The other night I spoke to a group of amazing young women at Fristers –a non-profit dedicated to equipping and empowering teen moms.
I talked on PURITY and that it’s never too late –which is clearly God’s sense of humor. How I became the poster child for no sex before marriage is still a mystery to me? I guess it’s one of those Saul/Paul miracles –you know the guy who used to persecute Christians and then became the champion of the Christian movement? Jesus takes the most unlikely people, wrecks them with his love and grace, and then bamm…new outlook and spokesperson status.
Laughs aside, I love encouraging these gals. I bought into the lie for way to many years that I was only as good as I looked and that my self-esteem was intertwined with my beauty. As I looked out at the sea of young faces I knew these sweet girls had fallen for the same bucket of deception.
And it’s getting worse and worse.
I saw on the Today Show this morning that little girls are posting pictures and videos on Facebook asking, “Am I pretty or ugly?” allowing strangers to rate their appearance and opening the door up for bullying and predators.
Why do our little girls and our teens and truthfully –most women believe we have so little to offer?
I think it’s because we are duped from the get-go (and cursed from a certain apple incident, but that’s a whole other can of worms).
One of the things I came across recently is that men control 95% of the media we consume. Only 5% of what women consume is actually directed by women.
What? That means I am letting men tell me how to be a woman?
And it’s not like these are Godly men who want the best for women. These are corrupt men who are defining what you and I believe. And it’s a 24/7 assault on our spirits.
I am not a big feminist. In fact I cringe at some of the rights women think they need to be equal with men. I believe men and women are different –and that’s something to be celebrated (in the context of equality in God’s eyes).
But let’s be honest here, it’s the media who is the biggest enemy of the female heart, not the politicians, or the religious right or the schmuck at the office who degrades you and tells you to cut up his steak. It’s the media who controls what is before our eyes and we keep watching and encouraging the exploitation.
Every time we turn into Jersey Shore, Sweet Home Alabama and Secret’s of an American Teenager we tell Hollywood to keep pumping out more BS. I know, I know…it’s your secret little addiction and you are a grown up. But what about the hordes of little girl’s out there who watch the same shows and believe they need to look like a Bachelor hottie to be loved and get a rose?
It’s the disturbing and relentless messages targeting our little girl’s hearts by defining their worth and value as objects and subsequently destroying the female spirit.
The media tells us women are only as good as we look, that it’s ok to parade us around in bikini’s and sexualize us into a piece of meat. They tell us the size of our boobs is more important than our intellect or our hearts. They tell us it’s ok to give our bodies away over and over but then they come back and call us trash and whores after we do.
The reality show craze has elevated toddlers dressed as pageant tarts into celebrities, its turned teen sex into an act as normal as brushing your teeth, they’ve twisted abortion into the smart girl’s ticket to success vs. a life wasted slaving over a child’s snotty nose, while ironically shaming the courageous girls who actually take responsibility for their actions and decide to have their babies.
In college they call it a walk of shame when a girl slinks back to her dorm in her heels and party dress the morning after a hook-up. They call it a walk of fame for a guy. They let us buy into a sick and twisted double standard regarding men and women and sex.
Pornography is the new norm and men are being sucked in and women are left to compete with an airbrushed image that doesn’t speak but opens her mouth and takes it.
And that’s what women are supposed to compete with?
I don’t think so.
And I confess I am one of the guilty parties who bought into this lie from the enemy of my soul – hook line and sinker. Even worse I perpetuated it. I allowed myself, for a long time, to become the it-girl of the media’s distorted lie.
But not anymore…
The other night I was able to tell these girls the TRUTH about who God says they are.
children of God. made in HIS image. worth dying for. radically loved. cherished. treasured. beautiful.
After I spoke, the founder of Frister’s –Ali Woodard went around the room and had each girl take the microphone and claim her beauty. Ali made the girl’s say out loud “I am beautiful.”
One by one, with giggles and sighs, some bold and some whispered out tremulously, the girls took a stand against the lie.
But one girl couldn’t do it. She downright refused to accept she was anything but ugly.
She cried out, “It’s not true. I can’t say it. It’s a lie.”
And I stood at a distance and wept.
What are we telling our girls? This young lady chose life instead of killing her baby. She has chosen to seek support and graduate from high school and pursue her dreams and be a loving mother. But despite all of these things –inside she sees only shame and loathing and condemnation. She sees ugly, not pretty.
Ali returned to the girl and worked with her. It took a long time. Finally she choked out in a small voice, “I am Beautiful.”
And I wanted to scream for all of the little girls and the big girls and the older women who don’t claim the beauty we have been given by God.
In his image he created them. Male and FEMALE he created them.
beautiful
Take some time today to tell the women in your life, especially the little ones –they are beautiful.
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