Begin To Receive

I have begun to give ... begin to possess.  Deut 2:31

What could God be possibly giving to me, that I am to possess?  And as I think about that, it's interesting that it is more than just "receive".  It is possess.  I think other translations talk about conquering.  Funny words "conquer" and "possess".  I have to admit I don't really relate to either of those concepts.  Especially in relation to other people.  But I don't think God is really talking to me here about "other people".

When I think about my relationship with God at this very moment, the thoughts that come to me are around prayer.  What does it mean to me?  How am I meant to pray?  And also what does fellowship with God mean as well?  What is my relationship with God really like?  I admit there are aspects of that relationship that I want to improve.  I want to be more spiritual.  I think I was once more spiritual than I am now.  It's a balancing act though.  In the days past when I was happy with my spiritual journey I didn't fully appreciate what it means to be authentic.  I had no idea how to be authentic.  Not really.  My idea of being authentic back then was connecting to the "image" and "perception" that everyone else had of me - I was born male.  I was married.  I had 3 boys of which I was their dad.

Not that it means much to me now, but I come from a Baptist background.  Southern Baptist to be precise.  We met every sunday for church.  We sang from a hymnal.  Yes, I still love those old hymns.  One of my favourites is "Great is thy faithfulness".  I love the line in that song "Morning by morning new mercies I see".  It was years later that I realised those words were pretty much taken directly from the Bible.  Lamentations 3.  And it was also years later that I was to discover that God would keep leading me back to that passage.

My loose paraphrase of that passage would look something like this:

Because of the Lords great Love we are not consumed, because his compassion (or mercy) never fails.  They are new every morning.  His mercy is boundless.  And beyond that it is renewed every morning.  Great is God's faithfulness to me.  He really is everything that I need.  He really is my Portion.


If I fail, and sin, his compassion is boundless and his mercy is renewed.  If I feel like I am being consumed by life, by difficulties, by conditions, His Love will make sure that I am not completely consumed.  He will look after me.  If there is something that I need or want, whatever that may be, I will find its answer in Him because He has become to me my portion for all things.  I need finances, and He provides somehow.  I need healing and again it is Him that provides.

I am transgendered.  I have recently had gender reassignment surgery.  To be frankly honest, there were times when I would have rather taken my own life than considered this path that I have taken.  I wanted to serve God.  I wanted to be spiritual.  I wanted to transcend the difficulties of my life and be lifted above them somehow.  Instead God had me go through it.  He paved the pathway through this "red sea" of mine.  I know it was him.  He gave me the "way through".  I had to travel that path.  That is where I took possession of what He had given to me.

I just turned 45 and I have to be honest I love my life right now.  I love who I am.  I love who I am becoming.  I finally feel connected to "the person that I believe I was created to be".  It's off the trail so to speak though.  It's not for everyone either.  But then that's how God works.  Peter asked Jesus about John, and what would happen to him.  Jesus replied, "Peter it's really none of your business what my relationship with John looks like and what I journey I have in store for him."

That's one of the reasons why I believe it is imperative that we don't judge ... it leads us to draw conclusions that we are all on the exact same journey when we are not.

What is God beginning to give to me?  Authenticity.  Being who I am.  Without that, prayer doesn't make sense.  So being authentic is what God is giving to me, and what I am beginning to possess.

Being Different

I am a spiritual person.  My desire is to understand that part of who I am.  I feel that I have a purpose that connects me to others.  I believe that this purpose has not been fully experienced or realised by either myself or others.


John 9:1-3
9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³ “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Who sinned?  Interesting that we wonder that.  Interesting that the people closest to Jesus asked that.  More interesting that Jesus answered "neither".

Is being blind a defect or difference?  Is it a disability or difference?  Being blind leads to life being different from what we could conceivably consider to be normal.  But is it wrong?  Perhaps we could say "being blind is not what is intended".  "Life's not meant to happen that way," we could argue.  

But it does happen.  Life can go "wrong" in an incalculable number of ways.  It can happen at birth, or after birth.  It can occasion death or severe disability.  But is it in our best interest to judge if it's right or wrong?

Consider this man:  Derek Paravacini.  Born blind.  In his adult life can never be independent.  He must have someone take care of him constantly.  But there is something "super human" about this person.  He fills my heart with happiness.

I was born with a difference.  I'm kinda glad that I was.

Into the Future

I can't figure out if I am meant to be more nomadic and more of a traveller or that I have travelled too much already and I am unsettled.  I do like travelling, but not in an "out there" sense where I am not sure where I am going next.  I don't like it when travelling becomes stressful.  I like the idea of having everything planned out.  But then a part of me is torn ... especially when I think of the different places that I have been and am drawn to now.  Memories attached to geographical locations.  I feel like they are lost there somehow.  I don't own them and I am not able to return to some of those places.

Maybe that's memories though.  There is a sense of not being able to return.  We must move forward.  I am nostalgic, so that doesn't always sit well with me.  I don't much want to move forward at the expense of not being able to travel and return to places that hold value for me.  Are those memories holding me back though?  Am I to be moving forward, trusting in and having faith in the future, in God in the future?

Random acts of kindness

Just when it was time to leave work this afternoon the heavens opened up and gave us a spectacular storm.  It got so dark outside it was like midnight.  Crazy.  I wondered how I was going to get to my car.  I had recently moved desks and had hoped that the half broken umbrella at my old desk might still be there, but alas no it wasn't.  So I had every intention of braving the rain to get to my car.  I so didn't feel like staying at work any longer than I needed to.  Once the idea gets in my head to leave work I am gone.  I can't say I have ever been one to work back unless it has been scheduled.

Fortunately as I stood at the door to run into the rain a man with his ute was standing near the door getting something from the building.  He offered to drive me to my car.

I don't need rescuing.  I already have my rescuer in Giselle.  But it was nice all the same to have someone do something nice like that for me.  

Being Spiritual

Judges 614 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save … . Am I not sending you?”

Galatians  6:1-3 … you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently …  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

What is God saying to me today?  

From the verse in Judges, I feel like God is telling me that I am enough … that the strength I have is enough.  From the second passage, I feel like God is telling me that as I live by the Spirit I should restore people gently.  

Perhaps this means for me to encourage other people to be spiritual.  Not in the sense of someone who is further developed, but as someone who is at the same level.  Maybe that's what it means.  "Am I not sending you?"  "Go in the strength that you have"  

Being transgendered doesn't exclude me from being spiritual.

Beginnings ... Time to be organised

Today I worked on a system to organise myself at work.  It's early days I know, but it does feel really good.  I had a lot of "anxiety" leave me as I continued to press through the things that I had determined to start working on today.

It would seem that "setting a goal of being on the journey" is really working for me.

I am getting a sense about prayer.  It's the image of Gideon as he laid out the fleece on the ground before God.  I don't know the significance yet, but I feel that this is a part of prayer for me.  So I will identify what is my fleece ... what is on my heart that I want to share with God, what burdens I will lay down at His feet.

Messages from God

I was talking to Jeremy tonight about the Bible and about believing.  Wow ... my thoughts have changed a bit I think.  And by rights, they would have had to.  I mean, I had no room in my faith for the journey that I have been on.  I guess that's what scared me most about it.  

I said to Jeremy that it's not so much our interpretation of what we think God is saying in this verse, or that verse, or through this person or that person.  It's still too impersonal.  It matters only what we feel that God is saying to us.  And I want to believe that God will use many different ways to talk to me.  That's what I would like to believe.

So that said.  What is God saying to me today?  I can see the letters of my name, Cindy.  And on those letters are angels holding onto each of the letters.  And next to the letters is a flask of perfume and an empty bottle / vessel.  My name is a sweet perfume to God.  The empty flask represented the start and commencement of a factory, glass containers.  It would be the first of many vessels.  Perhaps the perfume is to be like the oil for the widow who poured it out into many vessels, as many as she could find.  And the oil was poured out into these vessels.  Somehow, the fragrance of my life, the Holy Spirit, will be poured out and will fill many vessels.  And there is a rock on that table with the word "Serenity" on it, which means peace.  

Wow, interesting.

Still Travelling

“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.” 
― Ursula K. Le Guin

I am focusing on the journey and trying not to fixate on the destination.  I don't even really believe that the "destination" exists this side of life.  I think it's the horizon.

So that said, instead of talking about resolutions, I am going to refer to journeys.  What are my New Years Journeys?

I want to embark on the journey of writing my story.  I have started many times before, but never seen it through.  I will now approach it as a journey and that is my goal - To embark on writing my story

I want to embark on the journey of spiritual discovery.  I have many ideas of what it means for me to be spiritual, but I have never approached it from such a vast perspective.  I am approaching this journey with an open mind.  It will be both a journey within myself and a journey without.

Something Trans

Interesting title.  I just thought I should write about something trans today.  After all it's a part of who I am.  It's a part of my journey.  I am transgender.  I know some people are reluctant to use that word, and honestly I was that way for a long time.  I was reluctant to think of myself as transsexual.

Sometimes it's important to look back where I have come from and see the path I have taken to get to this place.  I have had my surgery.  And let me say that "this side of the fence", this side of surgery is different from what I expected.

There are the little things that I wasn't expecting ... like having a vagina is a little messy.  So much easier just being able to "shake" the little guy down there when I was done.  Now it's really hard to be clean and dry.

Dilating is interesting too.  I have a confession to make there.  I haven't been dilating as much as I should.  Eeek.  I dilate once a day for about 30 minutes, but I am meant to be doing that morning and night.  I don't do it in the morning.  I find it nearly impossible to have the energy to get up early in the morning to do that when my energy levels have been so depleted from the surgery.

And that is probably the biggest thing I have had to get used to.  Having the surgery for me was like having glandular fever all over again.  I have seriously not had the energy I was expecting.  My GP told me that I would probably feel that way for 6 months, and she could very well be right.  It's almost 4 months, and I am still feeling rather tired.

On the up side, I love my life now.  I can't say that enough times.  I never, ever thought that I would get to have these experiences.  I am forever thankful for that.  I love being me.  I love being seen for being me.  And I don't miss wearing a mask.  I Love Being Me!!!  :-)

In The Moment

Being in the present moment.  OMG I struggle with this.  And to be honest, I never had much of an understanding how important it is to be present.  It's where we live though.  I have list of things that I need to achieve, and until I do, I have essentially held myself to ransom.  I need to let my attachment to my goals go, and focus and be attached to the process and journey.

We had sizzler for lunch today with the boys.  Another way to share something special with them.  It's nice to get out like that as a family and do that.

As we attempt to understand ourselves and our struggles with life's endeavours, we may find peace in the observation of a flower. Ask yourself: At what point in a flower's life, from seed to full bloom does it reach perfection? 

The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner

Transition has a way of holding out this idea of what it means to be perfect in front of us.  Well to be perfectly honest, life, not just transition, does that.  I have transitioned, and I have had surgery.  But now what?  What next?  An interesting question.  Life is the journey and it's a daily step by step journey.  Like even right now, I am writing this blog.  That is my process at this very moment.  I desire to not let my mind wander to the future and what I hope to achieve out of life, or the future, or this month, or this year, or today.  Because right now I am achieving my goal of writing a blog.  It will never be finished.  It is a work in progress always.

Enjoying the Journey

I think the universe is telling me a the moment to "enjoy the journey".  That's how it feels.  I just purchased "The Practicing Mind" which is an interesting read so far.  Basically it talks about not making the product my goal, but the process, "the practice" of getting to that place the goal.  Which is interesting.  I guess that means that the goal is the discipline of practicing over the final product.  When we look at the product as the goal we sometimes find the journey there to be a nuisance.  And then with that feeling on board, we struggle to make the journey.  Interesting.  I can totally relate to that.

It's a Saturday.  We took the boys to Carindale today to spend their "christmas money".  Apart from that we have been home all day.  It hasn't felt like a saturday.  I guess that is because it is christmas holidays.

I have been really enjoying playing guitar of late.  And hopefully I am beginning to enjoy the journey.  I have been practicing with the JS-10 Eband device which is amazing.  Makes practicing easy ... lots of different styles and backing tracks that I can "dial in" and just start playing over.  It seems to be helping me develop my ear which is good.

I'm also looking at possibly working through some of Ted Greene's "Modern Chord Progressions".  It's an incredibly intense book.  I have wondered how I should even work through it.  I think, I should look at it like the Bible.  Funny I know.  But if I am to internalise the music and ideas, I need to take them as small bite sized pieces.  It's not about playing all the different chord progressions one after another.  It's about letting one chord progression get into my head.

My Value System

We had a lovely catch up today with Jess.  We had previously caught up for her birthday in August just before my surgery date.  It was so lovely catching up and touching base with each other.  I asked Giselle later if that's "girl talk" and "how did I do?"  Funny question, I guess.  Probably highlights the fact that I am never over confident about that kind of thing.

I am really enjoying Life Coaching with Anthony Venn Brown.  It's been amazing.  This week, I had to identify my values and how they fit together, as in what is the priorities of my value system.  Which is a challenging process.  I think I have my value system as I believe it to be.  My top 12 values in order would be:

Love
Equality
Kindness
Connection
Respect
Authenticity
Creativity
Growth
Purpose
Organisation
Empathy
Balance

I'm very intrigued as to what we will do with that.  What is interesting is that these values are almost hardwired in me.  They represent the values that I carry.  They aren't by any means what I would expect someone else to value, but these are my values - I guess these are my "religion" or my "spirituality", my "code".

Learning About Myself

I am learning things about myself as I work through this Life Coaching Program.  One of the things I have learned is that it is more important and valuable for me to understand who I am than it is for me to place the burden of responsibility for figuring that out on someone else.  I have hoped for so long to be "discovered".  And what I mean by that is that I hope that someone will see the potential in me, and ultimately that discovery would open doors for me.  This is backwards though, I have come to realise.  I mean it sounds backwards when I verbalise it.  I guess I haven't ever verbalised it before.

I am discovering that my desire for a possible "change of career" is more based in the belief that I have "run my race" with respect to Technology and I have little left in me to contribute.  While there may actually be more rewarding experiences for me "out there", this is not a good enough reason to leave technology.  I truly don't know how many days, months, or years I have left in technology.  I do know, however, that I am a valuable asset with very diverse experience.

I need to plan more.  That's something else I am discovering.  I am not sure exactly how I will do that, but I know that I must do that.  It's not enough to have a couple of steps planned out.  I want to know where I want to go.  I want to know what that destination looks like.  It's no longer enough to know the next few steps.  I want direction.  And I want a destination.

While I consider that there is some aspect of a "calling" on my life, a greater purpose, I am wary that I would use this to "avoid the difficult and painful things of life".  It's all together entirely possibly that my desire to go into some form of ministry years ago was a subconscious mechanism to "avoid" dealing with my gender identity disorder.  

I am loving what I am discovering about myself.  And that is probably my next realisation.  In the program that I am working through, I am to understand that I have the answers to my own questions.  My life coach, Anthony, is to lead me in my discovery of those answers, not to give me those answers. Like I shared, that's something that is second nature to me:  I seem to find it easy to defer to others.

Transform

It’s interesting for me to take a step back and look at my process.  I have a fear of asking for help.  I need to ask for help, but more often than not, I’m afraid of a few things.  One, I am afraid of asking the wrong questions.  Two, I am afraid of asking the wrong people. 

I think what that means is I am afraid of failure.  But in the process I have made myself unwilling to ask others for help for fear of failure.  There have been times in my life where I have “made a mess” as it work as I was working a process only to have that process evolve into something that does work.  And I love that feeling.  I love feeling accomplished.  Of getting my hands dirty and making something out of the “mess” as it were.  But I’m initially afraid of that “dirt”.  So what do I do?  How do I “step out” and make that mess while dealing with my own fears of failure? 

I also feel like there are times in my life where I really get “bogged down” in issues that just never seem to get resolved.  I’m not sure what that is about.  I think another thing that I fear is “momentum”.  When I have momentum with good habits, I feel like I can face a lot of different things and just “work it out”.  But when I lack momentum, my motivation is not far behind. 

I would like things to change in my life.  I would like to transform in this next year.  Perhaps that will be my word for next year:  Transform.  I get that is somewhat ironic because I have done a lot of that lately.  This would be different though.  This would be about changes to not just me in my identity, but changes to me.  After all, I’m not sure that I have really actually changed much except my outer “skin”.  I want to change the inside which is a lot harder.

Life Coaching

I have started a Life Coaching Engagement with Anthony Venn Brown.  I first read his book "A Life of UnLearning" in 2005 I believe.  Reading that book really inspired me to make decisions to start on this journey.  I had up until that point made a lot of decisions both to do this and then not to do it.  Somehow I always ended up in the same place of having done nothing and very miserable.

I love where I am at right now.  I have had the surgery and I am beginning to feel really good about myself.  I don't always like every picture I see of myself, and I don't always like the image in the mirror that I see.  But it's a lot less than it used to be.  And at least now I get to wear pretty clothes!!  :)  Not lost on me.

So, back to Life Coaching.  One of the habits I am trying to establish is to blog / journal more frequently.  I used to be more involved in journaling in years gone by.  I don't know what it was that stopped me.  I think it was that I used to love the "feedback" I got when I used to write on mydeardiary.com . I loved that site, and I loved the "connections" that I made there.

One thing I have realised though is that I need to journal for me primarily.  Journaling for other people can be daunting when the thoughts in my head are muddled.  I want to make them into something meaningful, but I just can't find my way through it.

So I'm going to try and not "promote" this journal now for fear that I might start writing for other people.  These words on this page are here primarily for me.  That's how I want this to be.

Kindness

Kindness.  As a spiritual person, I want to embrace this in my life and share it with others.  And I have a person who I know needs it.  Dad.  Yes, I get that I wrote about him yesterday and how much he is frustrating me at the moment.  For the longest time in my life I have felt like so much about him is a “lost cause”.  Not that he has been helpless, but I acknowledge that I don’t have what he needs ultimately.  I’m not even really sure what that is.  I couldn’t say that all he needs is a relationship with God, because I am not sure exactly what God would do for him.  He is an atheist and seems very afraid of all of that.  He surrounds himself with prickly ways, and it’s difficult to get close to him.  I wonder who is beyond all those facades though.

The question is how do embrace kindness into my life.  Colossians suggests that I should clothe myself in kindness, which is kind of ironic, because it is my clothing and my outward appearance that I feel I have to hide from dad.  I have hid who I am internally from him for years.  When I first arrived back in Australia in 1989, he told me that he didn’t want to see any evidence of my Christianity around the house which I get is fair enough.  It’s difficult and challenging to share with him though when he is so anti spiritual.  And he can’t be told.  He is not ever in a position of needing to learn, or of being a learner.  Not in ways like that.  It’s like he has it in his mind that he should be teaching me.  I guess what I would like from him is a relationship of equality.

I need to overcome my fear of being vulnerable with him.  I am not sure what that would take though.  God, I am lost in this.  Do you have a way for me to move in this? 

My Dad

I don't really know what to say.  I feel quite frustrated at the moment, and wonder if this is a good time to record my thoughts as it were.  I'm frustrated because I am sitting in my lounge room and my dad is sitting across from me.  What's frustrating about that?  He fails to get me.  I don't know if it is that he doesn't want to get me or just can't get me.  I really don't know.  I am assuming it it that he doesn't want to get me.  Otherwise he would be trying.  He would surely be showing signs of trying.  Or at the very least ask me.  Ask for help.  I go out of my way for him to get this slowly, but it's like he doesn't want to get it.  So what do I do?  I don't really know.

I don't seem to have much in common with this person.  And it's not like I wish I did, because I don't.  Not really.  He has been generous with me in the past.  And I should remember that.  But does all of that get undone when someone fails to accept who you really are when you tell them who you really are?

I am going to spend some time in the next few days to figure out what it is about him that really annoys me.  Is there some thing that I am not dealing with here?  I have told him what I am ... where I am coming from.  I just don't get that he doesn't get this.  He shows no signs of getting this.

The Next Stage

I started Life Coaching yesterday with Anthony Venn Brown.  I am already amazed at the changes that i have experienced.  I guess to be honest, I wasn't sure how it would work, or how I would go.  I know that it's early days, but I am excited.

There has been a restructure at work.  It's still working its way out at the moment.  I am to move into the "Consume" space, which essentially means I will be dealing with production issues.  Interestingly enough I have spent a lot of time in my career working in implementation teams.  It will be interesting to see work from this point of view.  I'm not sure how I feel about it to be honest.  I guess I will wait and see.  I have been at RACQ now for over 3 years which makes this the longest I have been at one work place.

Life goes on.  Sometimes I wish there was some way of stopping for a moment.  Kaylee decided to leave us.  She took her own life on November 20th Australian time.  I can understand why she did it, though it's sad.  I just don't understand it.  I have shed tears for her.  But it doesn't seem enough some how.  And I didn't even know her.  Not really.  And yet I think I did.  Her journey and outlook seemed similar to mine.  And so did some of her experiences.  We shared commonalities.  So I did know her.  May she rest in peace.

When Waiting is Good

So, it's a Monday.  It's 13 days after my surgery, and it's the day I have my final followup consultation with my surgeon, Dr Andrew Ives.  It's been a big journey.  I always knew it would be.  But it's been bigger than I had expected.  And it's taken me way beyond myself in many ways.  And that's not a bad thing.

It's taken me decades to get to this point of where I am at.  And I am, by no means, arrived.  I have more of this journey ahead of me.  I mean, for me, that's life.  Life is the journey.  That's what I believe.  But there has been so much waiting.  There has been so much time in my life that has seemingly been wasted.

Could I have done this earlier?  Yes, undoubtedly.  Could I have saved myself and people around me the pain of doing this when I did?  Possibly.  This is all true.

But now is my appointed time.  I know that and can feel that.  It's palpable.  I don't question the timing of this.  I mourn things that I will never have, milestones that aren't mine, but I no longer question this timing.  The timing of my transition, of my surgery, of my recovery, and this part of the journey are perfect.  Not gonna change anything, or wish that I could!

Waiting is not a bad thing.  I am driven to make the most of my time and to be productive.  It eats away at me when I am forced to wait.  But waiting is good.  It has been very good to me.

My best advice is to find peace with your journey whatever it may be.

Three Weeks Tomorrow

Three weeks tomorrow.  How that does feel?  Surprisingly, it feels very peaceful.  I think I am ready for this.  I don't mean to "wish away" the next three weeks either, I will be happy to stay seated for the entire "ride".

In November of last year, Leigh Neighbour who is the minister of Metropolitan Community Church in Brisbane asked me to speak about Transgender Day of Remembrance.  I remember speaking about what it's like to be transgender, and how that feels, and the struggles that we face, and the dangers as well.  After all, that's what it's about.  It's about remembering those who have not survived this journey for whatever reason.  Tragically there are those who are taken from us violently.  Murdered just for being themselves.  And then there are those that we lose because this journey is too difficult.  And truly there is no judgement there.  There but for the grace of God.

Yesterday, though, was different.  Someone I know through the internet, a friend, posted their "final video" on youtube.  At first I wasn't sure what they meant.  I thought that perhaps this person was just stopping their channel.  And that would have been tragic in itself.  But this friend meant differently.  My heart immediately broke and my blood ran cold.  I was stunned.  I saw her post a mere 15 minutes after she posted.

We do live in a community.  And we are affected by each other.  We each have our own significance and weight in each others lives.  The internet brings us together in ways that are mind blowing, and yet it can also still leave us isolated geographically.  Sometimes it's not enough to use words, we want to be "there" for a person.  And yet we can't.  We have to sit and wait, powerless to do anything.  And that's hard.

I hope this girl will be okay.  She didn't end up taking her own life, but I believe her when she said that it was her intention to.  I hope that she can find something to hold on to in this world.  I guess I say that selfishly too.  I want her to stay because I appreciate who she is.  I would never judge her though if she wanted to go home.  I would just be incredibly sad and again reminded of how difficult this journey is.

All that said, I wouldn't trade anything for being a part of this community.  To quote a wise man, "I love my tribe".  I love who I am.  I love this community.