A close family member uses this excuse for anyone with a bad habit in our family. "They are just hard-wired that way." I never agreed with it, and now I understand why.
Each of those members of our family that they use that excuse for were also baptized making a covenant to follow Christ and be like Him, but more importantly, they were told to receive the Holy Ghost. THAT is the moment they started becoming "hard-wired", but not for sin, but for following the Savior.
The big tide of confusion in our world today amongst many others is that of gender dysphoria or also same- gender attraction and the million offshoots that Satan has attached to them and creates more each day. The idea that you are attracted to the same gender. Or feeling like you're a man, trapped in a woman's body. Or that you're not attracted to either gender physically. They call them gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, and a million other names. They've even tried to label heterosexuals as CIS gender-meaning, what you were assigned at birth, they got it right. There is no such thing as that title. There's women and there's men. Everything else is a man-made lie, however convincing or real they may seem.
Our genders are eternal because our spirits our eternal. You can't change your spirit in that way they try to medically change their gender or even anatomy. You CAN however listen to the wrong influence, Satan, for so long, that you believe his lies(I wish I could make the "h" on "his" even tinier, because he's just that meaningless.)
I heard of a Priests Quorum advisor that taught 2 hard-core drug addicts during his mission, unwillingly at first. But after promising to teach with them only if they cleaned their room so the Spirit could be there. The one listened and wanted to be baptized and become clean but he said he was too addicted, that it meant everything to him and he couldn't change. They came back a while later to be told he was gone, most likely dead from an overdose. It wasn't until months later he got a call from the young man's mom saying, through tears, that as a missionary, this advisor had saved her sons life because he felt the truth of the Spirit, hitch-hiked home across the country to his parents, asked for help, got admitted to a rehab facility, got clean, and was baptized. The addiction is powerful, but not more than the Savior's Grace from His Atonement.
Several close family members, past and present, suffer from anxiety, including myself. But during a particularly difficult time a tender young family member was given a blessing that I'll never forget, and I won't let them forget it either. It said they was specifically given anxiety from the Lord to bring them closer to Him.
If we looked at all our temptations, struggles, weaknesses, and sins like that, we'd never be victim to them. This sweet soul will be baptized in a few months and will receive the Holy Ghost. I plan to emphasize that that Gift will help them overcome everything and anything, as I've already told them in the past.
Another close family member met their worst fear on their mission. They met a woman who after a minute with her, sensed the gal had given in to homosexual feelings (who was an inactive member and had one point served a mission, too) and my family member became scared because they too, have struggled with some form of those feelings for a long time. They shared it with their mission president's wife and she didn't judge them, but affirmed it could happen and those feelings were powerful, but she didn't say REAL.
Later this same family member would marry their spouse and they would see any weakness as just that, a weakness, not a TRAIT. They don't own us, we don't own them. This person confidently states they have no "closet" to come out of and never will, because they refuse to let their soul be hard-wired to something it's not.
Another dear family member used to say they had "a firery-Italian side"and "it" wasn't afraid to let people "have it". But this person learned that that wasn't their true identity and has learned to harness it, push it down, and listen to the Spirit instead, and funny enough as extinguished many "fires" in others because they didn't let that "firery" side be the winner. They called it bossing your brain...I call it, the Spirit.
If my kids ever come to me saying they're gay, or trans, or drug addicts, or porn addicts, or anorexic-I will never say, Ok, I love you, will always love you, but let's work with the Spirit to train their souls to know the truth and fight the lies.
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