"The Talk"
by
Jane Ellen Smith
I had "the talk" with Joy the other day. Not the one you're thinking of. The one about the two moms she saw on the tv show "The Dome." She mentioned the girl had two mothers and then she found out that she had a father, and then one mom and her dad got killed. She was left with the black mom who wasn't really her mom. She thought that was confusing. This is what I told her:
The white mother never told the girl about her father or the father about the girl, but she married the black woman who adopted the girl. They both loved her. You'll be hearing a lot more about men marrying men and women marrying women because our government has said that it's legal to do that now, but being legal doesn't mean that it is right in God's eyes. God gives us his design for marriage in Genesis. He created man and woman to be husband and wife, one husband and one wife married to each other for their entire life. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, sin came into our lives, and sin causes us to do things against God's will. God's will is the best way for us to live. We are healthier and happier when we live in his will for us, but we sin and make bad choices. When a man and a woman decide to act like they are married when they aren't (we sometimes call that "naked people doing what naked people do), that is sin. When a husband and wife are married, but meet up with someone outside of their marriage and act like they're married, that is sin. When two women get married, or two men get married, that is sin.There is no sin that is worse than the other because any sin comes between us and God. Any sin gets in the way of our relationship with God.
Does that mean we hate people who sin? No. Does that mean it's my job or your job to shout at someone who is doing something wrong and tell them that God hates their sin? No. Jesus loves people who sin. He came to earth and died to take away our sin. He rose from the dead so that all the sinners who believe in Him can enter into God's holy presence. God calls us to love people who are sinning because He does.
Here's a caution. Loving someone even though they are sinners does not mean putting ourselves in danger. You should never trust someone just because I've told you that we should love them as Jesus does. Loving someone the way Jesus does means being respectful and polite, but not trusting and stupid. Run away from sin. Trust God to tell you when you are in danger and run. Run hard and run fast.
But back to the two women getting married. The world will tell you that sin is beautiful and fun and will make you happy. And it might for awhile like eating a dozen donuts or a whole bag of Cheetos, but then it will make you sick, and you will really wish you hadn't done that. We need to trust that God has designed the best life for us--one man, one woman, one lifetime.
Every time we step outside of God's design, we hurt. He uses that hurt to draw us back to Him and to help us find His will for us. Remember when your dad left? How broken I was, how much I cried? That's what sin does. It hurts. Because we broke God's best design for us. But God forgives our sin and draws us back to Him. After He forgives us, we still have to live with the consequences of our sin, but we can draw close to God, and He will draw close to us. (James 4:8)
(By this time we'd been driving in traffic for awhile and I thought I was losing her. She had been very quiet.) So, about the two women who got married. The world, that's the word used in the Bible to mean people who don't follow God's will, the world will tell you that it's good for two women or two men to marry and have a family, but it isn't. We can still be friends with them; we can love them; but we need to know in our hearts that it isn't God's design. We should always try to follow what the Bible teaches in our own lives.
That's pretty much everything I said. She was quiet, then we got out of the car and went into Target. I thought I'd share that with you in case it comes up in a conversation.
Love you all.