 Thank you so much for that beautiful introduction Marie and and thank you for Connie and Marie for and Inviting me out today. Can I bend this or turn it? Is that okay? There's sound guys gonna kill me I'll just keep it like that So we have we have been so filled Spiritually today, haven't we and now we've been filled physically So I hope we can continue in that vein and and that the Lord would just Continue to meet with us and show us who he is Because it's not about who Jana is or Janie or Karen or Patty or Jeanette or anyone else It's about who Jesus is because when it's all said and done. That's all that's left. Amen So I want to ask you guys somewhat of Rhetorical question Do you believe in God's sovereignty? Do you believe that Jesus is and Was sovereign when he walked among us knowing the end from the beginning For those of you that know the account of the rich young ruler Do you believe that Jesus knew this man was going to walk away from Jesus before Jesus even spoke with him? Because the cross that Jesus was asking this man to bear was just too much for him Let's look at how Jesus treated this man the rich young ruler and I know we're studying 1st Corinthians 13 today We're gonna get there in just a moment But if you will please turn with me to Mark chapter 10 And we're gonna start reading in verse 17 and we're going to read through verse 22 Mark 10 17 through 22 Now as Jesus was going out on the road one came running knelt before him and asked him good teacher What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? So Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good, but one and that is God You know the commandments do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness Do not defraud honor your father and your mother and he answered and said to Jesus teacher all these things I have kept from my youth Then Jesus looking at him Loved him and said one thing you lack go your way Sell whatever you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come and take up the cross and follow me But he was sad at this word and went away sorrowful for he had great possessions I Really want to notice verse 21 That says then Jesus looking at him loved him Ladies are we able to do that? Can we love? even if So now let's turn to Our main text first Corinthians 13 I'm gonna sip on the same water bottle that all the other ladies have been drinking off of just kidding just kidding But I am gonna open one because I do Get very thirsty So first Corinthians chapter 13. We're gonna look at verse one and it says Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love I have become sounding brass or clanging symbol and Here's another rhetorical question ladies Do you believe? Every word of the Bible is true So do we believe it when we hear love? never fails So I've been asked to share my testimony and I pray and hope that as as you hear Me share that you will see the difference of God's word being revealed to me through the sound of clanging brass Versus its revelation through love So I'm 50 years old, which means I was born in 1966 and all that to say is back then we didn't have play dates We played with neighborhood kids and that's what I did and in my neighborhood there were five boys and me and From the earliest I could remember. I thought I was one of those boys Not in a tomboy kind of way. I literally deep inside Thought I was a boy. I was just like them. I walked the same. I talked the same I excelled at sports just like they did and it was around maybe five or six years old that I started becoming even more confused about my gender because now I recognized That my body was different than theirs In my mind there wasn't any difference between us so when I recognized that my body was different I became very confused and not only did this confuse me. It made me very Very angry. I started having anger issues at a very very young age I did not want to be stuck in this girl's body and that angered me and it confused me And I was so mad that I started to self-injure at like five or six years old. I Was also angry and confused because of the relationship that I saw inside my home Where no one else could hear and no one else could see and I watched my father be little my mother over and over and over again in front of us kids telling her you're useless and you're Worthless and you're crazy. You're so crazy. I'm gonna drop you off at the nut house and never picked you pick you up And I believed him Because he was my dad and I thought when we were driving Is this gonna be the last time I see my mom? Is this when he's gonna drop her off? I Watched my mother Manipulate my dad. So to me my perception was that she didn't trust him Because if she trusted him, why would she have to manipulate him, right? So that perception Led to the deception in my mind in my mind that no man could be trusted. I Didn't really feel close with either parent I didn't feel close with anyone except the boys that were in my neighborhood and I was starting to feel odd Around them because I was in a sense mad at them because they had everything that I wanted if you understand what I'm saying by that and I Didn't want to be like my mom who was the only representation of femininity to me because I thought if I was going to be like her Then I would literally be like her being worthless and crazy and stupid and I did not Want that I already felt bad enough. So I detached myself from my mother Thus detaching myself from femininity altogether. I didn't want to spend time with my dad who was the embodiment of All men to me. He was the embodiment of masculinity because he was so Mean and so angry and I hated I hated the way he treated my mother and really all women He was like that with all women. It's just to my mom. It was to the nth degree Again as a child we believe everything we hear our parents say so because of this It skewed my view of femininity and masculinity and my perception of my gender identity was now flawed and I just want to say ladies I don't have this in my note, but I feel like the Lord wants me to share this with you saying all this This is what the Lord has shown me after after I sat at his feet and asked him many many questions Excuse me what you'll hear about shortly But I wasn't walking around at six years old going, you know I'm feeling like I'm kind of detaching from my mom. I bet you that's gonna skew my view of gender so When you have these children in your life, whether it be your own children or your nieces and nephews or neighbors and their friends And you see the little boy playing with dolls or the little girl You know run around with a baseball glove on her hand and you just kind of might have that feeling I bet you they're gonna grow up to be gay Understand they don't know what's going on Love them right where they are don't force them into doing something. That's not fun for them But encourage them where they are so if it's a if it's a little boy that's maybe dancing around Tell him you know what some of the greatest dancers were men and they grow up to be big and strong And you can be an awesome man someday if you want to be a dancer and to the little girls that are you know Athletics say you know what there's some really awesome, you know female athletes out there and just you know Encourage them where they are instead of trying to change them because even at that little age They're gonna recognize what you're trying to do. Does that make sense? Okay? So to make matters even more confusing for me Starting at a very young age. I Was being sexually violated So in my mind and my mind because I had to make sense of this in my mind I thought this only happened to little girls Certainly this doesn't happen to little boys So I thought if I could somehow really become a boy and sit there and make my body turn into a boy This would stop and that's how I thought that I could protect myself. I Was being deceived Right from the get-go my life was being built on a foundation of deception By the time I was 10 or 11 years old maybe 12 I don't necessarily remember the exact time, but I was young I started Recognizing that I liked girls in a special way And I didn't necessarily know what that was, but I know it scared me. I did not want it I tried to think it away. I tried to make it go away I didn't know what to do with that and I was having these daydreams and these fantasies of what it would be like to Have a girlfriend. I was so confused and we have to remember now. This is now the 1970s There was no one to talk to back then. No was no one was talking about these issues We didn't go to church. My family wasn't saved. We didn't go to church But even if we did if I would have went into the church and explained what I was going through They would have either kicked me and my family out Or they would have sent me to some Take the gay away camp and slept lipstick on my face and put me in a dress and said pray it away Now here you go and that wouldn't have helped and thank God There wasn't computers back then or at least in every home like now because if I would have typed in How do you know if you're gay a? Plethora of lies would have come in and it would have fed into that foundation It would have built on that foundation of deception All I'd ever heard was that gay people were sick and Disgusting and to stay away from them. So this made me feel completely isolated and alone So again taking matters into my own hands. I started drinking at 12 years old heavily Drinking and you know, I was one of those very thin children. So I Drank like an adult would drink at that age and when I was 13 I started doing drugs. I Would come home drunk often and Throw up probably because I was so tiny ingesting so much alcohol And my mom would clean up the mess and put me to bed and the next day I would wake up thinking I was gonna get in trouble, but we didn't really talk about it see in my house we just swept everything under the rug so My perception was That I wasn't loved After all I thought my parents if they loved me wouldn't they what they talked to me about this wouldn't they tell me to stop? Again, that's more deception because the truth was my parents loved me They just didn't handle that situation the right way The drug and the alcohol abuse continued so much so that by the time I was 17 years old I had done over 30 hits of LSD. I was doing which is a hallucinogenic. It's a powerful It's got like rat poison and stuff in it it one hit could send you away to a You know a place in your mind that you could never come back and I did over 30 by the time I was 17 years old and every other drug I could find because I did not want to be sober because when I was sober I wasn't so much pain and confusion because again, I want to reiterate I did not want to be gender confused and I did not want to be same sex attracted So as soon as I graduated high school by the grace of God, I have no idea how I got through high school But I graduated my sister who's 14 years older than me lived in Florida with her family I was living in New York and she came up and she grabbed me got me out of the house and Shortly after living in Florida with her. I went to a party which wasn't odd. I Partied a lot But this party was different because at this party a guy asked me out on a date Now a guy had never asked me out on a date before I didn't know what to do with that I had been sexually active at all the parties that I went to But I'd never Literally went out on a date with anyone and I thought you know what if if I go out on this date with this guy Maybe my same-sex attraction will go away. Maybe my gender. Maybe I'll I'll feel like a woman then So I went out with him and it was out on our first date That he proceeded to tell me that he was just released from prison So you would think that I would run in the opposite direction of that But I had such low self-esteem and I couldn't believe that someone was showing me attention So I continued dating him and just about one year later. We ended up getting married I was 19 years old and he was 27 And then not long into the marriage. He started to physically abuse me so Again now my perception of all men are bad. No men could be trusted was just fueled fueled by this abuse again That's deception That was caused by sin because not all men are bad But man, oh man, can you understand why I thought that? So after a couple of years in this marriage, I ended up filing for a divorce And at this point in my life, I was as confused as ever I felt like I'd given the whole being straight thing a shot I failed at it miserably and it didn't take away my same-sex attraction like I had hoped it did So I moved away and that's when I fully came out as a lesbian and Please hear me when I tell you this When I came out is when I felt freedom For the first time in my life and that freedom was real to me I felt free because I was doing anything that I wanted I felt free because I was no longer pushing down these God-erull desires that I'd had for as long as I could remember But just because I felt free Doesn't mean I was free. I felt free because I was doing anything I wanted But I was being deceived. I Thought that doing anything I wanted was freedom But actually I know now that it was bondage. I Was so deep in deception. I was so deep in deception that I didn't even think that what I was doing was sin At first it was great. I had tons of one-night stands. I had a couple of short-term relationships. I Finally felt like I fit in somewhere. I Was finally accepted and I wasn't judged and I now had a family and it was the LGBT community and Let me tell you they embraced me and I embraced them But eventually all those one-night stands and rocky short-term relationships It became lonely even in that and I and I realized that I wanted to meet someone and spend the rest of my life with her I just I wanted to meet the woman of my dreams Fall in love and live life together and you know why? Because that's normal That's normal. Everyone wants to meet that special person and spend the rest of their lives with them. I was no different So I thought I met that person in the late 1990s as soon as we met we hit it right off Both of us knew very quickly into the relationship that this was going to be it that we were gonna spend the rest of our lives together So we we lived together for a while and and then we bought a home and we lived in that home for about four years And then we started thinking you know, we started talking with each other and it's like, you know, I kind of want to look into spiritual things and We were reading, you know different books on spirituality And I just want to say Karen talked about Confucius and I just want to say I I have a little Confucius proverb And it's man who eats crackers in bed have a crummy night's sleep just saying But so we were reading we got to lighten it up a little it's been pretty heavy so far, right? So so we're reading these different books. I was actually very intrigued by reincarnation I thought that I had been reincarnated many times and this is was my first go-round as a woman And so that's why I was so shaky at it or maybe Some of the parts didn't make it all the way through in the reincarnation thing so So I kind of leaned toward that way But one thing that we did know is that we didn't want to have anything to do with Christianity Because all we knew about Christianity Was from the Christians that we saw and the only Christians that we saw were the ones that were at the gay pride Parades that we always went to and every single time we saw these Christians They were holding up signs Signs that said God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve Because sarcasm always wins someone to the Lord Homosexuals will burn in hell God hates fags and I always saw this one. It said Lev 18 colon 22 and I didn't know what that meant I kind of thought maybe it was a scripture verse only because of the colon But I didn't know what it meant But what I did know is that I didn't want anything to do with their God because if the Christians are the ones that say they know God and they're telling me God hates me Why in the world would I want to have anything to do with this God and There we have it ladies the noise of a sounding brass and a clanging symbol and All I heard was the loud obnoxious sounds of Hatred but what I didn't know is that God was bigger than them and he was bigger than those signs And now I can share about how God met me right where I was praise the Lord So in December of 2001 my only brother Larry was diagnosed with lung cancer It's very devastating to our family and my brother had a neighbor that lived across the street from him That was a Christian and this man would come over almost every day after work and start to share the gospel With my brother so very shortly after being diagnosed My brother received the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ He was the first in my family to get saved So even though I saw the cancer basically killing my brother his skin was turning gray his Hair was falling out in clumps. I saw this life Come alive inside of my brother and I didn't know what that was it intrigued me and it scared me So I just stored that in the recesses of my heart Then on October 22nd 2002 At 345 a.m. In the morning. It was my brother's 40th birthday. I was holding his hand in the hospital And I watched him take his last breath His death Devastated me death became real to me for the first time in my life And I was broken and my girlfriend tried to comfort me But when you don't know Jesus Christ who is the resurrection in the life, how do you comfort someone when it comes to death? So a few weeks, maybe it was a month I don't really remember the time frame but shortly after my brother's death as I'm trying to still catch my breath Those things that I stored in my heart were coming up now and I started having these Thoughts about God and I had this one question in my heart that was burning in my heart And I wanted to talk to my girlfriend about it because she wasn't just my lover She was my best Friend she was the only person that I had been in relationship with that didn't hurt me And she was the only one in my life that I trusted as best as I knew how to trust But I was afraid to ask her because it could change the course of our relationship The question was gnawing at me and I was afraid of losing her if I asked her this question this woman of my dreams But I had to ask praise God that the Holy Spirit is bigger than our fear So I rolled over in bed and I looked her in the eye and I said babe Do you think the way we're living is wrong and she had this shocked look on her face and I thought oh No, what have I done? She's like I can't believe you just asked me that I Was just gonna ask you the same thing Come on you guys come on You cannot tell me that our God through the Holy Spirit was not present that day in our Lesbian bedroom there is nowhere we can flee from his presence and there is nowhere. He won't come to save us Praise the Lord. He is so worthy of our praise So right there in our bedroom we got down on our knees because I thought that's what the rules were We got down on our knees and we prayed God if you're real will you show us and if the way we're living is wrong show us So I'm like, you know, we should find a Bible. I saw my brother with one and we had one in the house because we were Americans So we went up in the attic to get it and got it out of the box and When we held it We didn't know where to turn. I didn't know what a concordance was and so we just you know We just kind of flipped through it and then we settled we settled on this one page And I look up at the top and there's this long word. That's really weird sounding and it says Leviticus And I remember that I see on the left-hand side. I see this bold number 18 and Our eyes fell on verse 22 Right after asking God that question and this is what we read You shall not lie with a male as with the woman It is an abomination and I just want you to recognize it says it is an abomination not they are an abomination So again, we were stunned praise the Lord Praise the Lord At that moment we believed God was real and that he had spoken directly to us That's about all we knew so after about a week I wanted to know if the Bible said anything about women being together because I was like well That's just talking about men Maybe we're okay, even though deep inside I knew better So my girlfriend comes home from work and she's like I I worked with a Christian And I asked her the question about women and she told me that there's this book in the Bible called Romans and we should read chapter one So we did and when we got to verses 26 and 27. This is what we read For this reason God gave them up to vile passions for even their women Exchange the natural use for what is against nature Likewise also the men the likewise now connects these two verses Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due So at this point we knew God was definitely speaking to us and we needed to find a church So again, my girlfriend talked to someone at work And she told us about her church and it was called Calvary Chapel Old Bridge and it's in New Jersey So we went looking for the church and it was a little hard to find because it's a Calvary So it was a warehouse, you know I was looking for the for the white church and a picket fence maybe a bell at the top But it was a warehouse and when we finally I couldn't even follow the people in their nice suits because it's a Calvary No one wore a suit. They were just in regular clothes But we finally parked and and went in and I have to say when when I walked in I was a little I was excited and I was scared because you see I didn't have church clothes All I had was the men's clothing that I wear I had not one stitch of anything from femininity my under clothes My outer clothes my glasses my shoes my watch everything. I bought from the men's department My girlfriend did not suffer with gender identity issues. So I'm thinking when we walked in we probably looked like a lesbian couple the big L neon thing flashing on my you know Collared button-down man's shirt that was always a little too big for me The the seams always came down to here, but I felt comfortable in it But I got to say when we walked in we were not Over-welcomed and we were not under-welcomed We walked in just like everybody else So we went in and we sat down in the back because I thought that's the center section So we better sit in the back And so we sat down and I was looking up on the stage in this warehouse that I was in and and I'm looking and I'm Seeing a set of drums and a couple of guitars and microphones everywhere And I'm like where is the pipe organ and the lady with the bouffant hairdo Because that's what I was expecting. I'd never heard worship music before But the worship team came out and they started singing and there was this young lady there She was only 19 years old at the time and her name was Gea Lucid and she was leading Worship that day because that was her home church as well. Go Jersey But when the music started it was soothing to my soul because I love love music But then when the words came up. Oh look, there's my name when the words came up I saw the words on these screens and these words were talking about God's holiness and his righteousness and His love for me and When I tell you that ripped my heart wide open for those of you who know cam Newton That's kind of like a cam Newton move right there But it ripped my heart wide open and my heart was so hard You needed a jackhammer a jackhammer to get to my heart and I just I'm like wow God how could you love me? How could you love me? I'm so so Dirty I've done so many horrible things so many horrible things have allowed people to do to me and I'm all lesbian And after all Lord God Those signs said that you hated me But God was moving in my heart to tell me that that wasn't true The Holy Spirit was telling me how much he loved me and ladies Love never fails love never fails Amen Romans 5 8 says but God Demonstrates his own love toward us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us So on January 19th 2003 I prayed and asked God the Father to forgive me of my sins For Jesus to be the Lord and the Savior in my life and to be filled with the Holy Spirit And as many of you know the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders that day praise the Lord At that moment I went from darkness to light From deception to truth truth that God loved me and that truth set me free Amen Right then I knew that God's lover love was greater than any other love I could ever receive and that loved caused an immediate an immediate change in my life that day after 24 years of being addicted to drugs and alcohol it ended that day in So did my gay identity my new identity was now in Jesus Christ But I had no clue about Christianity or what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus Christ I wanted to know all I could about God So I started devouring Devouring the Bible because I knew the Bible had the answer to every single question I'd ever had But even in all that I still had questions And one of my biggest questions was God if you're telling me and I believe you if you're telling me that I wasn't born gay then why Why does it feel so normal to me? and God Will you please show me everywhere? I've been deceived. I am tired tired to be an deceived Lord Will you please show me everywhere that I've deceived myself that? Situations has deceived me friends media anything that's deceived me reveal it to me Lord God So I can renounce it with your truth and Lord God will you please show me everywhere? I'm wrong and you're right because I'm pretty sure I have a lot of wrong thinking in here And I want you to correct that I want you to transform my mind So God was faithful and patient and loving as he walked with me and answered all those questions for me Now because I was spending so much time with God and prayer and in his word. I was hearing the Lord's voice More clearly. I wanted to know all I could about him And he was showing me who he was by reading the word and in turn it was him first But then in turn I was also learning about myself And that's when the Lord started to reveal the answers to all those questions that I was bringing before him I was head over heels in love with him because he first loved me Because I was spending so much time with God I was growing in him like crazy and he was showing me that I could trust him I also realized that not all Christians were like the ones that were at those gay pride parades Many brothers and sisters in my church loved me loved me right where I was and they were Patient with me as I had major major growing pains I couldn't get enough of God and the Lord never overwhelmed me with too much at one time It was step by step He was sanctifying me through his Holy Spirit and he was giving me the desire and then the strength to be obedient And all that he was calling me to do Now eventually the Lord in his gentleness showed me that I had to move out of the house of my now ex-girlfriend and This was scary But God showed me that I could trust him and she understood too Because on January 19th 2003 She gave her heart to the Lord as well and she has never looked back either and she's actually almost a full-time missionary Bringing Bibles into places that I can't mention because it's being taped But Bibles in into countries in their native language So that they can read God's word as well and if she gets caught she might not ever come home But what a surrendered life. She lives. It's so awesome. So awesome But so after moving out of the house, I still remained very very good friends with her and the Lord allowed that for like five years, but We were still emotionally attached and and the Lord showed me eventually that that I had to move out of the I mean that I had to separate completely in this friendship from her and I will say that is one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life and it was only after being obedient in that I mean we both cried when I went over and told her that we cried and we cried and we cried and we were both obedient to that and was after That obedience that the Lord showed me why you know That was that umbilical cord that we still had but after that that's when my other friendships Started blowing out of the water and her other friendships did the same they grew and they grew and then that's when the Lord started growing our separate ministries because we were obedient because we trusted him and we trusted him because He loves us We can trust God in all things. He gives us the power and the desire to be obedient and then when we are He blesses us and listen to how he puts it in Deuteronomy chapter 28 verses 1 and 2 You don't have to open your Bibles if you don't want to I want you to just really hear this I don't want you to necessarily read it and we know the Lord's talking specifically to Israel and Deuteronomy Deuteronomy but we can hold this close to our hearts as well So it's Deuteronomy 28 verses 1 and 2 it says now it shall come to pass if you Dilligently obey the voice of the Lord your God and to observe carefully all his commandments that I command you today The Lord your God will set you high above the nations of the earth and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you Because you obey the voice of the Lord your God and that's exactly what was happening in my life And that will happen in your life too as you obey and trust the Lord so precious sisters It truly is about trusting open and obeying God. He's worth it. He's worth it And he loves you with an ever-lasting love and his love Never never fails God bless you guys. I love you. Thank you for Listening