Daughter Dilemmas

Welcome to week thirty-one of Daughter Dilemmas, a weekly ask column devoted to exploring hard questions, together!Asking the hard questions, the messy questions and the just plain awkward questions is important. We should not disqualify them simply because of the discomfort they bring.Finding the courage to ask honest, hard questions enables us to see that others are asking the exact same thing. It spurs (much needed) conversation and allows us to consider perspectives we may not have otherwise considered.*Please note: We are not therapists, doctors or life coaches. Our answers are not intended to give you an instant fix, but instead to point you to Jesus Christ, our Savior. Our response to each of the questions below are rooted in what we believe to be true according to our understanding of the Gospel, as well as what we believe God has laid on our hearts to share after prayerful consideration. More than anything, it is our prayer that this ask column glorifies God and blesses His people! May it encourage you in your walk with Christ and enable you to see just how much of a good thing asking hard questions can be. May it lead you into His loving embrace.To submit a question anonymously, click here.

Hi! My boyfriend & I dated for 5 months & needed to take a break because we were having doubts about the relationship, which led to a lot of fighting. During our time apart, God really worked in both our hearts & now we are back together. We both know that we are meant for each other. Is that normal? We both feel like different people now & want a future together. Also, we are trying to figure out how long we should wait before getting married?

It’s not abnormal. It’s wonderful, really, that you had the maturity to take a step back and focus on your relationship with God. Whenever God is at the head of a relationship, it’s on the right track. It’s hard to be selfish, and unforgiving when our eyes are fixed on the one who gave all to forgive all. I believe that when you know it’s right, marriage can’t happen soon enough. But it does take time to plan and most pastors require at least three months of pre-marital counseling. I hope you have a blessed marriage.

Recently, my stress & anxiety have overwhelmed me to the point where I am overcome with emotion. I have journeyed through anxiety most of my life & I have received freedom from it. But at this intense time of the year, I find myself feeling emotionally unstable & questioning my gifts & talents. I was wondering if there were any spiritual disciplines other than journaling that you would recommend?

We get a lot of questions about anxiety. (For a more in-depth answer about that see Week 16 and Week 26.) Journaling is a powerful way to pour out your heart so those anxieties don’t swallow you up, but there are other helpful things that keep you grounded on the Rock. Prayer with a focus on thankfulness (listing your blessings, and marveling over His amazing creation) is one. Singing hymns or Christian pop songs, and listening to Christian radio can really lift you up. Scripture reading, study and memorization keeps you reminded of all the promises of God. Serving others in any capacity reminds us of our God-given gifts and how blessed we are. The point of all of these things is to look up. Like Peter, we can’t focus on this world. We have to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus so we can walk across the water and not sink in the crashing waves. (Matt. 14:22-32)

As a result of my sexual sin, I pretty much lost all of my friends. I don’t have a lot of girlfriends & I miss being able to be in girls groups, but it’s been such a long time. How can I get involved again without feeling awkward or unworthy?

If you have been born again, you are a new person. The old has passed away. Your old friends may not see you that way, so it’s time to make some new friends. Join in church activities and ministries and find a Bible study or prayer group. Find out if there is a mentor program in your church so you can have someone to talk to with Godly counsel. Invite some new friends over for coffee, or to watch a movie, or to play board games so you can get to know them better. But most importantly, work on your relationship with Christ. Make every effort to glorify Him in all that you do, so that the light of His love shines in all your words and deeds. You’ll be surprised how that kind of loving spirit draws others in. 

One of my brothers is attracted to other men. I am a Christian & he is not. I love my brother more than anything & struggle with his life choices & his disbelief in God. However, at the same time, I have seen him grow up & noticed feminine qualities in him since he was very young (wearing my mom's shoes, feminine gestures, hair, etc.). There is a part of me that knows the Bible says men loving other men is a sin, but there is another part of me that believes my brother was born that way. Part of me does not think he made the choice to be this way. It is something I struggle with because I do not believe God would create someone a certain way & then condemn them for it. But I also know that what the Bible says is truth. This same brother struggles with alcoholism & anorexia. I wish I knew how to approach him lovingly & show him how much God loves him, & to make him see the eternal consequences of his choices. My brother has had a difficult life & my greatest fear is that he will spend an eternity suffering in hell.

We are all fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God. It is this broken world that sometimes wreaks havoc on our hormones and even our DNA. But the bigger culprit is the societal agenda for us to have a world that makes sex the defining factor of our lives and the way we find our joy. That is a lie straight from the devil. We are called to find our joy in our relationship with Christ first and foremost and to glorify God in all that we do. Sex outside of marriage is sinful. Homosexual marriage is not Biblical so it doesn’t count and therefore makes homosexual sex a sin. But God doesn’t rank sin. My lie is just as bad as someone else’s adultery, or murder, for that matter. We all sin, every day. The problem is that the world is trying to convince us that homosexual sex is not sin or any sex outside of marriage if two people love each other. It’s all about love and God is love so why would He have a problem with it? He does because it’s sin, that we aren’t calling sin, and therefore we aren’t repentant. Unrepentant sin has consequences spiritually. I understand your pain in this situation. I have family members and friends that I love very much that are gay. Only one of them professes faith in Christ and is convinced that God said that homosexuality was sin because it was outside of marriage in Biblical times. He won’t listen to the idea that it’s still outside of marriage in God’s eyes. There’s nothing we can do but pray for the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts and show them the truth. In the meantime, we continue to love them and show them that Christians aren’t hateful homophobes. I would also encourage you (and him if he will) to read Rosaria Butterfield’s book,  The Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert. She has a much better perspective from which to speak on this topic.

Is abortion in cases of rape or incest wrong? What if the girl that is impregnated is very young? I am pro-life, but this is a topic I struggle with. Regarding the abortion situation going on now, how do I respond/deal with those who are against making abortion illegal? I keep seeing a lot of people who I follow on Instagram posting about how they think the laws are unfair, & I have the urge to unfollow them. How should I respond, in a Christian manner, to these people?

Abortion ends a beating heart. It is murder, regardless of the circumstances of conception. We live in a fallen world, but we can’t compound one sin with another. And we can’t say it’s okay to kill that baby just because we don’t want the mother to suffer. I don’t want the mother to suffer. No one wants the mother to suffer, so it is a tough decision. But I stand on the side of life because I believe that’s where God wants me. It is heartbreaking that people who call themselves Christians think abortion is okay because they believe their first responsibility is to the woman and not the baby. We have the technology now to know that it’s a baby not a clump of cells. It even has fingerprints by twelve weeks! From what I’ve seen, the pro-choice people justify their defense of abortion based on the very, very small percentage of rape or incest cases (less than .05%) and the poverty of the mother. Do I want a child who was raped to have to carry a child to term and give birth? No. Do I want a child to be born to a mother who doesn’t want her or can’t afford to feed her? No. But murder is murder and the only justification for it in the Bible is when the person has murdered others. There are no other exceptions. It’s not the baby’s fault. All of us are created in the image of God. We are blessed to have a country that has benefits for the poor and adoption and foster care services. So, my response--if I bother to respond to these people on social media who won’t change their mind based on anything I say anyway--is: As Christians, we should put our effort into lowering the cost of adoption and fixing the foster care system, not in defending abortion. Life begins at conception--or, at the very least, when a heartbeat is detected. The wishes of the mother should not be protected over the right-to-life of the child, which makes abortion a human rights issue for the child, not the mother.

How do you deal with people in leadership positions/pastors encouraging & celebrating sinful lifestyles in the name of societal “progress”? It feels very wrong & I can’t understand how someone who claims to hear from God & teaches so many people what they should know about God could ever lead that many people astray encouraging extremely sinful lifestyles.

Second Timothy has a lot to say about that. People want justification and affirmation for their sin so they can put on the appearance of godliness and continue to live unrepentant lifestyles. Find a church that requires faithful repentance every week and teaches clear Gospel messages, not interested in making you feel good about yourself. Because we are all sinners in need of a Savior and all sin tears us away from our relationship with God. The father of lies is busy whispering in the ears of these leaders who preach the Gospel of “love one another.” They fix their eyes on “love” not Jesus. They focus on forgiveness but forget repentance. But there is no forgiveness without repentance, and how can you repent of something you refuse to believe is sin? We are called to call out sin in other believers lives in a humble and loving way. (Matt. 18:15) It is not love to affirm their sin so that they aren’t truly saved. But we are also told to stay away from people who distort the truth. So, again, my advice to you is to find another church. (I recommend churches who follow Reformed theology like the PCA--Presbyterian Church of America. FYI- This is very different from the PCUSA.)

I know without a shadow of a doubt God has called me to be in full-time ministry, but I graduated ministry school last year & haven't found a job in ministry yet. This didn't worry me at first, but after my summer job came to an end & a job that said they'd be hiring me started giving me excuses as to why they couldn't hire me that week or the next, I began to doubt. I managed to find a part-time job at a grocery store that only lasted 3 months before I realized I couldn't put up with the things they were slowly having me do that was illegal. I quit in January, found a job in February that lasted two weeks before the guy got really creepy & I began to feel for my safety. Now here we are getting close to the end of April & I'm jobless still, I know God's called me into ministry, but at this point, I don't know what to do. Nothing is working out, I'm almost 23 living with my parents, & I don't know what to do. I'm confused, I don't know what to do, I've got over 100 jobs applications out & haven't heard back from one. What would you do if you were in my shoes? Am I doing something wrong? Have I misunderstood God?

I don’t think you’ve misunderstood God, but full-time ministry for a woman is a rare thing. It usually means prison ministry or homeless ministry or the mission field. And those things don’t pay very well, if at all. So, my advice to you is to look into a full-time job at a ministry (local outreach or even Christian schools or bookstores) or through the government in social work. I assume that is what you’ve been looking into already, though. In the meantime, get a job, any job, for the income and find a mission trip to go on and places to volunteer. These could lead to connections for jobs and will give you some experience to put on your resume. It might help to also refine your focus. “Ministry” is very broad. But you need to consider the possibility that God has called you to a ministry that doesn’t pay.

I am struggling to differentiate free will & a perfect plan. I feel like Christian brothers & sisters of mine keep hurting me & blaming it on God’s plan. However, when I meditate & pray on the situation, God has not lead me to believe it was His hand but rather theirs.

I don’t know the situation, but I suspect that anyone that’s hurting you is not doing God’s will. We are called to glorify God in all that we do. We are commanded to love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and love others as much as we love ourselves. If someone is hurting you, they aren’t acting in love. They aren’t glorifying God. So, how can their actions be in God’s will? He can use it in His plan, but they shouldn’t be blaming God’s plan when they are acting outside His will. Only God knows their hearts, but please seek the counsel of a pastor or someone that you can give specifics to. Using “God’s plan” as an excuse to do anything hurtful, doesn’t sit right with me. The free will vs. God’s plan debate is a difficult one and I addressed it in Week 8. (That answer is more comprehensive, so please look back at it if you find this confusing.) We have free will to choose Him, to believe in Him, to seek Him. All human actions are free in the sense of being self-determined, but none are free from God’s control because He is omniscient and working all things together to accomplish His plan. But if it’s not glorifying to Him, it’s not part of His plan. The father of lies is at work in this world and we are a broken and sinful people. Sometimes bad people do bad things to believers or bad things happen to believers. That is not from God, but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t allow it to happen and somehow use it for our good and His glory. It’s just hard to see any good from it from our puny human perspective, and really hard to wrap our heads around God allowing those bad things. Hope that helps.

My best guy friend from university lives abroad & I want to visit him. I would be staying in his apartment. My parents are begging me not to go because of sexual temptation. I know my friend & I, though. There is love & respect in our friendship, & I also know what I want in terms of purity. I feel bad to disobey my parents, though they make me feel like I cannot do anything out of pure adventure & spontaneity because evil is always creeping at me trying to keep me from God. What would Jesus do or say to me?

Your parents are just trying to guard your heart. That’s their job. And I agree with them that sexual temptation is a huge risk in that situation. But if you and your friend aren’t interested in having a romantic relationship and you’re clear on your boundaries and determined to wait until marriage, then ask them to trust you. Evil is always knocking at the door. But if you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, you won’t have to open it.

I care too much about what my parents think about my decisions. I know they are wiser & they care for me. I just feel like sometimes they are overprotective about my choices & make me think too much of things before I make a choice. I feel so bad that I can't make my own choices, I always feel like I make bad choices.

Being a parent is hard, and I’m sure they’re doing the best that they can. They restrict your choices because they are trying to save you from the consequences of bad choices. But we are a thick-headed people. Sometimes we have to live in those terrible consequences before we learn anything. And there is nothing that our parents can say that will convince us that they’re right and we are wrong. Especially if we feel stifled and pressured and suffocated. But the truth is, they are usually right, because they have more life experience than you, and they know you very well. (Think about the story of The Prodigal Son.) Everyone can use good advice. When you are living on your own and providing for yourself, you’ll be making important life choices all day, every day. We are called to honor our parents, so listen to their advice, and pray for wisdom before you make a choice. Most importantly, seek to glorify God in all that you do. If that is your goal, the right choice is always more obvious.