Linda's Pentecostal Church Experience

Hi,

My own feelings as a woman and a Christian have been confusing to the majority of believers in the mainstream Pentecostal churches I have attended. My label is rebellious and unrepentant.

My understanding of scripture and my response to being saved is to let and ask for the love of Christ to reveal sin and free me. An onion am I and some layers of sin are peeled away to reveal yet another and another. My point is God is the one I trust to peel these layers, not a flippant evaluation by another lay person or even the pastor.

The pastor is not the shepherd, he is but another sheep. Maybe a more trusted and experienced sheep, but a sheep who is to be led by the Good Shepherd Jesus never the less. We all are sheep gone astray. We who are saved know the master's voice and respond to His call for repentance and closeness to Him, not the dictate of another misled sheep even if he is the pastor.

I do submit to leadership and direction as a member of the church body. My objections have been from mandates to change what I cannot, fueled in the self-righteous persecution of me. Jesus loved and set free from sin, those who sought Him with a humble, thankful, and repentant heart.

I know when God works on me because Jesus humbles me in love before releasing me from the sin as I repent. I tried to repent from the way I was born because I was ordered to, or be cursed and rejected. I am an hermaphrodite (intersexed) from birth. I look female yet have Male XY chromosomes. I had ambiguous looking genitalia so I was given a male sex assignment at birth yet live as a woman. I cannot be married to a man because my birth certificate says male and I cannot marry a woman for that would be considered a same sex marriage.

I needed help and prayer because I felt I wanted to be married. I also felt God had opened the door for me to do so. The response was mixed. Some were telling me that they were hearing from God that I should never marry and it would be a sin and so I should behave as a eunuch. Others were saying live as a male and marry a woman. I am not a lesbian or a man. Since I could not reproduce as either a female and certainly not a male I was directed to be examined by doctors paid for by my church and they would tell me what I was. I had asked for prayer and help for guidance and support to be married and instead I was forced to prove I was a woman. I left in tears and very humiliated.

I lost my fiance'. I was ostrasized as a freak for asking for help. I ended up moving to another area on the other side of my state. My mother literally died from guilt and shame because my birth defect was a result of a drug she took to prevent miscarriage. She had three before me. She felt that she was to blame for my mixed up life.

My dad wanted a son and that was why I had male on my birth certificate. He now has alzheimers and doesn't even remember me. My siblings love me yet say they have nothing in common with me and that I remind them of too many past hurts so I have no family to speak of. I am 44 now and a single virgin woman who was denied the right to marry and even adopt children. The result has been numerous suicide attempts involving drug overdose and cutting my wrists or genitalia.

The good news is I have a wonderful church and I am in a recovery home instead of a mental institution, thanks to my current pastors and their wives. I am being mentored by one of these women. They said I was not a freak, but a gift. I have many spiritual gifts and friends who love me just as I am. No one here feels I need to prove myself worthy.

I thank God He answers prayer and used ignorance to find me a church home and a body to be part of. Before I felt like a rotted part needing to be cut off before it infected the good healthy parts of the body.

Spiritually I still do not trust people or their motives. I think people are going to find a way to hurt me again. I have gone for deliverance from this trauma of rejection and loss which helped me some. I still have a long way to go. These stories shared here have helped too. Bless you all!

Love in Christ,

Linda

---

Posted March 13, 2003

---