Dagny O'Hara

At first glance you might not see many similarities between the girly, man-obsessed Scarlett O’Hara, from Gone with the Wind, and the no-nonsense business woman Dagny Taggart of Atlas Shrugged.  Both books are incredibly long by modern day standards.  Despite the length of each book I think it would make an excellent study to compare the two. 

Today I wanted to put forward similarities between these two strong female leads.  There are some similarities that differ in the details; for example, both women love married men but both do not have affairs with them.  Dagny has a physical relationship with Henry Rearden.  Scarlett loves and pines after Ashley Wilkes.  The circumstances of each woman’s relationship with a married man are different but the consequent themes of love and marriage within each book become quite analogous.  That two characters can be so alike and yet so opposing is a testament to the core values that each book puts forward.

           

Both are:

• Confident in their gifts/abilities.
• Not afraid to do what it takes to get the job done.
• Not typically beautiful but stunning anyway. 
• High interest in making money.
• Neither one is able to understand the men around her who can actually see reality and who truly understand her (Dagny-John Galt/Francisco d’Anconia, Scarlett-Rhett Butler).
• Neither understands or agrees with the ruling class’s philosophy.
• Are rebels.
• Are seen as doing a man’s work (and doing it too well for a woman).
• Don’t stay where society tries to make them stay.
• Don’t find true love until the end of the story.
• Are vocal about their views of the world.
• Reject God and rely on self.
• Are able to shrug off society’s disapproval (self-confidence).
• More interested in work then children (reject the traditional female role).
• Feel a connection to a certain part of land.
• Measures success by productivity.
• Has a funny name by today’s standards. J
• Misunderstood by their sibling/s even though they are taking care of them.
• Neither feels a need to hide their distaste with pretty speech, they say what they mean or don’t speak at all.
• Have “impure” relations with married men who turn out not to be their true love.
• Both their True Loves are just as outspoken and “anti-society” as they are.

Next week:  The themes of love and romance in both books.  Yes, there is romance in Atlas Shrugged.

Breaking the rules

Rules were made to be broken.  God made the law knowing we couldn’t keep it.  To be human is to sin, which means breaking the rules.  God expected this when he handed them down. The rules, or more to the point, our propensity to break them was designed to point us back to the fact that we can’t be good enough.  We can’t get to heaven on our own.  We need God, not just to give us grace when we sin but also to give us strength to obey.

            “Barriers alone can not suppress the heart,” said our pastor this Sunday.  Our heart is our best and worst asset.  We want to obey God; our hearts long to please Him.  But it is also our heart that betrays us when the desire to be distracted or entertained by the world is stronger than our desire to be right with God.  God already set limits, or barriers to sin, for us.  We set them for ourselves too.  “After this one time, I won’t do that anymore.”  “Just this once, it isn’t like I watch/listen/read this stuff all the time.”  We tell ourselves we are going on a diet (sometimes food and sometimes from media, electronics, etc) and right away temptation finds us.  Barriers alone can not suppress our hearts.

            I shouldn’t be surprised then that rules and limits are not enough to assure obedience from my daughters.  I have to continue to work on their hearts.  Character issues are frequently called heart issues, I like that.  It gets to the root of the problem.  What are ways you reach your daughters’ hearts? 

Shepherding a Child's Heart

Hearts and Minds: Raising Your Child with a Christian View of the World

Risking the Impossible

I love readingOne Thousand Gifts just to get a taste of the voice and tone that Ann uses.  Here is my own take on themes found in her writing.

            What do I risk?  What do I lay out, palms open and stretched forward?  Risk means love and that I care about the consequences of loss, hurt, and pain.  Risking means giving it up and being vulnerable.  Open and undefended.

            I risk very little.  I tuck a hope in my deepest pocket.  I stash a yearning in the farthest recesses of dusty closet corners.  I hold tight, arms crossed and bound around what I love.  It’s mine.  So I hoard it, never allowing anyone else to touch it.  I’m a petulant child who won’t share her toys. 

            God calls me to give.  He wants me palms out and up, arms thrown wide, face up lit.  He wants joy in my grateful smile of vulnerability.  He wants wild abandoned trust like a child from me.  I only tentatively allow Him a glimpse into my cupped hands before snapping them closed tight to my chest.

            I risk little.  I’ll do it.  “What do I do, Lord?  What do you want me to do, God?”  His simple answer, “Let it go.  Risk losing,” is ignored while I continue to plea for something I can do to make it better.  Make it all go away.

            I refuse the cool evening breeze for fear of mosquitoes buzzing and feeding.  Though his blood was shed for me.

            I look away from young sweet faces framed after my own and focus instead on a lifeless world of intangible.  Yet he gave up being God to become on of these for me.

            What do I risk compared to God?

            Release.  Let it go.  Surrender it.  Risk it all.  He can handle the responsibility so much better than I can.  Perhaps, like Satan I am jealous of God’s ability to do all things perfectly.  Well, perfectly for Him.   But I want it to revolve around me.  Perfect becomes relative, fluid, and flowing.  I know what’s best for me.  I know my own mind, don’t I?

            But I only know the present.  The past becomes cloudy and the future is a thick fog.  I only know my place, right here where I am standing with my hand on my hips and my hips cocked to one side.  I only see what’s in front of me, through my glass frames in the spectrum of visible light.  And it goes on. My hearing, touch, smell: all of it fragmented and weak in comparison.

            My idea of best is easy and sunny and warm and joyful, and, and.  My idea of best is limited.  I am confined by “possible.”  Limited by human fault and discord.  If only I could remember that I risk so much more by holding on to my life.  Who am I and what am I capable of that I would risk not giving it all to Him who loves me more than I love myself?

            Why do I drown out His loving offers with a steady, “mine, mine, mine”?  I can claim my fragile human faults or I can embrace them.  One makes excuses then keeps on doing what I was doing before.  The other, embracing…oh, that means dropping everything I have clung to and harbored.  I have to let it all fall in order to open my arms wide and instead hold tightly to my Savior.

Fantasy Fiction

     I happen to be a Fantasy Fiction buff, and it seems that I have passed this on to at least one of my children.  My youngest will sit relatively still for an hour if I read any Sherlock Holmes aloud.  I don’t think he gets it all because I read the original text, but we found his fiction niche.  It’s nice that I can enjoy the book too.  I don’t mind Babar or George or Madeline; but I appreciate getting to read something with words I occasionally have to look up. 

           

            It can be difficult to find Fantasy books that do not conflict with Christian values.  C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are two masters of creating a world with different laws of nature and reality yet still operating within a framework of God’s sovereign existence.  There are some modern day authors who have done a great job of this also. 

Madeleine L’Engle:  Ok, so she’s a contemporary of Lewis and Tolkien.  But I can’t tell you how often I mention this amazing woman to be met with, “I completely forgot about her!”  Her Wrinkle in Time series can get a bit emotionally and spiritually dark in places.  The science of worm-holes and travel around the universe could possibly make a young reader’s head spin, but she is absolutely a must read if you have a daughter who likes science!  The only book of hers that I offer up with a caution is Many Waters; intimate relationships and hormonal chemistry might be better left for older audiences.

Chuck Black:  The Kingdom Series is a great read and the bonus is that the series parallels the Bible from Genesis through to Revelation.  My biggest complaint with Black is that he only has one book featuring a female lead, Lady Carliss.  The books are probably written for boys, but I know plenty of girls who have enjoyed his strong female characters throughout the books.

R.K. Mortenson:  While The Landon Snow series is probably my least favorite that I am listing today, it is my eldest’s favorite.  The characters are quirky and very off-the-wall.  The books are an easy read and can be found at our local library.  Each book uses character lessons to bring main character Landon closer in his relationship with the “Auctor.”

Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry:  The Wormling series is my favorite on this list.  The authors manage to create a character who grows from boyhood into adulthood, with plenty of conflict that doesn’t hinge on the usual teenage angst.  The Biblical parallels are pretty obvious but very well written.

G.P. Taylor: The Dopple Ganger Chronicles is a graphic novel series up to three books now.  All my kids love them.  These beautiful books center around identical twin girls and their side-kick friend.  The girls are real trouble-makers but also have good hearts.  Some people might not like that angels (some female) appear to the girls to deliver the spiritual morals in a ghost-like form. 

The Miller Brothers:  When I first starting The Codebreaker series featuring Hunter Brown I was not impressed, but the ending really redeemed what worried me.  My original thought was that the authors were glorifying the main character’s typical teenage attitude and behaviors.  In the end of the first book though, there is a very nice twist that shows Hunter the problems with the path he has been walking.  This series is not finished yet either, but my daughter is so excited with each new one that comes out.

Christopher Paolini:  The final book of the Eragon series will be out this November!  The eldest and I are very excited to read it.  In fact, I think that she has re-read the series as it stands more than she has re-read any other book.  Hmm, maybe this one is her favorite?  Words have power in these books; magical power if that is a problem for you.  The question of a Higher Power is raised in the books by some of the characters, and the origins of these words of power are discussed but no real answers are offered up as truth by the author.  This series would be good for a child that enjoys discussing such things with you. 

I also recommend the websites:

Teenlitreview.blogspot.com

Whatshouldireadnext.com

Next week we can look at some classic books that definitely don’t take place in our world.  What genre of fiction do you enjoy and does your daughter enjoy the same?  Let me know in the comments section!

Spiritual Conditions

The ladies in my wonderful bible study/book club have come up with some very funny ways of looking at our human behaviors.  We all admit to having Spiritual Alzheimer’s, but the rest are my own creation (not to be confused with an admittance of guilt by any other parties).  What spiritual conditions do you have?  Leave me your ideas in the comments section.

I have spiritual Alzheimer’s.  I read my Bible or a great and uplifting book about my walk with God.  Then I put the book down and switch the laundry over, stop the kids from fighting, cook dinner, make the kids share, maybe get some writing done, and…completely forget the wonderful and energizing lesson I had just learned and was so excited about.  In fact, I probably won’t remember anything more about it until I pick up the book the next time, and by then I will feel so bad about forgetting that I might even avoid reading the book again for a while.

I am spiritually deaf.  I pray and pray for God to just tell me what to do about any given situation.  I’m sure He is right there beside me, calmly repeating Himself yet again.  Yet I feel unheard and unanswered.

I am spiritually menopausal.  I go from lukewarm in my faith to red hot in an instant, just to cool off once the mood changes.  Don’t even get me started on my irregular commitment to reading my Bible or praying.

I am spiritual anemic.  I get too busy to read my Bible or even pray.  I am tired and worn out from my lack of connection to God.  Something in me is missing, something that only God can provide.

I am spiritually lice infested.  From a distance, all appears normal.  I look and sound just fine.  But if you get out the magnifying glass you can see the worries and doubts just crawling around in my mind.  Watch me long enough and you will see me twitch and repeated scratch the itch of those doubts.

I am spiritually malnourished.  Ok, so that music wasn’t very “Christian.”  And perhaps, the book I just read was kind of romanticizing some very non-Christ-like behaviors.  These things were filling at the time, but my spirit is withering in cultural-junk-food.

I have spiritual heartburn.  I read that passage about not frustrating my children.  The more I digest it the more my heart aches with conviction.  Honor my husband?  No idols?  I need a Tums!

Tuitty Fruitty

        Love

        Joy

        Peace

        Patience

        Kindness

        Goodness

        Faithfulness

        Gentleness

        Self-Control

            The fruits of the Spirit have nothing to do with apples, peaches, or even tomatoes (yes, they are a fruit).  The above list from Paul, in Galatians 5:22, is made to contrast our preference for our human desires; which Paul lists as the “acts of the flesh,” (Galatians 5:19).  The evidence of good fruits in our lives is supposed to be a confirmation of our appreciation of Christ’s sacrifice for us.  Human beings can not read each others’ minds.  We have to rely on some outward actions and attitudes to understand where a person’s heart is at.

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance [says John the Baptist].    Matthew 3:8

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.    Matthew 7:16-20

            So if we are to be recognized by our fruit, I thought it would be appropriate to see what fruit I could find some of the fiction I have been going through on the blog.  Since I have been avoiding writing about The Hunger Games series I should start with that one first.  I’ll give you my take on the first four this week.  Please feel free to leave comments disagreeing with me.  I would love to hear if you see more to this story than I do!

Love:

            Lots of unrequited love in this series, as well as, doomed lovers who are pulled apart or killed.  But this is a dystopia novel, there is bond to be more hurt, anger, and sadness than love.  Does love win out in the end?  Are there any good role models for Love?  Peeta could be argued as a good role model for Love, but even he is twisted and broken in this department by the last book.

Joy: 

Ok, dystopia novel…joy is pretty slim here too.  Most joyful situations are bittersweet; such as when Peeta and Katniss try to honor Rue’s district and it only ends up getting many people in the district killed. 

Peace:

            Peace-makers are nonexistent is a story whose plot is driven by fighting.  We don’t even know if Katniss’s final act of violence produced a government of peace.

Patience:

            As far as a “peace that passes all understanding” there is a lot of waiting, a sort of hunter’s patience, if you will.  Peeta demonstrates patience in his love for Katniss.  Haymitch shows patience in his strategy. 

           

Servitude

I am teaching at a conference where I have had the privilege of listening to a excellent speaker the last couple of days.  She brought up a great quote from Harriet Tubman, “I have freed thousands of slaves.  I would have freed thousands more…had they known they were slaves.”  What a simple and convicting thing to say.  What makes this such a great quote is how true this is of so many things.  We are mastered either by the world or by Christ; we are slaves.  We might like to think that we are the masters of our own destiny, the captain of our own ship.  The truth is we are not in control.  We will either be ruled by the culture around us or by the book that guides us.  I hope that book is the Bible. 

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.                           Romans 6:16-18

So, you know you are a slave to Christ…how did you figure this out?  Did you wake up one day, having never opened a Bible or heard a word about God, and decide to surrender your own will over to God?  Probably not.  You heard.  You listened.  You learned.  You grew wise.  We like to talk about the freedom in Christ, but are we willing to talk to our daughters about the servitude and surrender?  If we don’t tell them (again and again and again) they will never hear.  If we don’t educate them they will never learn.  If we do not whisper what the Bible says in their ear on a constant basis then they will never grow wise. 

It is up to us to lead by example.  We must swallow our pride and admit we are slaves.

Fear of Getting Burned (Hunger Games 2)

But why would it seem attractive to be untouchable? 

1.      Isolation is protection from hurt feelings and disappointment.  It is harder to hurt someone if they don’t need anything from you, and even more so, if you might actually need them. 

2.      This also means never having to say you are sorry or be weak enough to have to ask for forgiveness. 

3.      Emotional distance can seems like protection from the sometimes wild mood swings produced by hormones and new thinking processes in adolescence. 

4.      It is a position of power to be untouchable; you are pursued, but not the pursuer.  Someone who is untouchable is self-reliant, “strong,” and often “the rebel.”   These are all admirable traits in America.

5.      Emotional distance is seen as a necessary part of being objective about a situation and therefore, able to see what others who are more biased can not see.  I would love to look at how our current culture portrays those who are very smart.  I think most of them would be social inept and rather cold-hearted.

When I wrote about the Twilight series, I examined what it was about the stories that filled such a God-shaped need, albeit in a very non-God-like form.  Perhaps the reason that the Hunger Games is not such a popular series with adults is that most adults have learned that being alone and distant from human relationships is not all that it is cracked up to be.  The adolescent draw to the Hunger Games series isn’t so much about meeting an unfilled need but about belief in a lie.

The NIV Bible’s only use of the word isolation (because “emotionally distant” is more likely to be found in The Message) is in Leviticus in reference to those who are sick and contagious.  The Bible states many times that we do not live alone.  For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.  Romans 14:7,8.  Even if we choose not to focus on the church body, local community, or families we do still live in relationship to God.  The relationship might be mostly one-sided on God’s part as He tries to win our hearts, but we are not isolated. 

The lie we believe is that emotional distance provides protection, perspective, and power.  This is whispered in our ears with racy song lyrics that mock love; books with strong solitary heroes; pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps attitudes; the American dream of self-reliance; and a culture that has cheapened commitment and canonized self-absorption.  When I do not feel it is safe or good to be “emotionally available” then I am more likely to increase my focus on self-reliance.  The more I rely on myself, the less I will rely on God.  Satan would love for me to decide that relationships are more trouble than they are worth and I am better off not needing anyone. 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.   And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’   All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40

We must fight against this cultural belief in the lie that makes being emotionally distant attractive.  How can I love (the greatest commandment!) if I work hard to disconnect my emotions and myself from relationships? 

Playing with Fire

You can’t touch fire.  In fact, fire has the nasty habit of destroying anything too close to it.  The heroine of The Hunger Games series is Katniss, “The Girl On Fire”.  One comment I have frequently heard when comparing this series with the Twilight books is the strength of the lead character Katniss compared to the clingy, boy-focused Bella.  Katniss isn’t just stronger physically; her greatest asset seems to be her tough emotional shell.  Just like every other fictional heroine, Katniss’s life prepared her to face the challenges in this story.  So what is it about her life that has isolated Katniss into a young girl with commitment issues?

In the world of this story life is hard.  You have to scrounge for food to keep from starving.  Katniss’s father (who died in a mining accident before the story even begins) was a great hunter and he apparently lived long enough to pass a great deal of this on to Katniss.  Katniss loved her father.  They understood each other and were quite close.  Katniss is not particularly close to her mother (who is never named), and when her father dies the nameless mother slips into a depression so deep that Katniss must become her father and provide for the family.  The only emotional connections left to young Katniss are those between her and her sister, Prim, and to her hunting partner, the handsome Gale.  Katniss must be strong, not only because she has no one looking out for her, but because she is responsible for the lives of her mother and little sister. 

Katniss has a difficult time understanding why the adults in her world silence her complaints and observations about life under the rule of the Capital.  She appears to mistake the adult’s lack of hope (their silence) as blindness.  Her character is presented as being lonely in her discernment of the Capital and its oppression.  She can relax and speak her mind with her friend Gale, but she is also becoming aware of his attraction to her, a thing she is not exactly happy about.  Katniss does not express this sentiment until later in the story, but she seems to not want to fall in love because love leads to marriage…and children.  Katniss does not want to watch her own children go through the reaping or the Hunger Games.  Again, this isn’t explained until much later in the books; however, in the beginning Katniss is clear that she does not want or need a romantic relationship. 

Katniss does have an emotional weak spot; she is a sucker for someone who needs her protection.  The only characters Katniss forms any attachments to are all ones that rely on her to protect them like Prim and Rue.  It isn’t until Peeta actually needs Katniss’s help in the Games (up until then he had been protecting her) that Katniss’s character shows some stirrings of feelings for him.  She fights these feelings and is, of course, clueless as to what they mean to her.  In the last book Katniss overhears Gale’s brilliant observation to Peeta that Katniss will ultimately choose whichever of them needs her protection most.  She might be a hunter and ultimately capable of cold-blooded murder, but she loves to rescue the strays and runts of humanity. 

Katniss is untouchable.  She thinks she doesn’t need help from others so it takes her a while to notice when someone is helping her.  She is also bitter and broken by the end of the books.  She has won a battle she never wanted to fight for people she didn’t know or care about.  Everyone she did care for is either dead, far away, or as broken as her.  The author ends the books with the idea that the world will be better for Katniss’s unwilling sacrifices.

Next Friday: Why is being untouchable so attractive to our daughters?

Fictional Friday 1 (into the Hunger Games)

Gale, Prim, Coin, Effie, Kat, Snow, Boggs, Saliva, Cinna, Beetee, Wiress, Chaff, Rue…Nope, you aren’t at a Hippie Convention.  These are the names of characters in the Hunger Games series. 

The Hunger Games series does not have the same draw with adults that the Twilight and Harry Potter series seem to have.  However, many public schools (at least three districts where I live) have it as required reading for a class, so many middle school and junior high school students have read them.  I’ll start with a brief summary of the series for the moms who haven’t read the books. *Beware, spoilers ahead*

Katniss is the main character throughout the series.  She is tough, emotionally distant, and generally clueless about her own power throughout the story line.  She gets stuck in a love triangle with Gale and Peeta (the first is the home-town hunter and the second competes in the Games with Katniss).  Death hangs over her head in various manners in each of the stories.  She triumphs despite incredible odds against her.

The books are centered around a future society where the government rules by fear.  Two children, one boy and one girl, from each of the 12 districts are chosen at random each year to compete in The Hunger Games (hence the title).  The Hunger Games are basically ancient Roman gladiator games; you can attract sponsors who will give you gifts that will help you, you have to kill your opponents, the “coliseum” is rigged with deadly traps to make things interesting.  Most importantly, this is all done for the amusement of the Capital.  The prize won by the district with the last child alive is an increase in food, thus less of their citizens will die of hunger that year. 

The second book is again a competition in the “coliseum” but with adults (some very old) and our young protagonists.  The third book is the rebel’s fight against the Capital.  Katniss is dragged into the rebel’s fight and made into their propaganda tool.  In the end, the rebels win (using horrible methods) and Katniss is in a position to take out their ruthless leader…which she does. 

I am oversimplifying quite a bit, but I wanted to give you a foundation to stand on so that as we look at this more in depth you have an idea of what is going on.  Some of the topics we will be looking at are:

• Sacrifice
• Humility
• Love (Romance)
• Family relations
• Gender Roles
• Trust (Peers and Adults)
• Isolation (Loneliness and Abandonment)
• Death (Fear of and Fascination with)
• Power
• Destiny/Luck

I can not say that I liked these books much.  My emotional reaction when reading the books was generally cranky and sad.  My kids didn’t like talking to me when I was reading them. J  I do see a few positive elements in the stories.  There were some nicely handled themes of a strong physical community, the manipulation of media, and the need to see the real truth. 

I would love to hear from others on these books!  There are not as many forums and the forums out there are not very busy.  I would love to hear what you enjoyed about each character you liked.  How did you feel about the killing in the books?  What were your favorite scenes in the book?  Why would you recommend these books to someone else?

Twilight Tuesday 9 (The desire for "more than this ordinary life")

The need for a quest or mystery to give us purpose is not a uniquely feminine quality.  Being Christian does not diminish our Humanity.  We long to be a part of something great and important; to have value in this mortal coil.  But a strong relationship with God, a necessary component of living God’s plan for us, is all about surrendering to God.  Being in a stage of rebellion makes it difficult to see the advantages of surrendering to anyone. 

            The purpose in our hearts for something “more than this” life is our subconscious knowledge that this world is lacking something.  We can reject God’s purpose for us as the Pharisees did (Luke 7:30).  We can work against God’s purpose, either out of ignorance or desire for our own will, but His plan will always win out (Acts 5:38).  We quickly question God’s plan when we feel God has denied us something we think we need.  We need to share with our daughters the prayers we are grateful that God didn’t answer the way we wanted Him to.  Mothers have the pressure of being a role model when it comes to living a life with purpose for God.  Not that your daughter can’t see you struggle, but she needs to at least see conviction through your actions that it is a struggle worth having.  I wrestle with this in my own life.  Trust me, writing this article has been a huge wake up call for my parenting skills.   And you never get it right all the time.  I would settle for almost half of the time!

God tells us, unmistakably, the path he wants us to walk (obedience isn’t just for our children), but he doesn’t force us.  We are not puppets on a string.  Puppets are never the heroines in the story because there can be no courage or sacrifice without first having free will.  Our created purpose is to worship Him though.  We are to have no other gods before God (Ex. 20:3). 

We can turn to Romans 12:2 for inspiration that we do not have to be removed from the world, but we do have to find the will to not be conformed to it.  Following God’s plan to give us “more than this” can cost us in worldly terms; friends, money, respect.  I know it was hard for me when I was a teen to grasp the long-term perspective of my heavenly reward for following God’s adventure.  I didn’t have enough years then to see value to benefits I would not receive for many years. 

God’s will for our lives, to reflect His glory, does not sound very glamorous to today’s satisfaction-soaked youth.  But the world knows how to grab our daughters’ hearts.  The world talks about princesses, true-love, and beauty (warped as the standard may be).   As mothers and as Christians, we need to remind our daughters that they are already the child of a King.  They are princesses in a drama that will allow them to be heroes, if they would just be open to the possibility.

Twilight Tuesday (on a Wednesday) 5

Thanks for giving me the extra day to post this week.  I am feeling much better and I am able to see today. :)

Adolescents will begin to realize that relationships are more complex than they had previously thought.  Perhaps they start to see that all the “popular” kids have some similarities; character traits or materials possessions.  Our daughters may not voice the words but a struggle to understand power begins before they become adults.  Who has power?  Why do they have it?  How can I get it?  As intuitively as this seems to happen, what most youth are missing is what power struggles have to do with why they are drawn to certain types of fiction. 

There are multiple layers of hierarchy in the world; power and respect are a result of these layers.  When we talk respectfully to or about our elders or bosses, we model to our daughters.  When we discipline our daughters in love over our concern for their character, rather than in anger to stop them from annoying us, we need to point out that we are obeying the hierarchy that God has set before us.  I know that it was a great break-through for my daughter and I when I showed her some carefully screened pages of my girlhood journal.  She was encouraged to see that I struggled with many of the same things that make her angry or frustrated.  I suppose she thought if I could turn out alright, she would do fine too.  When we allow our daughters to see our reconciliation with God or others, we demonstrate the importance of our submission to proper hierarchies. 

It does seem to be almost a teenage rite of passage to go through a stage where you are firmly convinced you are more mature and wise than your parents give you credit for; you are not an average teen and they are holding you back.  In general, I would agree with this assessment (read Do Hard Things to see what I mean) but unfortunately our culture is not set up to reward teens who do rise up to demonstrate true maturity.  Our daughters may not realize that they will be drawn to fiction that idealizes that which they can control, such as self-sufficiency, or that takes the control out of anyone’s hands, such as luck. 

This rebellion from “oppressive” authority easily mirrors the one we will continue to have with God the rest of our lives.  We will go through stages of questioning why prayers weren’t answered the way we thought they should go, why we are in a particular season in life we don’t like, or become impatient for God to answer (we’ve been praying for days/weeks now!).  Adults are not immune to rebellion and we often think we know better than God about when or what is to be done.  Have patience with your daughter and love her through her rebellion knowing that God is doing the same for you. 


 

For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth.  From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother’s womb.  I will ever praise you.     Psalm 71:5,6

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.     Romans 13:7

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.     1 Peter 3:15,16