Letter to My Daughters

Dear Daughters,

I bet you didn't know that I was praying for you when I went into the Mobil station to pay for our gas that Friday night.  You stayed in the car with your friends and I could see your laughing faces through the windshield as I walked in.  

I prayed with thankfulness that you still like to spend weekends with me.  I praised God that you have friends who would think it fun to attend a college symphony concert and friends who think it fun to play in one.  

We stopped for gas before we left the campus, and I prayed protection over you as you sat and waited for me in a dark car on a dark night in the city. 

There was a group of girls ahead of me in line. Students.  Someone's daughters.  Smart.  Confident.  Stylish.  And so beautiful.  They were polished and fragrant--living sculptures with their smooth skin and perfect nails and loose curls. 

And I wanted to cry. 

Because out of their mouths tumbled hard words-- ugly, hungry, desperate things.  They were brazen in their quest, naming names, setting up strategies for how and where and with whom they would end up that night.  Their eyes and their voices matched hard for hard, and I wondered at their lack of shame.  No whispers here.  No lowered eyes or blushes.  

And as if to provide a soundtrack for the moment, some little pop starlet came over the radio with this bit of encouragement,  "Yeah it's pretty clear, I ain't no size two. But I can shake it, shake it like I'm supposed to do. 'Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase.  All the right junk in all the right places."

And let's just say the song went downhill from there.


Funny how thoughts take so much less time than words.  I stood there for maybe five minutes, and it was time enough to imagine those girls as they might have been when they were nine--back when they still had enthusiastic brightness in their eyes and innocence in their smiles.  Back when they still had a sense of wonder.  

And I pondered the path they took that brought them here, still beautiful girls, but with no modest allure and no mysteries left to uncover.  Did they even know they were nakedly exposing themselves to me and everyone else in the gas station--body and soul hung out like cheap cuts of meat in an open market?  Did they even care?

What would their nine year old selves think of such a display?  

And then I thought is this the "progress" we women have settled for?  Is this sort of bawdy display now the pinnacle of female empowerment?  

Because it looked like prostitution, except worse since these little girls were just giving it away for nothing.  Not only to their casual hook-up partners, but to everyone who wants to eat them up with lustful eyes and foul thoughts as they slink and wiggle and bounce their pretty selves down the street.  

I prayed for you, Daughters, because if this is five minutes in a gas station, what is it for you on your college campus every day?   How can you stand against the parade of prurience that vomits out of radios and television screens, Kindle ads, movie theaters, magazines, and the faces of smart phones all over the city?  Or that which comes out of the mouths of brazen strangers in front of you at the gas station or in Walmart?
    
From the time you are old enough to care about how you look, there are teen magazines in every doctor's office and grocery store lane urging you to trade in your brain for a tube of lipstick and a pack of birth control pills.  

They are written by fork-tongued shrews who say that allowing your body to be romped on and then traded in somehow makes you powerful and deserving of respect.   

This is the same "forward thinking" crowd who wrings their hands over glass ceilings and oppressive male patriarchy and the dearth of females pursuing traditionally male roles and careers, then has the gall to turn around and pedal a smorgasbord of glossy teen magazines to impressionable little girls--magazines featuring starving models and pop stars who, incidentally, look like my Barbie collection AFTER my brother worked them over with safety scissors and a Sharpie.

So where in all of this confusion, is the "girl power" these sweet babies are supposed to be wielding?  How are they ever supposed to navigate this morass of mixed messages?

I am not a feminist, but I'm embarrassed for the ones that have to go to work every day and churn out the kind of cultural sewage that has pretty much destroyed an entire generation of sweet-faced youngsters.    

Take a peek at the offerings for our teen girls.  Here's "Teen Vogue" magazine.  Here's "Seventeen" magazine  Here's "Girls Life" magazine.  Here's a popular advice site for teen girls.

That doesn't even scratch the surface of the world's obsession with the surface.  Check out the top books and television shows marketed to teens.  Check out the music. ( I was going to provide links, but I don't want to give these sites more traffic than they already have.  Contact me if you want them.)

Good news, Ladies!   Maybe you didn't know this, but all you are required to know for success in life is what shade of eye shadow the stars are wearing and how to kiss a boy and what you "must have" in your college dorm room according to some Hollywood mogul's semi-famous freshman daughter Chloe.  

Really?

Is this what little girls are made of?  

What virtue is there in knowing what shoes to wear with which handbag?

How do kissing tips help a person develop strength and character?

If a girl is supposed to consume her thoughts with how to get the guy, and then learn sexy tricks for keeping the guy, and then figure out how to know if the guy is cheating, and then develop a strident narrative about how she doesn't need a man to complete her, what time is there for pursuing wisdom and truth and knowledge?  

Is this the pinnacle of achievement for young women these days?  Getting and keeping a guy?

Where are the big ideas?  History?  Philosophy?  Theology?

 Political discussions are there, but mainly limited to the womb--"women's issues" they call it (as if a walking uterus is all we are).  

The take home message is this:  "You empty-headed ninnies!  You vapid, human clothes-hangers!  Look!  We are selling shiny, slinky things that cost too much, look terrible on real people, and go out of style before they leave the runway.  Buy them or be pathetic.  

"And also you have full permission to sleep around indiscriminately and kill your babies--as long as you remember to look fashionable while you're doing it!

"But by gum, Girly!  If you have any leanings toward traditional marriage or motherhood, you'd best get yourself in line, lest you set back the grim and grisly progress of feminism. "

*******

My friend had a dream one night.  She was standing in a public bathroom stall.  It was small.

Tight.  And every inch of it was covered with oozing layers of human waste--the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the seat, the door--and she didn't even know where to put her hand to escape from the horror.  

She thought it was maybe her brain painting a picture for her of how we have to live for a little while here, and I think she was right.

It is just about the best description I have heard, and it captures the feeling of panic I get sometimes over realizing there how pervasive the lies have become...

...and yet I need to remember that the image bearers are not the enemy.  Those girls at the gas station are trapped in the bathroom stall too.  The trick is to help them see it.

Somewhere beneath the brassy exterior and the raised fist and the celebration of debasement, every wayward person bears the glory of the fingerprint of God.  

Sometime, either by accident or by choice, they have bought the lie that the way to freedom lies in servitude to sin.  

...That death can be a pathway to life.  

...That human pride and the cold, lonely worship of self is better than intimacy with the Divine.  

...That a lifetime spent stumbling from pain to hopelessness and back can compare to having a share in the perfect wholeness and healing that comes from surrender to a loving God.

...That fleeting nights spent in selfish arms of strangers could ever fill a heart like the tender embrace of the One who made us and pursues us with a perfect, pure passion.  

 I guess that is what I wish I could have said to those little girls, so I am saying it now.

Precious Ones, I don't know how one, old mama can hope to speak loud enough to be heard over the strident and seductive culture you are living in, but I am pleading with you.  Don't buy the lie.  

Remember the infinite price that was paid for you.  Your worth is far above rubies and it is not too much to expect to be treated as such by any young man who turns your head.  

Pray for your future husband.  He is possibly being hunted right now by roving packs of modern females of the wounded and desperate variety.  Pray for his protection and for yours.   Treat other men the way you would want him to be treated.  Wait for him, as you would want him to be waiting for you. 

Guard your eyes and ears.  The entire culture is screaming at you to live a life of compromise.  That will never stop.  Friends, Romans, and Countrymen will stand at your door calling evil good and good evil.  It is not a matter of hiding in the hills.  You are called to live in this time and place, so you will hear it.  You will see it.

But you don't have to invite destructive thinking into your heart.  You don't have to build it a nest.  You can engage it with the word of God, evaluate it with a discerning mind, discuss it with wise companions, sift it, weigh it, and then show evil the door.  

But remember you are also made of flesh, and it is only when you acknowledge your inherent weakness that you will seek out the Divine strength you need to overcome temptations, so keep grounded in the Word and on your knees. 


I've spoken long, and I am aware that sheer numbers of words do not have the power to change a human heart, so I will just leave mine here to be used or not used as God sees fit. 

If there is one thing that being a mother has taught me, it is that I am not as competent or powerful or wise as I thought I was.  It has been humbling, and has left me with white hairs on my head, white knees on my jeans, and white knuckles on the dashboard of life as I brace for whatever is coming around the bend.  

Whatever comes, I want you to know that as long as I live, I will be praying for you as I did that night--acknowledging that your lives are always in the hands of God even in the dark in the city.

Pleading with Him to turn your young hearts to His truth and light more each day.

And trusting in His ability to complete that which He has begun in you in His perfect timing and tenderness.

I love you,
Mom

The Silver Lining of Pain

I had a migraine yesterday.  And the day before that.  And two days before that.  It is just something that happens every spring and fall as high and low pressure systems flirt and scurry across the weather map.  

Or maybe it is various and sundry allergens waking up to throw a party over the change of seasons. 

Whatever the cause, my head responds with fireworks.  Some headaches I can work around.  Some fold me into bed.  All of them change me from a "high-functioning, productive, clear-headed individual" to a darker, older version of Luna Lovegood, drifting about in my own personal fog. 

So yesterday, as often happens in the midst of a serious headache, I caught myself fixating on a small scene of no significance.  It happened to be a bright yellow leaf beside my patio, caught in a patch of deep, green grass. 

In that moment, that little leaf was the most captivating wonder in the world.  It blazed in impossible brightness, shining in gold and green brilliance at the end of a long tunnel of pain, and I was mesmerized.  

Stupefied. 

Captivated by every tiny vein and every shining blade.  
Tiny trails left by a passing insect intersected like sliver threads on the surface of the leaf.  Its lacy edges lay in sharp relief against the startling verdure of late-growing grass, and I could not look away.  

I don't know how long I stood there.  I can't tell you what I had been doing before that or what I had hoped to do afterward.  (Time expands and collapses in strange ways when my head misfires.)  All I know is that the leaf suddenly assumed great importance and I was compelled to stand in awe of it for as long as it willed.  

And it willed me to wait until my wonder turned to worship of a God who is so lavish with beauty that it almost seems careless and wasteful.  

Who but me even noticed that a fragile masterpiece had fallen on the lawn?  

How many other works of art lay in the woods and fields around with no eyes there to see them and no mouth able to praise them to their Maker?  

How many days go by when I allow my good health and efficiency to blind me to a universe of such small wonders?

So what is the point?  We can't walk around and stare at rocks and trees and clouds all day.  (Some people tried that in the sixties and I believe most of those folks either burned out, died, or shook it off and went on became cynical and jaded college professors.)

Fine. You're right.  It is impossible to do the good work with which we've been entrusted and not overlook SOME of the marvels that surround us.

But if you are lucky, it will only be for a season, and one day you will find yourself caught by old age or infimity, and suddenly you will focus. 

And see.

The very young and the very old--and the very sick--are masters of the fine art of appreciation, and for this reason, I think their praise must hold a special place in God's heart, for they are the only ones who offer up the proper degree of admiration for bird feathers and seed pods and hot buttered toast.  

They hold an appropriate reverence for the ordinary, and see the astonishing vastness of small things.  

I remember my Grammi in her nineties sitting bundled up on my porch on a blue-sky day.  Her body and her mind held her in her chair, but little-man Jude was standing on chubby legs by her side, and they were laughing, their heads thrown back as Grammi pointed out shapes in the clouds. 

Later on, they watched squirrels do circles on the black walnut trunk and ate pretzels. 

"Oh!  So good," she would say with every bite, "I love the crunch!" And Jude would mimic her enthusiasm.  

Their work was the business of appreciation.  

It was all Grammi could do anymore, and it was all Jude had yet learned how to do, so together they were a perfect symphony of praise--their hearts so fully engaged in the task that they forgot to notice their lack of "productivity" and "usefulness".

Thank God.  

Those relentless engines are the idols of our age, to the point where we have prominent public figures pontificating about (and urging us to consider?) "Why I Hope to Die at 75".  

It is poverty in the name of progress.  

Emptiness in the name of enlightenment.

We have exchanged the beauty of diversity--of age, of ability, of interests, of giftings, of stage of life--for the gray tedium of sameness.


In other words, "Give me drone-like efficiency or give me death!"

Now, I do not love migraines.  I would probably choose to never have another one if I could, but I do not regret the acute stillness that comes alongside acute pain because it hones my perceptions into a single, sharp, focused point of clarity--and holds me there until worship finds me.

I do not regret the gratitude that springs up in me the morning after a pain-drenched day.

I do not regret the stripping of my pride over thinking I could push on, persevere, or pull myself up in my own strength.

I do not regret the seeds of empathy which have been sown in me.

I do not regret the longing for heaven which waxes stronger in me with every passing day.

More good than evil has come of this "curse".  Jamey says the same of his chronic arthritis pain.  

So if, by the time we are 75, we are required to shuffle off the planet with a pill and a pat on the head, I will weep, but not for myself.  

I will mourn for the pervasive poverty of spirit which cannot see that even in the shards of a sin-scarred world, good gifts remain.

And in them, and through them, the Good Giver keeps reaching out--because redemption has the last word, and beauty will rise.  

In the rare air of suffering, the promise endures.

Although we often see it in peeks and snatches  here, it will be born one day in fullness, in perfection.  

Bless the pain that gives us eyes to see it here. 

Bless the Sacrifice that will enable us to see it fully one day.

In Glory!

**********

2 Corinthians 4:7-18

   But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so

that the surpassing greatness of the power will be

of God and not from ourselves;  

We are afflicted  in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of  Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 

So death works in us, but life in you.

But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE 

I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also 

speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus 

will raise us also with Jesus and will present us 

with you.  

For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. 

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our

outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being 

renewed day by day. 

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.