You Are Not Dead to Me

I spent my late teens into my late 30s chasing a desired relationship with my father. He once told me that he couldn’t understand why I wanted a relationship with him. It was after this conversation that I asked myself the same question: Why did I want a relationship (so badly) with a man who couldn’t understand why his daughter would want a relationship with him? It helped me minimize the internal urge to know the man who was my father. I always had a deep connection with my dad. I was his favorite. I knew it. My siblings new it. He knew it. Everyone knew it. This connection seemed to break when I became a teenager. Most likely when I started liking boys, had thoughts of my own, and could voice my own opinions. I can see now how that might have been hard for him, but as a teenager and young adult, I could not understand his rejection. As a young mom, it was even harder to understand why a parent wouldn’t want to know their kid - wouldn’t want a relationship with them.

Now, I am chasing a relationship with a daughter who doesn’t want a relationship with her parents. I’m the parent so desirous of a relationship with their adult child. A complete opposite of how my dad was with me. And my child doesn’t want the relationship; a complete opposite of how I was. I struggle with the realization that I’m the one who wants these relationships. That is part of who I am. It’s not a stranger who I meet and want to befriend. It is with those that share my DNA, my looks and tastes. I’m not a “You’re dead to me!” type of person. I can’t seem to shut off the calling inside me to have deep connection with them. I wish I could.

My father died in 2016, the year after my daughter “came out” as gay. The possibility of a relationship with him is now gone. I don’t have to try. I can’t hope for it to be different.

My daughter, however, dies slowly. She lives among the dead in a death culture. To me, she keeps dying repeatedly. Each new event or announcement feels like a death. I lose my child over and over again. She reconnects and we have a fraction of her until the next situation hits the fan and then she’s dead again. Our hearts ripped wide open with a cutting ache. But we have a tinge of hope that she’ll come back to life — only to be ripped away again. How much can a heart endure!?

As she goes deeper into medicalized trans we are losing her for longer periods of time. As she is harming herself, we feel more and more separated from her. She won’t answer texts. She won’t take our calls. She ghosts us because she is a ghost. There is very little of “her” left, as she and her new friends work to erase her. This is the mandate of the death cult that is trans ideology. They are like the walking dead with dead-names, rewriting their past, and insistence of new pronouns. This initiates them into the cult where they no longer make wise decisions using logic or reason.

There is a sinister agent at play, luring a generation away from their families. It offers a freedom that it can’t deliver. It’s a spiritual battle being waged in the unseen realm. We see only the physical world results, which make no sense in our present reality. Things that are evil are called good. Harm is helpful, right is wrong, and a parent’s love is now toxic. This is the real-world evidence of an unseen evil.

Thankfully, I know she is not dead, even when it feels like it. As a believer in Jesus Christ, I have a powerful hope for the chain-breaking, freedom-fighting that is taking place for my daughter. My job is to stand firm in the Word of God.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV