Your Mom Has A Blog

Why I See Bright Hope in Our Children’s Generation

by 6 Comments

This weekend I spoke at a retreat for preteen girls. We didn’t talk about modesty or boys or makeup tips. We didn’t discuss friendship or time management. Instead we spent the day dwelling on the absolute, perfect truth of God’s word. We talked about the Bible as the authority for all of life and Jesus as the answer to our very real and very present sin problem.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with mothers, and we sat together and faced the realities of this world that we are trying to raise disciples in. My fourteen year old Adelade sat on the front row and listened to us discuss everything from pornography to YouTube to sex education, and as our time came to an end, she quietly asked if she could say something. Then, in her level-headed, calm way, she encouraged the mothers to talk with their children early and often about sexuality, since so many of her own eighth grade classmates are struggling to understand where on the growing spectrum of sexuality that they fall.

When I was a preteen, a girls’ retreat would be focused on more superficial things. We would hear that we are doing great and that God finds us beautiful and that if we want friends we have to be friends. We would have been told that Christian girls don’t wear skirts that are too short and we may have even had a makeup demonstration. Nothing is wrong with these things, but those things aren’t what we really needed to hear.

We were living in a culture that didn’t often demand more from our churches.

But, our kids are growing up in a completely different world. It isn’t going to be enough to urge them to change their behavior. It isn’t going to be enough to tell them Bible stories as morality lessons or to equip them with self-help advice. The culture of their youth is awakening churches to rediscover the true gospel, to re-establish in the hearts of the people the reality that God’s word is the ultimate authority in our lives, to show us just how far we are from a holy God, to wave His standards of holiness like a banner, to throw His grace and mercy to a dying world like the life-and-soul-preservers that they are. For our children, repentance will be the theme of their growing up, perseverance in the face of a culture gone cold to the ways of God. They will have to grow a true, faith-fueled, God-honoring relationship with the Lord to survive the world in which they will come of age. No half-baked religious play time will be enough to sustain these boys and girls. They will have to rise as men and women of great faith, of total conviction, of solid doctrine, of sound theology. They will have to know and love God’s word, and they will have to know and love God.

Otherwise, in this age of anything goes but Jesus, they will crumble and fall away from the superficial religion that we tried to bubble wrap them in. Our kids don’t need to be hidden away. They don’t need for us to pretend the biggest issue they’re going to face is whether girls should call boys. Not in a world where preteens are sending naked pictures to each other. They need to be armed with the truth, both the truth of what the culture surrounding them really is and the truth of what the Bible really is.

I see this happening more and more. I see a generation that is being taught a biblical worldview, that is learning like no other American generation has had to before what kind of faith that it takes to stand up to lies, distortions, persecution, and hatred. It see it in my own daughter–she needs more to cling to than cliches and Christian tshirts. She needs a true, solid, unshakable faith that informs her every thought as she analyzes the world around her. She needs a worldview that is rooted in scripture. She needs the eyes and mind of Christ. No nominal faith will be enough for her–not in this world that wants to devour her heart and soul.

I believe we will soon see a generation that may be fewer in number but more firm in faith than any we have seen for a long time. These kids are growing up with extreme pressure from outside forces, a pressure that I believe will press them even more firmly into the shape of Jesus Christ as we guide them according to the very words of God. I have a bright hope for the kind of bold, God-fearing disciples we will see rise from the ashes of their generation. May God bless them as they glorify His name, blinding lights in an otherwise dark and depressing world. I believe He will do it.

There is a Better Way to Experience Sexuality, and Christian Parents Need to Be Talking About It

by 21 Comments

You may have read that Teen Vogue published an article this week for its audience of girls, ages 12-18, which is a how-to guide for anal sex. In fact, the creators of this magazine are writing instructive articles for all kinds of sexual acts. They want young girls to believe that sexual activity (including BDSM) is a natural part of being an older child in this country. It’s hard for those of us who are older to even fathom what kind of influence that this world can be on our kids–we, who read teen magazines for the quizzes about what type of friend we were, articles about how to handle our period. Our twelve year olds open teen magazines and take quizzes about what kind of sexual partner they are and read articles about how to masturbate and how “valid and valuable” porn is.

It’s hard to even believe that on a continent where an estimated 1.5 million children are currently being sold to satisfy detestable, porn-fueled desires that a teen magazine can so flippantly sell sex to kids like it’s candy. But, it’s happening.

As the mother of a twelve year old, I’m distraught and appalled that someone wants to teach her what anal sex is. But, the line in the article that bothered me the most has broader implications, and it’s the real message I want to counteract in my daughter’s heart and mind: “There is no wrong way to experience sexuality, and no one way is better than any other.” The writer says this with all authority and legitimacy. She is writing for a big name magazine, and her article has official looking anatomical drawings. If I have not taught my daughter to recognize sex ed fallacies when she sees them, then how will she discern that what is in this article isn’t true? Even more, if I haven’t taught her to view all things through a biblical lens, how will she know lies from the pit of hell when she sees them?

So, here is what our kids need to know. There are plenty of wrong ways to experience sexuality.

Ask any girl who has had her soul stripped bear by someone she hardly knows. The world tells her that’s fun. Ask any boy who stumbled across pornography on the phone his clueless parents bought him, who now can’t make it through the day without looking at it. The world tells him that’s the way it should be. Ask any college student who’s had so many partners that she isn’t really sure who’s the father of the baby she is about to abort. The world tells her to be proud of it. Ask any thirteen year old who saw an article in Teen Vogue and decided to try anal sex. The world laughs and says everyone tries “butt stuff,” as the Vogue writer so eloquently puts it. And, decision by decision, the kids of America learn again and again: there are plenty of wrong ways to experience sexuality. Ways that hurt them deeply. That cripple them emotionally and spiritually. Ways that will cause problems in their future marriages. Ways that wound the heart of God.

There is a better way. We have to teach our kids the truth here. We can’t avoid these conversations because we feel awkward. We can’t ignore these issues because we’re convinced our kids “would never do that.” We can’t go on pretending that we’re living in the 80s and 90s. Those days are way over, and, parents, the advice that is streaming into your kids’ hearts and minds is wicked and laced with everything that Satan would hope to see happen to your child. Do we really understand how much and how often and how effectively the world is sex educating our kids? There is no more time for being prudish and bashful and childish about sex when it comes to our children. They have to hear the truth from our lips, often, and with conviction. We have to ask questions. We have to be at least as diligent as the strangers at Teen Vogue when it comes to real sex education and teaching our children the very best way to experience sexuality.

We have to teach our kids that one of the greatest gifts of God is the intimacy between a man and a woman who have committed themselves to loving every inch of each other’s heart and soul. We have to teach them that great sex is safe sex, in the arms of the person who has vowed to hold us up when we need it, who has promised that no illness or accident, no outside interest, no schemes of this world will separate us. We have to show them what it looks like to be in love. We have to talk to them over and over and over again about the differences between Teen Vogue‘s versions of sex and God’s great blessing of sex. Most of all, we have to teach them that all this sex talk really isn’t about sex. It’s about obedience to God’s word. It’s about holiness and sanctification and trusting God with their future in all areas, even sex. It may sound cliche. It may make you nervous. It may make your teen roll her eyes. But, whose voice do you really want inside her head when she is faced with a monumental decision about sex: Teen Vogue‘s? Or yours, spouting the truths of God’s word?

I know which one I want ringing in my kids’ ears, so I’ll keep talking. I beg you, parents. Wake up. Protect my kids’ future boyfriends and girlfriends and spouses. Protect the future pastors and engineers and teachers. Show them how to live according to God’s word in the bedroom, on the internet, and everywhere. The Teen Vogues of the world won’t stop. When will you start?

An Open Letter to Miley Cyrus

by 6 Comments

Dear Miley,

You are a beautiful, intelligent, and talented girl.  You have been gifted with a remarkable life.  Yet, you have bought a lie.

I’m not sure who is feeding you this lie, or who fed this lie to Britney or who feeds it to the girl down the street or the hard working mother or to the middle-aged divorcee.  This lie tells you that your sexuality is the only thing about you that matters.  It says that your worth comes from the way you use your body.  It hisses that all that anyone wants from you is sex.

And you swallow this lie.  You chew it slowly and let its dangerous and destructive poison slide down your throat and you begin to imagine that you enjoy the way this feels.  This giving up of yourself.

You take this part of you that you seem to find so important, and you carelessly throw it at anyone who passes by.  At everyone who sees you.  You pretend that this is necessary.  That this is part of growing up.

You get attention.  You smile and seem to be having fun with it.

But, your heart is breaking.  And your crash is coming.  And the deep-down truth of your little girl soul is that even while you lie naked on the cover of Rolling Stone, big as day, you feel smaller and smaller with each passing hour.

And you hate what you are pretending to be.

So, I say this to you and to all the other girls who have bought the lie:  it’s never too late to reclaim womanhood for intelligence and competence.  Sex is such a small part of who you really are, girls.  And it has nothing whatsoever to do with your worth.

As a mother of two young daughters, I plan to remind them of this over and over and over.  May the truths I whisper overpower the lies that will come from Rolling Stone covers and music videos.

Miley, don’t go on lying to our girls.  Show them that true womanhood is about dignity and grace.  You have so much more to offer the world.

Sincerely,

Melissa, who Hates the Lie

 

 

%d bloggers like this: