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Show interest and concern without judging them or blaming them or trying to fix them. Be available in a disinterested way. Let them lead in communication, show you are there for them. Be gentle and unobtrusive yet persist in caring. Let them know you will pray or ask if you may pray for them. Listen listen listen. Affirm them in how they are experiencing their pain. Nod and respond kindly. Do not feel you have the answers.

gender is not orientation. i listened to the story of the woman who lost her female gender.... and after many years it returned. it would not have been any help for people to heap condemnation on her as a great sinner because she experienced gender confusion and lived it out. It would not have helped her to fire her, or deny her a supportive community during the years of her displacement of her gender identity. there was deep cause for these changes and societies denial of her process would have been only harmful. i knew a very effeminate man who had very hetero orientation. One change does not necessarily follow the other. no one is purely feminine or purely masculine... we are all somewhere on the continuum. some men prefer very androgynous women some extremely prissy women... and it goes the other way for women... This is not sinful but yes it is something impacted by the sin condition in nature throughout the world. The scripture says we are not wise to compare ourselves to one another... We are to be ourselves in humility, and allow others the same. No one is righteous no not one, but only Jesus. God profoundly understands and perfectly loves everyone of us regardless of how the sin condition is impacting us in any and every way.

Gail, the first three things you should do are: 1) Listen to what they are saying. 2) Listen for what they are feeling. 3) Listen for how their lives will be affected in the future. After you have listened, begin to reflect back to them what they have said. 1) You are telling me that you don't see how you can deal with this. 2) You are feeling a great sense of loss over the death of . . . . 3) You are questioning as to whether or not life is worth living. After you have reflected back to them, begin to focus their thinking. 2) Tell me more about this loss and how X impacted your life. 3) Are you planning to hurt yourself? At this point, what you should do next will depend upon how they respond to you.

Reports are in about a transgendered person is the Elder at Hollywood SDA Church. Before other comments, I would like to say my heart and prayers go out to this person, and the family involved. I worked with about 20 transgendered people in the late 1970's 10 years later not one of them was alive as reported to me. ALSO Johns Hopkin Medical Centre as reportedly stop doing the surgical procedures, as they had an 80% fail rate. Very few people I know have had more of a painful lonely life than the transgendered I have met.

Salvation is about developing trust and faith in God, to realize that we are helpless and in need of supernatural help. The details of this is something which we don't necessarily understand here on Earth. Like the thief on the cross we might not get the chance to get a deep explanation of the theory behind the plan of salvation, but we can still place our trust in God and be saved. Jesus is offering to take us by his hand and lead us to heaven, and believing in his power is all it takes to be saved. I like the way Ellen White explains this: "Some among the redeemed will have laid hold of Christ in the last hours of life, and in heaven instruction will be given to those who, when they died, did not understand perfectly the plan of salvation. Christ will lead the redeemed ones beside the river of life, and will open to them that which while on this earth they could not understand." — Undated Manuscript 150. {1SM 262.2}

To say that I am not comfortable in saying . . . . is not the same as saying that . . . . has no element of truth. Knowledge is important. Knowledge may be said to be a factor. But, I remain uncomfortable in that statement that I so stated. At the very least, such statements can be misconstrued.

Green has posted some comments to which I wish to respond. I will number his comments and copy them in BOLD. My comment will follow: 1) To say something is not counted is rather different than to say it did not exist, don't you think? Exactly there is an objective aspect of sin. It exists. God's plan of salvation must address this issue and take care of it. But, regardless of the existence of sin, we are personally only charged with sin as we rebel against the conviction of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit has not convicted of a specific sin, we are not charged with that sin. 2) But if your argument that "where there is no law" is used to protect ignorance/ignorants, then evangelists must really be doing the work of the devil to tell everyone the truth. They'd be better off without it, don't you think? Yes, Green, I do not think you agree with the above. Willful ignorance is effectively rebellion against God and that is sin. 3) I would rather think that salvation comes through a knowledge of God's law. That's because I don't want to be sinning, even ignorantly. Green, I do not want to erect a straw-man. But, I have a problem with the above: I am not comfortable in saying that our salvation depends upon our knowledge. I prefer to give all of the credit to Christ.

^^Deserves to be repeated.

I don't know where the information came from that members of the BLM group went to Louisiana to protest after the flooding. I could find no evidence of that. (There *is* the ongoing lawsuit against the police by Baton Rouge attorney, Roy Rodney Jr, who represents 3 BLM activists who claimed excessive force last month.) The BLM is actually silent in the area right now — and they are definitely *not* doing active protests.. But I think the gentleman in the video has a point...

I don't see gender confusion as willful sinning. Is PTSD willful sinning? when you are groping for answers and you can only see a small part of the picture at once... this is the effect of sin, but it is not breaking the ten commandments. is it a sin to have psychotic delusions or any delusions? is it a sin to have confusion in your life about many various things? is it a sin to lose yourself? or to be overwhelmed by loss and lose you way? i don't understand this condemning people who are struggling with the impact of the sin condition. There is not one person who is not dealing with the impact of sin.

@bonnie, are you ready to hand over the deed to the farm? Before betting the farm you might want to confirm that nobody in the flood region that received his very helpful lift of a box of play dough weren't among the first to blast him for his poser move for the cameras. Yes, mixed reactions of course. But indeed there were victims of the floods that in fact voiced their displeasure at his coming down and playing at helping out. Thanks for helping prove the point... and hang onto your outrage... He is planning a visit today. Timing is an important part of his visit so as not to impede rescue and aid deliveries. You do realize the significant use of local resources and disruption of traffic, etc. wherever the president travels, no matter who is president. That is standard Secret Service security protocol. That is part of the point. Immediately running down their when emergency response is still the priority and all resources are stretched to or beyond the limit does is not the time to divert them for a presidential visit. He would literally be getting in the way of actual help. I am fairly sure his people coordinate with local authorities to know when it would be OK to go to the area. Some of the criticism I read of Trump's photo op was that it happened even though the governor had asked him to not come down when he did.

That is because the governmental response to Katrina, which was on Bush's watch and his responsibility, was a sustained and truly unquestionable disaster in itself. Remember FEMA and Bush's props to the incompetent guy he put in charge of it? Thus far the Federal governmental response to this natural disaster, on Obama's watch, is going as it is supposed to. Obama showing up to hand out FEMA assistance would do nothing but create a photo op. And you know very well that no matter what he does publicly about it will be criticized and condemed far more than what you are on a rant in defense of Trump about. And that kind of meaninless and stupid distraction to getting the necessary job done is precisely what Obama is seeking to avoid by staying out of the lime light at this point. His experience and learning from the mistakes of Katrina, and not repeating them is kudos to his leadership. Trump is just demonstrating that he does not get that. He only knows self promotion. That is his business model. That is his campaign strategy. And that will be his presidency if he wins. It is all about Donald. Always has been. Always will be. Do you really think Trump is a kind and generous person? Remember his generosity to Vets? How he had to be embarrassed into doing what he had bragged he would do in his attention grabbing fund raiser during the primaries?

I am not at all surprised that you would say that. Simple reason. Whenever Obama does anything good or positive, large or small, Fox News, (and all the other extremist right wing Internet site you seem to frequent as evidenced by your postings here..) is very likely to never even mention it. But if they do, they take great pains to minimize it, criticize it, or spin it into something terrible to the point the only way you would possible remember his actions on that particular occasion would be that he did something bad. Then there is this. Obama is much more likely to keep his private acts of kindness and generosity as just that - private. Like when he often and routinely meets with families that are the victims of tragedy - he makes a significant effort to do so quietly with no media allowed. But I suspect Fox News respects that and never even mentions it at all. And then there is the serious evidence of charitable giving reported on the Obamas tax return just released. Quite like a good tithe payer, 10 percent. And you can check the Clinton's tax returns for that too and compare it it with Trump's... Oh wait, I guess you can't since The Donald apparent prefers to hide that, or something else on his tax returns from public view! And then there is the sad reality that those hostile to someone simply have a very hard time thinking of or remembering anything good about that person. Maybe you could try. Tell us just three positive things that you can think of that you know that Obama has done. And then tell us how long it took you to think of them. In fact I would ask the same of all the Obama haters here.

There are those that think everything in the Bible is salvational; or if they think it's salvational; then everyone who disagrees with their position is going to hell. Two examples are Sabbath keeping and the papacy being the antichrist. To me, Sabbath keeping is inseparably intertwined with my relationship to Jesus. Sabbath is "goog news"! Does that mean that everyone who doesn't keep "my" seventh-day Sabbath is doomed to condemnation? I personally don't think so. I (for one) almost totally dismiss the possibility of the Pope being the end-time AntiChrist (although I don't dismiss the papacy's probable starring role in end-time events). Does this mean I might lose my salvation because I have taken my eyes off of he that EGW has proclaimed to be the antichrist? I personally don't think so. We are all different people with different histories and baggage. God may have a "customized" salvation plan for each of us. Maybe the plan of salvation He has set up for me has a different set of priorities than it has for someone else. What is "good news" to me might be "scary stuff" for someone else; and vice-versa.

I see it as the opposite. We have traditions that make it a complex riddle. We want to prove theory of church history. We want to fit the Bible into the presuppositions of the fundamentalists. When people learn that there are two possible translations for the battle where the sun stood still, we want the exciting possibility. (either the sun did not move, or the sun was "still" for a day by not shining due to being covered with a thick hail cloud). As we get away from these traditions and get a better understanding of the language, poetry forms, geography and culture we learn a much simpler message. Our problem is digging through the piles of traditions and granted our lack of knowledge of the original context.