Strobel, many of you may have heard of him, sets out to prove God does not exist and Jesus Christ didn’t actually die on the cross. He wants to poke holes in Christianity, because he feels he’s lost his wife to it. She becomes a Christian and he feels like he can’t talk to her anymore. He was a award winning journalist at the time, so he approaches this like all of his other stories, conducting a thorough investigation. If he can find holes in Christianity, he can prove to his wife that she’s believing a fairy tale and abandon it.

Watching this movie was so encouraging to me as a believer. Every objection Lee has to Christianity in answered, and for the Christian it’s refreshing to see that. This is based on Lee Stobel’s biography of the same title. I’m not giving away the ending by telling you, Lee Strobel has been a Christian writer for years now. This is his story, coming to faith. There is no blasphemy here. No heretical points. You don’t have to wade through a bunch of new age garbage, to see God in this movie. This really is worth your time and money.

Go see it. Go support a true Christian movie.

And returning to my favorite topic of ragging on “The Shack,” if you don’t believe me of how bad it is, here are some articles written by other Christians talking about the heresy of it.

Al Mohler writes an excellent review of the book from a Christian perspective. Here’s a quote from that article:

“The answer is not to ban The Shack or yank it out of the hands of readers. We need not fear books — we must be ready to answer them. We desperately need a theological recovery that can only come from practicing biblical discernment. This will require us to identify the doctrinal dangers of The Shack, to be sure. But our real task is to reacquaint evangelicals with the Bible’s teachings on these very questions and to foster a doctrinal rearmament of Christian believers.”

Movieguide writes an article titled: “Thirteen Heresies in THE SHACK.” Read it here.

James B. De Young writes an article, “Is THE SHACK Christian?” Here he quotes the author of “THE SHACK,” Paul Young:

“I have known the author of The Shack, Paul Young, for more than a dozen years. In 2004, Paul Young wrote a lengthy document in which he rejected his evangelical faith and embraced universalism. I expose these in my book. He said then:

that evangelical faith and its teaching about judgment makes God “grossly unjust”;

that “Jesus is a million times more vicious and vindictive than Pharaoh, Nero, or Hitler put together”;

that Jesus Christ is “not the Savior from sins”;

that Jesus died “a failure and in vain and never saved anyone”;”

thus Jesus “is not even a good man but a liar, a rogue, and a deceiving rascal”;

that “Calvary is a farce, a travesty, and a sham.”

As Christians, we need to be diligent in our adherence to the Bible. We live in perilous times. We must know who God says He is. We must not embrace heresy of any kind. We must stay awake, be aware, become Biblically literate. If we embrace any kind of deception, how will we be a light to this dark world? If we are true believers, we must be faithful followers of the Word. We must not embrace man’s teachings or perceptions of God.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires” 2 Timothy 4:3

 

 

I worked as an elementary school counselor for several years. I saw and heard things, most of us really don’t want to know about. I remember a boy who came to school with bruises on his body from head to toe. His dad had beat him. I remember a schizophrenic mother who confessed to me that she had dropped her baby on the floor, thinking she had set him on the counter. I remember, when a woman who worked for child protection services sat in my office, telling me horrific stories of what she had seen.

So when I started this whole parenting gig, I never looked at the world with rose colored glasses. I had seen enough and heard enough to know the world is evil. I knew there were predators out there, who wanted to prey upon my children. I have been careful. I haven’t been hysterical, just careful.

And the predators have come along. I’ve known the signs, so I was ready. I was ready, when a young, single male teacher taught my daughter Sunday School. When I went to pick her up from class and realized who her teacher was, red flags raised in my head. He sat with my daughter and another girl, being totally silly. He was tossing goldfish crackers up in the air and tried to catch them with his mouth. He didn’t acknowledge me right away, either he was too involved with his goldfish antics or just didn’t care that the mother was standing there at the door, waiting for her daughter. Either way, in my mind, he just got a black mark next to his name. He got another black mark next to his name, when the following Sunday, he kept my daughter and another girl in the classroom again, acting very childlike and what I would term flirting with the little girls.

I made a decision in my head, that I would get my daughter as fast as I could pick her up from Sunday School. I started doing that, so this teacher didn’t have any time with my daughter after class. Yet he still found her. I had picked her up from Sunday School, sat her at a table on the church patio, while I went to talk with people. I turned around and there he was, sitting with my daughter drawing a picture on a balloon. I quickly walked over to them and called my daughter over. She happily showed me the picture he drew on the balloon. It was a boy and girl, facing each other, holding hands, with hearts all around it. More red flags shot up in my head. Okay, I’m done with Sunday School. As simple as that. I would quietly withdraw my daughter from class, and she would come with me to adult Sunday School. No need to make a ruckus. No need to cause a scene.

But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let this go. If I really believed this guy could be a predator, shouldn’t I alert the church, just in case? I didn’t want to. I just wanted to leave quietly. The Holy Spirit, spoke loudly in my head that I needed to tell someone. I really, really didn’t want to. I finally called the Pastor and made an appointment to see him. The day of the appointment, I sat in the park, outside my house, dreading the meeting. On a sunny day, I sat there in the park, praying and asking the Lord if I really needed to do this. Can I just cancel the appointment? Show me a sign, that this is what you want us to do. Before I could finish my prayer, a light rain shower poured down on my head. I looked up, the rain instantly stopped, and poof, a rainbow appeared, right over the park I was sitting at. There was my sign.

My husband and I did talk to the pastor and the children’s ministry leader. We told them our concerns and told them we were withdrawing our daughter from Sunday School. They didn’t do anything about the Sunday School teacher, but at least we did our part and let them know our concerns.

You see, child predators are not greasy-haired men, hiding in the shadows, lurking for their next victim. They are the friendly guys. They are the nice guys. They need you to think of them as the nicest guy ever. Someone you can trust your child to. And these friendly guys know right where they can go to find victims with trusting parents. Why church, of course.

Anna C. Salter writes an excellent book, “Predators. Pedophiles, Rapists and Other Sex Offenders.” In it, she interviews pedophiles. They all say the same thing, these men seek out their victims at church, because most people look at the world with rose colored glasses, especially at church.

I’m not saying we need to all pull our kids out of Sunday School and walk around fearing for our children. Just be aware. Don’t think, because you are at church, all is perfect. Listen to the voice in your head. Be mindful of the world around you. Stay awake. And God will guide you, as He always does.

Living the Christian life, takes effort. We don’t glide through it. Life isn’t all roses. There are many thorns attached to those roses. We have an enemy actively seeking to bring us down. This world is corrupt and getting worse everyday.

I’ve discovered something that has helped me tremendously in walking this narrow path, I call, the Christian life. Add this to the file of knowledge for good health. Okay, some of you are going to laugh at me, when you realize what I’m about to share. You’re going to say, “Are you kidding me? That’s your big secret?” Just bear with me, this is life changing stuff, really it is.

I am a former night owl. I always loved staying up past midnight since at least high school. Not sure what that was. In college, I loved staying up all night. If I had a paper, I would often wait to the night before, then stay up all night working on it. Something about staying up all night thrilled me. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush I got, trying to work and get it all done before the deadline. Not sure. But then I was constantly tired. I constantly craved naps and usually took them in the afternoon. When I was working full-time, I usually didn’t get to bed until 11:30pm. Then I would drag through the work day, yawning and wondering what was wrong with me, why was I so tired all the time.

As I neared my forties, I started walking, early in the morning with a friend. I started going to bed at at decent hour, because I needed to get up at 5am, to meet my friend, in time, for our 4.8 mile walk. If I didn’t get into bed by 10pm, it was excruciating, trying to get up the next morning. If I managed to get to bed by 9pm, wow! I felt like a million bucks the next day. More and more, my bedtime became closer to 9pm rather than 10pm. I stopped yawning all the time. I noticed I didn’t have headaches all the time like I used to. I felt cheerier. I began to lose weight. Hmmm. There was something to this going to bed at a decent hour thing.

I did some research on it. I found some major evidence regarding the major benefits of going to bed around 9pm. First of all, one hour of sleep BEFORE midnight is equivalent to four hours after midnight. Whoa! That’s some powerful stuff. I read about weight loss. Our bodies are designed by the Creator to work very well. As we sleep, hopefully, before midnight, our bodies start working to get ready for the next day. It starts storing up reserves of energy, so when you wake up, you can take on the world. However, if you go to bed later, your body starts taking from those reserves that are supposed to be for you, for the next day, and using them now because, well your body needs them in order to stay up late. So when you do get up the next day, your body is short on energy supplies. Your body needs energy, so it begins to crave all the foods that will give you quick energy: carbs and sugar. You spend the whole day trying to play catch up with your energy levels. You are already tired, and then the carbs and sugar you eat, raise your blood sugar, then it comes crashing down a couple of hours later. You feel worse, then before. It becomes a vicious cycle.

My bedtime now if usually 9pm. I rarely have headaches. I rarely get sick. I’m in a better mood. Weight has fallen off of me. I’m cheerful (which my family REALLY appreciates). I cope with stress better. I don’t yawn all the time. I have way more energy then I did. Life is just brighter and greater, now that I’m no longer a chronic night owl.

So there it is! There’s my big secret. Go to bed by 9pm and you’ll start feeling like a million bucks. You will be better equipped to walk this narrow path of the Christian walk. Don’t we all need a little help to get through this life? And trust me, going to bed early is life changing. Or, you can continue going to bed late and look like the goat I posted at the beginning of this blog.