Audio Transcript

Many emails we get are dark emails from people who are looking for any glimmer of hope they can get. And today it’s in the form of an email from an anonymous man. “Pastor John, I’m 65, disabled, and struggling to cope with immense loss and family trials over the past eighteen months. I’ve endured the deaths of my mother, sister-in-law, uncle, brother-in-law, and even my dog, all within this short span of time. As an only child, these losses have deeply affected my mental and emotional health. On top of this, my 22-year-old grandson, who was once very active in church and knew the Bible well, is now identifying as a transgender woman. While I’ve tried to be as accepting as I can, I’ve made it clear I cannot affirm his identity as female because I believe God doesn’t make mistakes. This has strained our relationship — he now refuses to come to family gatherings unless I acknowledge him as a woman.

“I feel overwhelmed by these trials and am not sure how much more I can bear. I remain constant in prayer and am grateful for the support of your podcast, which has been a lifeline. How can I navigate these challenges while honoring God and showing love to my grandson without compromising my convictions? How do I find the strength to endure the grief and struggles I’m facing?”

Weight of Loss

This 65-year-old man (or friend; I feel like he’s a friend) makes so clear for us the inevitable reality that, as we grow older, we not only face our own death, but we increasingly face the death of people we love. We tend to be aware of the fact that age makes us more conscious of our mortality, but we tend to be less conscious of the fact that age makes us vulnerable to the mortality of others. And that’s what our friend is largely drawing our attention to.

It isn’t his own death that has made him so discouraged. It’s the loss of four precious people and even his dog. To the degree that our relationships are meaningful to us, those losses are like amputations. They cut something away from our life, because our life is so interwoven with their lives. And then he adds (and it seems to me this is probably the most painful part of his unhappiness) that his grandson is claiming to be a woman. And the relationship is broken.

So, these two heartaches — not to mention the disability, which I don’t know anything about, but that complicates everything too — the loss of loved ones through death and the impending loss of a grandson through profound disagreement about righteousness, are related, in a sense. In one case, the pain comes from the precious family members dying physically. And in the other case, the pain comes from a precious grandson on the path to die eternally. So, we can feel the combined weight of loss in both cases. And what we want in this situation is wisdom and love and strength to press on in the presence of loss — loss physically, loss relationally.

“You have an anchor of the soul so that your boat will not sink in the waves of these sorrows as they break over you.”

It’s not easy; I don’t claim to have an easy remedy here. You live with pain if you live long enough. It is possible, though, to find that strength and to press on, to keep going and to not lose heart. It is possible because the Bible exists for this very reason.

So, all I have to offer besides my prayers is the powerful truth of God’s word for these two situations. And I believe the word of God, the Scriptures, give the wisdom. They give the power to love. They give the strength that is needed in both of these painful cases.

Seven Truths to Face Grief

Let’s take them one at a time. With regard to the loss of loved ones in death, the Bible presents us with at least seven precious, powerful truths that put steel in our spine even while we weep.

1. “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). To believe this is to have the burden lifted that our loved ones are in any way hurting or losing or suffering at all. They’re not if they were Christians.

2. Those who die in Christ will be raised with glorious new bodies at the coming of Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:16). That’s precious for those who’ve gone. It’s precious for a man living with a disability in this life.

3. If any of these loved ones was not a believer, we rivet our attention on the goodness and justice of God and say with Abraham, “The judge of all the earth will do right” (see Genesis 18:25). We trust him. He’s going to do right by these people, by us.

4. “We grieve,” Paul says, “not as those who have no hope” (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13). Paul believes that hope will see us through grief, no matter how deep. It will. So, don’t stop hoping while you grieve.

5. “The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life” (see Psalm 63:3). Life here on this earth, in this age, is not meant to be the best life. God is the best life. Get life from God, from that life, his life. Hold this world lightly.

6. “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). His name is Jesus, and he promised to be with us “always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Stay close to Jesus. He will not leave you in these troubles.

7. Finally, you have an anchor of the soul so that your boat will not sink in the waves of these sorrows as they break over you. Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” And then he defines it: “a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.” This hope, this anchor, doesn’t anchor you to the bottom of the sea; it anchors you to the holiest place in heaven. The chain goes up into the Holy Place, where the blood of Jesus secures you.

Hold these seven truths to yourself. Embrace them. Believe them. Be strong in them.

Five Truths to Face Sin

And the same is true with regard to your grandson. The Bible gives you stability, a place to stand — not for the sake of winning an argument, but for the sake of loving with truth rather than loving with make-believe. Here are five truths to hold onto.

1. God created man as male and female (Genesis 1:26–27). This was his design from the beginning, which Jesus went back to when he was dealing with sexual issues in his day (Matthew 19:4).

2. God marked off maleness with the amazing capacity to father a child. He marked off femaleness with the beautiful capacity to bear a child and nurse a child. And whether a man fathers or a woman bears, all of us should honor these gifts by the way we treat our bodies as male and female.

3. God warns against cross-dressing (Deuteronomy 22:5) and against homosexuality. Defying God’s word puts one on the path to eternal death (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).

4. Therefore, loving a grandson does not equal affirming his sin — just the opposite. Love desires above all that he be spared the consequences of destruction. So, love makes clear the path of life, prays for it and for him, and does what it can. Love does what it can to help a grandson see it.

5. And finally, be aware that your grandson may be treating you in a way that is worse than you are treating him. There may be a proper time to draw his attention to this. That’s not your goal, but you might. I’ve seen it work once or twice. He resents it when you do not recognize his supposed core identity as a woman. He says he can’t have a relationship with you while you fail to affirm his new identity.

But does he see that he’s failing to affirm your core identity? You are, at your core, a person of deep allegiance to Jesus and his word. That is closer to your truest identity than his supposed femaleness is to his truest identity. But unlike him, you don’t resent his disapproval. Take note of that. Jesus taught you to expect it, not resent it. You don’t expect him to affirm your true identity, as precious as it is — infinitely precious. And you’re not making his affirmation or his approval of your convictions a condition of spending time together.

You can look him in the eye — it sounds to me from what you’re saying, and I think it’s right — and say, “I do not approve of or affirm your claim to be a woman. I think your transgender efforts are sin and that you are on the path to destruction if you don’t repent. But I love you and I’m willing to spend time with you without continually bringing that up. Are you willing to look me in the eye and say, ‘I do not approve of or affirm the goodness of your Christian convictions and identity — I think you’re a bigot — but I love you and I’m willing to spend time with you’?”

I pray that God would use his word to make you strong in the midst of your losses, and that he would give you wisdom and courage to love your grandson in the truth.