Section (2) of Ch.6. (The Power of a Parent’s Blessing)

Gender Blessing or Cursing at Birth

 

 I mentioned that one way an infant may be blessed or cursed at birth is through the parents’ acceptance or rejection of his gender. When parents affirm a baby as the boy or girl God created, this again establishes deep inside a self-accept-

ance and settled sense of gender identity. This person goes through life looking in the mirror and takinng pleasure in his gender; he believes God did a good job when He created him. A person blessed at birth is seldom confused about gender roles later in life and rarely deals with same-sex attraction.

On the other hand, a person whose gender identity was rejected at birth may constantly struggle with the feeling that God played a cruel joke when He established his gender. These individuals may even feel they were born the wrong sex. Now, obviously, God doesn’t put anyone in the wrong body, but many people have parents who make them think something is wrong with their gender.

 

 With ultrasound technology people can know a baby’s gender long before birth. Parents who desperately wanted a girl, for instance, may experience disappointment at the fact that they are having a boy, and that disappointment may be expressed to the child consciously or unconsciously. Some parents may go so far as to give the boy a masculine form of the chosen girl’s name, calling their son Ashton, for instance, instead of Ashley.

When this kind of thing happens, right at birth the child receives an impartation to his heart that says, “You’re not what we want. You’re not what we expected. Something is wrong with you!” This little boy may come to believe, “I can’t ever meet the expectations of my parents, because I’m the wrong sex. It’s not possible for me to be who I’m supposed to be.” This is a lie, but the child gets confused by the competing messages he hears – the one God is speaking to him versus the one Satan is sending through his parents.

 

 As I have ministered to people through the years, I have found that little girls tend to respond in one or two ways to their parents rejecting their gender at birth. Some work to become the boy her father wanted. As she grows, she becomes a tomboy and takes an interest in the things she thinks will please her dad. This is not the reason all girls enjoy male-oriented activities, but I have found that this is most often the case.

The interesting thing is that often this behavior does please the father. Dad loves taking her fishing, to baseball games, and doing the other activities he dreamed of enjoying with a son. Consequently in her heart this little girl takes on an identity of being “just one of the guys,” and she receives significant affirmation and blessing from her father in the early years of life.

 

 Yet when she reaches puberty, it becomes clear that she is not one of the guys. In his attempt to affirm her as a young woman, Dad no longer wrestles with her or conveys the same kind of physical affection he once did. This withdrawal can easily be perceived as more rejection, and the daughter can begin to believe the devil’s lie that her gender is “wrong.”

One woman I met had always despised being a woman, and consequently as an adult she dressed in clothing designed to hide her femininity. She was actually a very beautiful woman, but she didn’t want anyone to know that. As we prayed, the Lord revealed that this tendency was a result of her father rejecting her gender at birth. I am convinced that God never intended for any woman to feel this way about herself. God wants every woman to love being a woman, to know God did a great job when He made her. Yet I encounter many women who have embraced the enemy’s lie and feel deep down that they were cheated because they weren’t created male.

 

 The second thing that can happen to girls who are not blessed at birth is that they can develop a compulsion to achieve. Since the enemy used her parents to impart his lie, she begins to feel that she has not inherent worth, so she must strive to do something great to gain acceptance and approval. She thinks she must have a successful career, make a lot of money, excel at sports – anything to feel valuable.

 This leads to a lifelong battle with performance orientation and deep frustration. Because the lie inside keeps the soul continually out of peace, she can never accomplish enough to dispel the deep feeling of inner worthlessness. Fortunately we have seen many women whose femininity was cursed at birth totally set free when we led them through a process that allowed the Lord to remove the deep-rooted identity lie and replace it with His truth. (See John 8:32.)

The same things that happen to girls can occur in boys. The boy rejected at birth by his parents may strive to earn value by becoming wealthy, powerful, famous, or all three. Or he may attempt to become the little girl his parents wanted. I have often seen a father’s gender rejection at birth become the seedbed of homosexuality in a son’s heart. Knowing his father is disappointed with his gender, boys as young as three, four, or five years old will show interest in dolls, fashion, and other more feminine activities.

 

 The son wants to please his dad, but this behavior probably won’t do the trick. Dad will likely reject the little boy and possibly even make cruel comments or convey his displeasure nonverbally. This may be confusing for the son, since he was only trying to be the little girl his father seemed to want. The enemy may then deepen the lie by saying it’s not only his gender that displeases his father but his entire being, that there is just something inherently inadequate and displeasing with him as a person.

If this scenario unfolds this way and the father further rejects the son, the mom will probably try to comfort and shelter her son. She’ll gather her little boy in her arms and say, “Honey, I love you. Your dad does too; he just doesn’t know how to show it. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re special. You’re precious. I love you.

Now, which one of these two people do you think this little boy will want to open up to and be around? Harsh, ridiculing Dad or kind, compassionate Mom? Probably Mom. Over time this little boy will spend more time around women and become more effeminate. Dad will only have a harder time relating to him. But Dad has another opportunity right at puberty to affirm. his son’s masculinity and release him into his adult identity as a man. (We will discuss this more fully in a later chapter.) However, if Dad doesn’t know how to bless his son at puberty and instead imparts further rejection, then there’s a strong possibility that this son will be drawn into a homosexual lifestyle in his early teenage years.

 

 Having been denied all his life gender affirmation and his father’s blessing, the young man, now in his teenage years, will search for this approval elsewhere. Sadly this affirmation will likely come from a man who is himself bound in a homosexual lifestyle. He will tell the son what the boy longed to hear from his father: “(I love you. I value you> I’m proud of you. You are special. You’re wonderful. You’re handsome. You‘re a great man. You’re a wonderful person.” This may not begin as the only way young men enter a gay lifestyle, but I have seen this scenario many times in ministry.

How does this young man’s father respond? He will probably heap on more ridicule and rejection. The irony is that the father held the key to influence his son’s identity and destiny all along, but instead of affirming the gender God gave his child, the father planted a seed of gender rejection and homosexuality in his son at birth. He then watered that seed and continued to fertilize it by not blessing his son throughout his childhood.

 

 Fortunately it is possible for the Lord Jesus to remove this deep identity lie from the hearts of sons and replace it with the truth that should have been imparted through a human father. Many times our ministry teams have seen the Lord resolve this situation in families who have participated in a Blessing Generations Experience.