Playlist songs

I keep saying that I am going to create a playlist/CD for my kids to listen to if anything should happen to me.  My father died when I was very young and his letters are so precious to me; so this idea of leaving something to lift my kids up if I was gone is close to my heart.  This song would definitely make the list!  I also really want Britt Nicole's headphones from this video.

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.

Modesty: Shopping Smarts

This is the second part of a series on Modesty by my guest, Kim Crawford.  Enjoy ~Tamara

Take a walk with me down the aisle at your local Kohl’s store. When you look around at the clothes for women and girls, would you say that they are designed to reveal the secrets of your beauty, or conceal them? I think we would all agree that the goal in modern apparel is to be revealing! So why does this matter for you and your girls?

According to Dannah Gresh, of Pure Freedom ministries, one of the top five factors for early sexual activity is, “a girl who looks older than she actually is. There is a strong case to argue that the end result of today’s immodest fashion is sexual promiscuity.”  I don't know about you, Mom, but my heart longs to protect my girls from the lifelong pain of premarital sexual involvement.

Here are some tools to consider when you are shopping for yourself and your daughters. May these aid you in your desire to help your daughter grow in purity and modesty.

Guidelines for choosing clothes

Attractive or Attracting?

Josh Harris hit the nail on the head in his book, Not Even a Hint, when he wrote that, “there is difference between dressing attractively and dressing to attract."  Attractive clothing highlights your countenance instead of drawing attention to our body. Skimpy clothing is often thought as the antithesis of modesty. My husband would suggest that frumpy, baggy, and utterly outdated clothing that makes a woman look sloppy is also immodest. Modesty looks not to either of these extremes, but instead focuses on clothing that allows your inward beauty to shine.

Modesty Tests:

When I take my girls shopping, I have found these modesty tests to be helpful in evaluating our clothing choices. They put some fun into the process as well. (See all 8 tests at: http://purefreedom.org/media.htm)  Here are two examples:

• Raise and Praise: As you lift up your hands, if midriff shows, out it goes.

• I See London, I See France: When you bend over, is anything revealed that should stay hidden? (chest area, underwear).

Less is more
     As our culture continues down the road of blatant sensuality, modest clothing may become harder to find. Our family has come to the realization that trips to large national retail chains are usually unprofitable in our quest for modest clothing for our girls. As a result, we have modified our mindset: spending more on higher quality, but buying fewer items. Who needs an entire closet and dresser full of clothing anyway? This mindset doesn't have to break the bank either. A prime example of this would be Land’s End clothing that we purchase at Sears.


The Buck stops with Dad
     Unfortunately, most dads sit on the sidelines in regards to this area. Moms and daughters need to purposefully included dad in the decisions. See him as a coach, not an opponent. Dads will see clothing choices through the “male” perspective. Encourage him to be honest, and be willing to take back certain articles of clothing that set off a red flag in his mind. Speaking from experience, having my dad's input in my clothing choices growing up proved to be a huge blessing. His counsel helped me avoid many pitfalls that I would have unknowingly fallen into.  With these thoughts and perspectives in mind, may shopping for yourself and your daughters be an experience that you can now approach with excitement instead of trepidation.

By Kim Crawford

Modesty: What you Believe is Showing

I am on vacation this week.  Please enjoy this guest posting from a good friend of mine, Kim Crawford. ~Tamara

Just last night, I was sitting in a meeting and overheard some ladies talking about finding summer clothing for their daughters. This piqued my interests since I knew that I would be writing this article on modesty. Maybe you, like them, loathe summer shopping. The shorts keep getting shorter, the shirts smaller and tighter, and the dresses, well lets just say, some of them would fit better if they were used as skirts.

So, how do we teach our girls modesty in a world that is bent on exposure? Can modesty be attractive? The greater question underlying these questions is, “Does God really care what I wear?”  In this two part series, I hope you will walk away with a greater understanding of the heart matters related to modesty and practical ways to encourage modesty in your daughters.

Clothing expresses so much about what we believe. Just ask a teenager to wear something that is not “in style”. We all, young and old, use clothing to fit in, to belong, to be accepted. Since clothing expresses our beliefs, when we are talking about modesty, we must start there.

I Corinthians 6:19, 20 states, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

This verse gets to the heart of modesty. Our world is sending messages every day like: “If you've got it, flaunt it”, “Be free to express yourself”, “It's my body, I'll do with it what I want”. This passage of scripture teaches us that, as Christians, our bodies belong to God. This means that we are not free to dress any way we like. Our dress should honor God. The way we dress should point to the reality of our need for a Savior. I love the way that Mary Kassian explains this in her article, What not to Wear,

“It means that your clothing tells the truth about the gospel. Your clothing shows the world that Jesus covers your shame and makes you decent. Your clothes cover your nakedness as the clothing of Christ covers your sin.” 

Does God care about what I wear? Absolutely! He desires that our clothing be an expression of the reality that we belong to Him. When we realize that we no longer have to worry about belonging or fitting in, we can be truly free to use our clothing in a way that communicates our need for Jesus. He alone can cover the shame of our sin. He alone brings forgiveness, redemption and freedom.

Join us next week when we will talk about practical modesty for both moms and daughters!

A wonderful article on teaching our daughters the discernment needed to avoid sexual predators!  I wish I knew how to "reblog" something all pretty-like, but I will have to look that skill up and learn it soon.  Here is a quote from the article:

"Nevertheless, over the past few months, I kept coming back to this one thought: we need to instill discernment in young girls so that they can more readily identify abusers and predators. This ought to be embedded in our Titus 2 discipleship, our parenting, and our youth group leadership. Now, please hear me out. I am not piling on condemnation for the girls who were involved in this particular case, nor their families. They have my sympathy. But as I read their accounts, I kept thinking about them and many other young women I know who have been tripped up by the same smooth lies. It's the trend I want to address."

http://solofemininity.blogs.com/posts/2011/06/discernment-and-sexual-predators.html

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?

Get A Date

As Christian moms we tend to reject the “me time” culture we see around us.  We are constantly on for our children, in fact, our world revolves around them.  You can be a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, either way you can get caught up in the myth that our children come first.  We put our faith next, hubby third, and ourselves last.

Let us examine what this teaches our children. 

• Children are a blessing or a burden (which one will depend on how your child perceives your attitude towards them).
• Raising children is incredibly time consuming.
• Your children are more important to you than your husband, their dad.
• You are not a separate individual from your children.

The ultimate lesson that your children can walk away with is that intimate relationships like that of a husband and wife are not worth working on, or that they don’t require time and effort to maintain.  Your children might see intimate relationships as equal with more common, or if you will, shallower relationships like those between co-workers.

But there is another lesson your child might learn that probably hasn’t occurred to you yet.  It comes once they observe what happens to your marriage when all your children are grown and moved out.  Without the common bond of raising children, do you and your husband have anything left to talk about?  Do you know each other anymore?  Have you moved into separate worlds?  Has a marriage turned into roommate status, or worse, even fallen apart?

What if you make the commitment to put your marriage first, what lessons does that teach your children?  You make the effort to find a reliable and safe babysitter once a month while you go out on a date with your husband.  You teach your children to wait a moment until your husband finishes his story he was telling you even though it is so much easier to ask your husband to wait (he does have more patience).  If your children were to sneak out of bed (because that never happens) what would they learn if they saw you enjoying a glass of iced-tea on the front porch swing with your husband?

My hope is that in observing my husband and my efforts to strengthen our marriage that my children learn:

·         Intimate relationships take time and effort to maintain.  My children won’t be so quick to buy into the Hollywood myth of emotional love as true love.

·         While my children will know they are the apple of our eye, they won’t think the earth revolves around them and their immediate needs.

·         Raising children takes a lot of time, love, and laughter.

·         They can one day raise children and still be their own person.

Something else amazing…the Bible backs this up. 

“Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children…” Titus 2:4 (husbands come first in this list)

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24  (The man and woman become one, there needs to be a connection and strong bond there)

“A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives.”  1 Corinthians 7:39a

“For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through is wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband.  Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” 1 Corinthians 7:14 (the children are directly effected by the parents’ relationship)

Not to mention all the scripture that cites the husband as the head of the house, or scripture states that a husband’s body or a wife’s body is not their own but belongs to their spouse (not their children).

 

If you have experienced this topic in your own parenting/marriage, would you please leave a comment to share?  I think this is an important topic for moms to know.  Back me up, ladies!

Arranging a Marriage

I have found the perfect future groom for my daughters.

• He doesn’t swear or get drunk (though he isn’t strictly opposed to drinking).
• He is punctual and doesn’t seem to get lost (probably because he doesn’t mind asking for directions).
• He loves children.
• Given how frequently he is invited to weddings I hold out hope that he is a good dancer.
• He has a witty, though dry, sense of humor.
• He has the mind of a philosopher and a body use to hard labor.
• He would be fiercely protective of her with the power to back up his threats.
• He is affectionate, loving, tender, and attentive.
• He will ardently pursue her until he wins her hand.
• He would have absolutely pure motives in his time with her.  He would never ask her to comprise her morals by lying or being immodest.
• He will love her unconditionally, always encouraging her to hold herself to a high standard.
• He is quick to forgive and happy to forget past transgressions.
•  He always has an attentive ear and will adore her as if she is the only person in the world.
• He is happy to assume leadership within the home.  His style of leadership is to never lord it over anyone but to lead by modeling serving others.
• He is a master orator and storyteller.  He has never lost a case when arguing before the Judge.
• He will always have time just for her.
• His looks are average but he has a smile that could light up the world.
• He has a great relationship with his Father, but was not afraid to leave home and make his own way in the world.
• He has a wonderful healing touch.
• He is a wonderful provider.  His fishing skills alone could feed a village.
• He knows his scripture inside and out, and he is not afraid to live by it.
• He will never leave her.  There is no place she could go that would separate her from his love.
• He is most interested in her inner beauty.
• He is an excellent judge of character.
• His Father owns a huge mansion filled with gold and jewels.  He has a bright future in store; his Father has always said that his son will one day rule the world.
• He can read her mind. J
• He is willing to die for her…in fact, he already has.

Do you know this man?  Have you introduced your daughters to him yet?  No earthly man could live up to the standard we women reach for, but Christ can.  I hope my daughters find loving husbands who do their best to model their lives after Jesus’ example.  I hope too that my daughters understand that a man will fail them occasionally.  God never will.

Write the Next Bestselling Youth Fiction

I just finished reading The Hunger Games this week.  And I wanted to let you know that there is a formula to writing these bestselling novels aimed at youth.  Tell you what, I’ll share it with you and if you happen to get rich off it…make sure you donate a lot to charity.

Let’s use the following book series for examples:Harry Potter (HP), Percy Jackson (PJ), Twilight (T), and Hunger Games (HG).  There are three fairly distinct characters and a couple plot lines necessary for this formula.

First you need a main character that is attractive but not beautiful or jaw-droppingly handsome.  That character can’t know that they are attractive to others which results in humorous foot-in-mouth moments when they think someone is insulting them but they are really getting a compliment.  The biggest reason the character has to have less than stellar looks is that they have to invisible enough for the reader to put themselves in the main character’s place.  This main character is witty in their own mind but usually says the right thing out loud only by accident.  They require at least one exaggerated character flaw; Bella (T) is clumsy, Harry (HP) is socially unprepared to live in the wizard world, Percy (PJ) has dyslexia and ADHD, Katniss (HG) is socially clueless and distant.  The main character must have a tragic childhood that inadvertently prepares them to handle the present task, but at the same time they were “born to…” whatever it is that needs solved.  They must also be emotionally tough, prematurely mature, and a bit distant from the people around them.  No one understands what it is like to be them.  They are all unnaturally talented at something: Bella can block with her mind, Harry calls up great Patronus, Percy has a combination of brains and brawn, and Katniss excels at hunting (especially with a bow and arrow).  Lastly, these main characters seem to attract danger like a light attracts moths.

Next, you have the main character’s love interest.  I should say the main character’s main love interest because a love triangle is another necessary component.  This love interest is desired by others (usually because of looks and manners) but only has eyes for the main character: Edward (T) is handsome, rich, a gentleman, etc.; Ginny (HP) is beautiful and loyal;  Annabeth (PJ) is super smart and pretty; Peeta (HG) is strong, good-looking, and a gentleman (start to see the pattern?).  Of course your main character can’t believe it right off the bat.  It takes time for the main character to come around to the idea that they are desirable.  The love interest either trusts the main character or comes to learn that they should because the main character is right so often.  The male love interests are very protective of the main character and the female love interests are generally smart in addition to pretty.  The love interest also has to willingly sacrifice them self for the main character at least once in the story; not that they have to die, but they do go out of their way to put them self in danger to protect the main character.

The last of the three characters is the best friends forever (BFF) with a generous helping of quirky side-kick.  The BFF is funny out loud and extremely loyal to the main character; though they have to have one big fight where you despair that the main character has lost their best ally.  The BFF is not quite as talented as the main character and is therefore more of a shadow that helps out and tries not to get in the way.  Bella has Jacob (oh, love triangle twist).  Harry has Ron.  Percy has Grover.  Katniss has Gale, then Rue, then Peeta (another love triangle twist). 

Two main plot lines that must be present: you can’t trust adults and an environment that can’t or doesn’t exist today.  The only adults that can be trusted in the books are the ones who rely on the main character to save them (and the world) from the present situation: Carlise (T) is really old but not very authoritative, Professor Dumbledore (HP) bends all the rules for Harry, Chiron (PJ) defers to Percy, and Cinna (HG) is a traitor to his own government to help Katniss.  The parents are all dead or incapable of helping their children.

All the books expect Hunger Games, have a supernatural element to them; vampire, werewolves, wizard, trolls, Greek gods, and centaurs.  The Hunger Games does have extreme violence instead of magic to raise it out of the common ordinary every day environment.

Now you can go out and write the next youth novel that will be flying off the shelves!  Just don’t forget to donate to charity. ;)

Twilight Tuesday 3

I have been using the Twilight books as an example, but honestly, these same issues can relate to so many books out there.  Romance is not a topic exclusive to the Twilight series.  We have discussed how romance is portrayed in these books and have talked briefly about why God gave young girls that craving for romance; now what can we, as moms, do with that?  How does that effect our parenting?  What questions can we be asking to draw our daughters into the conversation?

            We can start by reading the same books, occasionally listening to the same music (heavy metal might be hard to take on a regular basis), and basically knowing what other forms of media your daughter is taking in.  I have a hard time keeping up with my eldest’s reading list but I do my best, and I rely on good review websites to help me out.  I really like the TeenLitReview blog and Focus on the Family has some decent reviews on books as well.  Screenit.com is wonderful for a detailed analysis of movies; scary scenes, smoking and drug use, swearing, jump scenes, etc.  The site is not Christian, but my husband and I use it before we go to movies now too. 

            Music gets a bit trickier for our family.  We love a wide variety of music and sometimes it is hard to find reviews of secular music that include the kind of information we would want to know before buying it.  I am stuck with listening to it online if I can find it and then we tend to buy songs individually instead of whole albums.  I would be happy to hear of any resources you have in this area.

            We have software on all our computers to block unwanted websites and it even blocks most ads that we would find inappropriate.  It helps that my husband is a computer guy so there is no way our kids could become proficient at hiding their internet history from us.   Let your kids know the standards you set for yourself, especially if they are the same you would set for them.  Because I have a website I get a fair amount of junk email that makes it through the spam filter.  My daughters know that when I am checking my email I don’t want them looking over my shoulder.  I don’t want to see some of the titles of the emails I get, so I definitely don’t want them to see it either.

            So now that we know what our daughters are consuming from the media, what do we do with that information?  Lock them away!  Ok, that won’t work.  I would suggest finding ways to talk about the books, music, whatever in a way that allows your daughter to share her thoughts and feeling with you.  If you don’t have a relationship with your daughter where you actually talk to each other, that might be a better place to start, but I am going to assume that we all have at least that much.  Your daughter doesn’t have to be an official teen to start these conversations.  The Disney Princesses will give you all the fodder, oops, material you need to discuss romance with a younger girl. 

            What kinds of questions?  I would suggest questions where your daughter can’t answer “yes” or “no.”  You will start to get some great insight into your daughter’s preferred love language that way.

• How is [insert character’s name here] being romanced?  How would you respond if you were being wooed this way?
• If you could put yourself in any relationship in the book, which one would you pick?  Why?
• Is there a beauty who tames the beast in this story?  If so, who is it and how do they tame the beast?  Is this possible in real life? (i.e. a person’s smell can not be realistically described as being addictive unless you are a vampire)
• (For a younger girl)  Do you think [character’s name] feels loved by [prince what’s his name]?  Would you feel loved if you were them?
• (For a younger girl) Which character would you like to be?  Why?

Knowing your daughter’s preferred love language would definitely be helpful.  Not only does it give you the opportunity to demonstrate positive expressions of love that she will be drawn to; but it will also help you to see how she is expressing her love to you.  Perhaps her way of showing love is to give gifts and she makes you all kinds of crafts that litter the house.  Heaven forbid you should ever throw one away!  You now realize you need a plan to accept her gifts in a way that doesn’t make her feel rejected but also keeps your house uncluttered.  Our love languages for giving and receiving can be very different.  It helps to know how to reach your daughter’s heart in order to direct it in paths of discernment.

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.    Song of Solomon 3:5

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.    Song of Solomon 8:4

Twilight Tuesday 2

What is it about the Twilight series that is so intoxicating to girls and women alike?  God made woman, whether young or old, for his own purposes and with qualities to enable those purposes.  As I pointed out in Wooing Wisdom, romance creates a feeling of value in women.   Women, no matter what age, will equate pursuit of our time and attention with a feeling of safety.   Bella is pursued in a “loving” way by so many characters in the books that it would be impossible not to feel wanted, adored, and…safe.  God created us to be the moon to His sun; to reflect a need for relationship.  We need a relationship with God.  There is safety in that relationship.  We can name the craving (romance) but we forget the reason we have the craving in the first place (to lead us to God).

            There are also some great books out there on love languages and how we prefer to be told we are loved, but the fact that we are looking for that love is indisputable.  We know we should be sought after, but we might have forgotten that God was already putting great effort and time (thousands of years) into winning our hearts.  Do our daughters know that Jesus knew exactly what he was getting into when he went to Jerusalem?  ”As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem,” (Luke 9:51).  Jesus knowingly walked into a very painful death for them because he cared so much for their souls. 

            In a world of fast food and texting, God’s love and attention is not…as immediately satisfying.  With billboards, magazine covers, television ads, and internet gossip/news; romance is often confused with the flesh that is plastered all over.  To some of our daughters, romance might mean physical pleasure plus roses or jewelry.  It is a tragedy that we are inundated with images and music so whitewashed with sex and bling that we forget true love and romance.  It is so easy to pick up a bad habit but so hard to break one. 

            God loves our daughters.  He is the Lover of their souls.  God romances them by giving them his time and undivided attention.  I only have three children and this is impossible for me, but God does this for all of us every second of every day. God romances our daughters by giving them gifts; spiritual gifts, talents, ideas, sunsets, hot coco and a good book on a cold rainy day…the list goes on.  If this is a concept new to you, mom, that is okay.  Let your daughter see your delight as you discover all the ways that God is courting you. 

The gift of wisdom, or discernment, in romance is truly the gift that keeps on giving for the rest of our daughters’ lives.    The simple understanding that as women, young or old, we are typically drawn to fiction where characters share deep emotional relationships is a huge deal.  If our daughters can see that craving in themselves and understand why God put it there, perhaps it will make it easier for them to find healthy relationship with people who respect them for all the right reasons.

There are so many scripture passages that remind us to stay away from and even to flee from those people and things that would blind us to the truth of God’s desire to be a part of our lives.  It might not occur to your daughter that just because her boyfriend says he is a Christian that he would be up to the task of romancing her in the way that God intended.  There is a difference in being a Christian and acting like a Christian.  Do our daughters know the difference?

God is relational in nature and women are a reflection of this.  Look at the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10; God desires us to be in relationship with Him, not rushing around doing things in His name.  Men are just not quite the role model here.  God had Jesus interacting with women to demonstrate this principle of strong connection because women were made to reflect this aspect of God.  Your daughters will likely be drawn to fiction that shows strong emotional bonds, whether those are healthy relationships or not. 

As I said, I want my daughters to be exposed to this type of fiction at some point so that we can talk about whether the emotional connections in the stories are healthy or not.  I want them to experience plenty of healthy emotional connections now but at a certain point I want to give them room to experience setting boundaries against unhealthy relationships too.  Assuming we all do our best to expose our daughters to and to model healthy Godly relationships; how can we let our daughters practice setting boundaries with potentially unhealthy relationships?  The answer can be tricky.  How can we do this without putting them in harm’s way?  I don’t believe that dating is the only way for girls to experience this.  What do you think? 

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.      Romans 13:14

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an ever-lasting love; I have drawn you with loving –kindness.”     Jeremiah 31:3

“Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness.  I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.”     Ezekiel 16:8 (grab your Bible and read down through verse 19 for how God romanced His people.)

Twilight Tuesdays

What does the Twilight series have to do with teaching my daughters wisdom?  My daughters have not read this series yet, but I do intend to have them read it or another series like it before they leave the guidance of my home.  I decided to read the series because I was intrigued with how girls and women of any age became addicted to the books.  I met several women who were well into their 40’s who loved the books as much as women in their 20’s and 30’s; not to mention the teen audience the series collected.   What was the big deal?

As I read the books, I could feel myself falling into the same cravings.  So I did what any former English major would do, I analyzed them.  What I would like to start sharing here, on Tuesdays, is my analysis of why we are drawn to the books, what God intended to satisfy these cravings, and how these relate to your daughters.   As the romance of Twilight is often the most common reason given for female interest in the stories, it is a logical place to start.  After all, this series helped kick off the Barnes & Noble section “Teen Paranormal Romance.”

In the Twilight series, Bella is an ordinary girl, with brown hair and a tendency to bump into things and fall (can you say “teenage growth spurt”?).  Bella is a blank slate for the reader to paint their own reflection on. Of course, young girls want to be Bella!  You can be desirable in all these ordinary ways and find out that you aren’t so ordinary after all.  Bella was born to be an eternally beautiful, filthy rich, globe trotting vampire with a husband who is just as obsessed with her as she is with him. 

Bella is romanced by two characters in this series; Edward, the vampire without a bite, and Jacob, the werewolf with quite a bark.  You can’t get much more romantic than a love triangle.  While Edward’s style is more love ‘em and leave ‘em, then come back and stalk ‘em; Jacob’s style is to make Bella feel guilty until she does or says just about anything to make things up to him.  One smothers and the other lights the fire. 

In real life, Bella would have gotten a restraining order against Edward.  He sneaks into her room and watches her sleep.  He spies on her friend’s thoughts, since he can’t read Bella’s mind, in order to find out what she thinks of him.  He wants to buy her expensive cars and pay for her college.  He literally bristles when other boys even think about Bella.  In order to be with Edward, Bella must leave not only her friends but also her family behind, probably never to see them again.  But he is just so sweet when he does it all!  Edward is a Renaissance man; he cooks, he writes beautiful lullabies, he’s concerned with the state of Bella’s soul, he even insists on opening doors and picking up the tab.  All this and he’s been keeping himself for marriage for over a hundred years now.  I’d forgive a little bit of stalking for that.

Jacob never takes no for an answer.  He will fight each battle even when he knows he has already lost the war.  Jacob also offers safety and protection (did I mention Bella falls down a lot?).  He is a “safer” choice because Bella’s father likes him and Bella could stay human if she chooses him, but he is still the volatile biker bad-boy with a heart of gold.  Bella tames the wild beast in Jacob, as much as she melts the heart of Edward.  That is power.

Then there are the boys who don’t even make the headlines who are falling over themselves for a chance at Bella’s heart, including the most popular boy in her class.  Bella plays it cool, never encouraging them, and even gets to have a giggle at the popular boy’s expense when he gets sick in front of her and Jacob.  Tell me you can’t find a girl who wouldn’t love to be the object of so much attention and effort! 

The obsession with Twilight is less about the mythical characters and romantic setting than it is about the safety and comfort that women find in a world like the one found in the books.  Women become addicted to these stories when we crave the feelings and emotions they evoke in us, but then we put the books down and feel the lack of all these same things in our own lives.   It becomes a numbing-agent to live vicariously in a world that is anything but ordinary.  We disappear into the world of fiction in an attempt to fill the void in our soul. 

There will always be room for good stories and romance novels are not the embodiment of evil.  The trick is to fill your own life with meaning and purpose instead of looking for a temporary fix from fiction.  Next Tuesday I would like to look at why God gave women a need for the romance portrayed in this series. 

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?  If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.    Galatians 1:10

So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.    Genesis 29:20

(Other topics in Twilight that we will look at in the coming weeks: beauty, family structures, respect/power relationships, and having a grand purpose or destiny.)

Wooing Wisdom

In the wake of Valentine’s Day I thought it might be appropriate to discuss how romance plays into our daughter’s wisdom.  Romance makes women feel valued.  It’s as simple as that.  When women feel valued, we feel safe. Our daughter wants to be romanced.  Don’t you?  As children or as adults we might have had some negative experiences that jaded us or made us distrustful of being sought after by men.  But in the core of our being, God made us to long for a relationship where we feel loved.  This fulfillment begins at home in our relationships with our daughter and then goes on to include her friendships with those outside of her immediate family.   Eventually, our daughter will include more intimate relationships with boys as part of that fulfillment.

Please step outside of the pop culture sexualized notion of romance and look at the heart of your daughter’s need.  Your daughter needs to have someone believe in her unique value so strongly that they would pursue her time and attention.  An eventual interest in boys is merely your daughter’s natural progression of her search for value and security.  But as parents, we can either create a pattern to seek out our daughter, or we put our daughter into the pattern of having to seek after us.  There is a balance that needs to be struck there; I am sure none of us want to raise a spoiled brat that thinks everyone should be pursuing her while she just laps it up.  But we will set our daughter up for an equally unhealthy relationship if she is always seeking our approval, time, and understanding.  

When parents model a healthy relationship (a balance of pursuing her heart without spoiling her) we are subtly offering her wisdom.  She will learn from this experience without even being aware there was a lesson.  She becomes wise when she can see the difference between the healthy image she has been brought up in and the unhealthy Hollywood image portrayed in movies, books, and music.  She is wise if she sees the benefits of the relationship modeled by her parents contrasted by the negatives of quick enmeshment offered in co-dependent relationships (a staple in “teen” romance).  How we romance our daughter now will influence her future relationships with God, friends, boys, and even us. 

Are you pursuing your daughter’s heart?  What would your daughter say if someone asked her that question?  Does she feel pursued?  It might take some time and effort just to figure out your daughter’s love language, but it will be worth it.  Once you figure out how to reach her heart it will be easier to naturally take opportunities as they come up.  Once your daughter has had a taste of the real thing it will be easier for her to discern when someone in her life seems good, but truly isn’t good. 

My son, if sinful men entice you, do not give in to them.    Proverbs 1:10

The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.           Proverbs 13:14

Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.     Proverbs 13:20