You Cannot Lose What You Are!

You can't lose what you are!

You cannot lose what you are, you simply cannot. If God made you something, a man or a woman, you can't do anything to not be that. “Be a man!” is like telling the water to be wet, or to be water.

Lucifer was created a powerful celestial being, and was created to worship God. He fell, and his nature was corrupted beyond redemption (Ez.28:11-19, Is. 14:12-20). Yet in Jude verse 9, we see that he is still a powerful celestial being. His nature was corrupted, he lost his job forever, his destiny was not fulfilled, yet what he was, the basic thing that he was, did not change. He still is that.

In Judges 19:22-30 we find a group of rapists assaulting somebody until she died! I can’t say much for the guy she was actually with, either. It does not say anywhere that any of these guys were OK to behave as they did, but it does say that they were men - “Men of Belial [the devil]” or in the NASB “a perverse lot” is what it calls them. Their natures were corrupted severely, whether beyond redemption or not we don't know, but pretty darn bad. Even with guys this bad, the Bible doesn't say that they were not men at all, it says what kind of men they were – really super-crappy ones. They did not lose basically what they were, but their destinies were not getting fulfilled by them acting like that. They are did the opposite of what they were created to do – I think the guy she was with did too – but they were still men, just as Satan is basically a celestial being like he has always been. 

You get to choose what kind of man you are, but it is not up to you to make yourself one. God already did that; that ship has sailed. You cannot lose your manhood by losing your job, or by any kind of moral failure, no matter how bad, or by anything bad happening to you or by anything anyone does to you. No matter what anyone says.

It is an incredibly painful thing to think that you are not what you are, particularly as far as gender is concerned. People will go to mind-boggling extremes to satisfy the need to believe they are men or women, and parents will go to amazing lengths for their kids in this area too. It even seems to be a stronger drive than self-preservation or avoidance of physical pain. or than protecting kids from harm. Below, I have embedded footage of one of the less horrific male rights of passage I've heard of. Its pretty intense! Some initiations for girls are even worse than almost any I've heard of for boys. It can't be fun to walk around feeling like “the other shoe is going drop any minute” and expose you as some kind of posturing phony, or "not a 'real' man" or some such. Dude, there is no other shoe. There can be no other shoe. God making you what you are is not a shoe in the first place, therefore there is no need to assume there's another one gonna show up any minute that will be the opposite somehow. It can't happen. There is only what is, and that's what you are. You can't lose that. So stop worrying about it, and letting Satan push you around by telling you any impossible “If… then…” stuff, putting conditions on something that cannot even change. Your mind is your mind, you have control over what goes on up there. You don’t have to believe what is not true, regardless of what those around you believe or say.
There is nothing you can ever need to prove to God, God made you and knows everything about you, and He understands everything.

Again, there is nothing you can ever need to prove to God, and God's opinion is the only one that ultimately counts.
Any situation or threat that causes you to doubt yourself, to fear or wonder in this area, honestly cannot actually take what you are away from you. All it's doing is showing you where you have built your "house" of gender identity, and perhaps self-worth, on sand instead of rock. If you really aren't enough for whatever you have been called to do or created for, than God failed, since you did not make yourself. Can God fail? Can God get it wrong? Or do we sometimes ask things of ourselves and each other that He doesn't, putting human will above His? Can God do shoddy craftsmanship, or do we just not appreciate or understand what he made in us? He can't fail, and he made you. That is the rock that identity should be built on. Everything else is merely sand.

“Woe to him who says to his father, 'What begettest thou?' or to the woman, 'What have you brought forth?” “Woe to him who says to his maker, 'What makest thou?' or 'Thy work, he hath no hands.'” To doubt yourself in this manner is to doubt God, and that is actually a sin. Sin is to be resisted, not accommodated, or accepted as status quo. Declare war on it. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. We demolish arguments and any high and lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” A “stronghold” is pretty much a mindset or a deep-seated belief that is not true, in this case it is a cultural entrenchment. There are peoples in the world who don’t think men need to “prove their manhood” all the time. At least as late as the early 1990’s, the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia and the Mbuti of the Ituri forest in Congo were examples... 

I challenge you to begin to prayerfully pursue and root out anything in your life that reinforces these lies for you that you actually have control over (some things in our lives that do this, we don't have control over, but we're not responsible for that) – especially your media choices and the things that you say. I don't care if it is Christ-professing or well-intentioned media or whatever kind of influence it is. Maybe there is some good mixed in with the bad; mixing about six spoonfuls of potent vitamins with a teaspoon or so of rat poison is still gonna make you sick.  Get rid of it. If you can identify what it is, than get rid of it if you can. Give the enemy no place in your life.

It’s been around 20 years since I began the process of removing the poison of pornography and “women’s magazines” that basically tell me how to fix everything that is not even wrong with my appearance, and other such crap out of my life. I can say that it is a difficult process sometimes, and at times it is a sacrificial road to walk for a little while, but is well worth it. I encourage you to prayerfully give it a go.

Take care and Godspeed.

~Mother Star

God made everything in nature what it is. Despite how confused we humans can get about ourselves, either thinking to much or too little of ourselves, who and what we are doesn't go away. We can't putout the sun by disbelieving init, and w can't cease to be who we are no mattr what we think or how we feel or what we do because we doubt ourselves.

Lessons From Catching Fire: Cinna's Sacrifice

To all you boys who got called "fags" and other cruel names for liking to take care of yourself and for having an artistic skill-set, especially those who never let them label you, who never gave in to who they told you you were, I dedicate this one to you.

There are so many lessons to be learned from this trilogy, but this one stands out in my mind.
Traditionally, guys who fix people's hair and clothes are deemed un-masculine and are not associated with bravery or valor. This is true in nearly every movie ever made in which such characters are found. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire offers us an exception.
Also worth note, there is no reference, implied or otherwise, to this stylist's sexual orientation. None. Not in either of the movies the character is found in. That's a very definite break with traditional Hollywood stereotypes. This is a very welcome change because those stereotypes are exactly that: stereotypes. And cliches. They limit people in so many ways.

Introduced in The Hunger Games as Katniss's stylist, Cinna is the first person she meets after she leaves home that addresses her plight honestly and with genuine compassion. That alone should make him stand out, but it is in Catching Fire that Cinna really makes his mark.





Katniss was sixteen years old, taken from her family as "tribute" to be put into an arena with 23 other teens to fight to the death until only one survived. The event was to be televised live to the whole country, including her family and friends. She had a very slim chance of surviving, since kids from the wealthier districts trained for this contest while her district, the poorest of all, never learned anything about fighting. Most people in the Capitol pretended that everything was great and congratulated her, of all things. Cinna was honest with himself, and with her, about the nature of his work - a sharp contrast to everyone else working with the Hunger Games in any way.
If Katniss could impress some wealthy people who help fund the games, sponsors, they may help her through the battle with any needed supplies. Without that, she was absolutely doomed.
Cinna couldn't stop the "games," but he used his skills in aesthetics to help every "tribute" placed in his care. He knew his efforts could help save their lives, not by stopping the games and sparing all the innocent young people sent to them, but by helping the one person in front of him to survive. That was all he all do - at first.
Because of Cinna's genius, Katniss was dubbed "the girl on fire." He also advised her on how to carry herself to impress and even on what facial expression to use. Because of both Cinna's skill and Katniss's valor, Haymitch was able to convince a sponsor to send medicine for her when she was injured and cornered. Cinna's efforts truly helped to keep her alive.

Katniss had genuinely cared about another tribute, an eleven-year old named Rue, and tried to protect her, to no avail. Katniss's concern for others even above her own life made her a symbol for the rebellion.This symbol, this figurehead, inspired many in the country to stand againt the tyrannical Capitol, even at the cost of their lives. The revolutionaries in the various districts call her "The Mockingjay" after a pin from her home that she wore in the games, and in recognition of her communication with Rue. She and Rue's signal was to whistle at mockingjays and let the birds relay the song. President Snow and his cronies in the Capitol conspired to destroy "The Mockingjay" bodily, and in the people's minds. They made a special event for that purpose, taking previous victors like Katniss as "tributes" for the next games.
Cinna now had an opportunity to save not only Katniss, but his country, with his skills. However, it could not be done without putting his own neck on the chopping block.
President snow demanded a wedding dress. This was to draw attention to the fact that he was preventing her wedding, making sure that either she or fiance would live through the games, or neither of them would. Either way, the love story that enraptured the nation and defied the Hunger Games' rules would be decimated. The intent was to snuff out the hope she had stirred in so many people. Cinna complied with the demand to put her in a wedding dress, but he "made a few alterations" to keep the fire of hope alive across his nation.
You can see what his final creation here:




Peeta made up a story about their marrying in secret and expecting a baby, which woke the very deluded and desensitized Capitol city's attention to how evil their government really was. The Cinna's and Peeta's creativity and skill combined with Katniss's obvious inner strength to stir up resentment against the status quo, and bring hope that things could be better.
The thing is, all of the tributes who joined hands in solidarity with the "couple" were practically as good as dead and had little to lose; they were in the same plight as Katniss and Peeta. Many of them tried to kill the pair as soon as the games began. Cinna, on the other hand, could have gone on with his illustrious career as the most successful designer in the Capitol by just complying with orders and doing business as usual. Instead, he used his considerable artistic talents to encourage the revolution.
He paid the ultimate price for doing so



If you've seen the start of the film, you know this is what happens when someone who publicly supports the rebellion gets dragged out and executed. Katniss has helplessly witnessed this many times. She knows what is going on. Something in Cinna's expression as he hugs her makes me think he knew it was coming, too.

The lesson: Not all valor is tried with swords and firearms. Sometimes it is done with a make-up brush, a pattern, and a sewing machine. Even in Hollywood.
Sometimes it is the "supporting role" who really carries the torch.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star