Phil Vischer – of Veggie Tales and What’s in the Bible – discusses the meaning of Easter.
Almost every weekday morning I have a heavy heart.
Why?
Because I drive to the bus stop and witness a sight that just make me want to cry.
Children dressed shamefully immodest.
{I have another term in mind but that wouldn’t be fair to the CHILDREN}
This morning it was 40 degrees out. What did I see?
I saw an 8th grader dressed in a bright red micro mini.
NOT a mini skirt.
A micro mini.
When she walked by I could see where her stockings changed material. If she could not walk and retain a degree of modesty, please tell me how she is going to manage to get through a school day without showing something that she shouldn’t?
I saw a 5th grader wearing short shorts.
By short I mean the length did not extend but maybe ( maybe?? ) an inch on her leg.
This is not out of the ordinary at our bus stop. The shockingly reveling clothes on a variety of these young girls {CHILDREN} is nearly a daily occurrence.
When I see all this I become so sad. Sad that such beautiful daughters of God have no idea who they are. Sad that they think by wearing this they will be more popular, more date-able, more “in”. Sad that they are so easily swayed to risk so much for such unimportant things. Sad that their parents seem to be more afraid of offending the children than they are of offending God.
I would love to be bold enough to go to their parents and beg them to be more assertive, more stern, more diligent more LOVING in helping to set and keep standards.
It is devastating to me that the parents let their children own these types of clothes – much less let them out of the house wearing them.
My anger in this matter is directed toward two sources:
Parents
I blame the mothers because women are making majority of the purchasing decisions. They are buying high-heeled shoes, provocative underwear and sexy clothing that is either too revealing or covered with slogans that are sexist or have sexual innuendos Are mothers trying to relive some kind of youthful fantasy through their little girls? Do they really want them objectified and defined in this sort of manner? Have mothers lost all sense of protectiveness and common sense?
The fathers I blame even more. A man has a God-given responsibility to protect his children. Out of all of the girls at the bus stop there are three who are the worst offenders. Two of the three I KNOW have fathers in the home. The man is the head of his household and ultimately the responsibility falls on his shoulders. Men know how other males react to visual stimuli… do they REALLY want their little girls looked at in a lustful way by their young male peers? Is it an ego boost for their daughter to look ‘hot’? I simply cannot fathom a father not taking a stand on this.
A duty that even a marginally adequate parent can perform is to love and protect their CHILDREN.
Our daughters are precious –
their virtue, innocence, and reputation should be guarded, treasured, and protected.
It is the parent’s responsibility to teach their daughters that their self worth comes not from the attention they receive from flaunting their bodies. From a Christian perspective it should be that our daughters are a valuable child of God and that their appearance should reflect such.
Matthew Henry wrote, “The purity of the heart will show itself in the modesty of the dress, which becomes women professing godliness.”
Being modest doesn’t mean you need to wear a bursa , or dress frumpy or look like you just stepped off the Mayflower !
Girls can still be well-dressed, fashionable, and look stunning
without damaging their modesty.
Immodesty in our little girls is the first step of a much larger plot, devised by Satan, and unwittingly carried out by lenient parents to soften them up for a much larger world of immorality.
If our dear daughters loose the ability to blush, they are primed for a whole new level of sin in their lives.
The School System
When I was in school girls pushed boundaries…. Big gaudy make up …. Big gaudy hair….chewing gum in class… {gasp}
But, clothing? Not so much. If you pushed the dress code very far you could expect an embarrassing stay in the principles office while waiting for your parents to either take you home or bring a change of clothing.
It would seem that like many other rules, a dress code is now simply lip service that looks good on paper.
Even the ‘military academy’ high school that my eldest daughter attended didn’t enforce the rules.
If the schools fail to correct an offender, does that automatically imply that they condone?
It certainly does.
How disappointing…. especially since we have two girls that we are forced to entrust to this school and are influenced by their complete lack of standards.
I am not comfortable with having an 8 and 13 old seeing this – much less seeing it being CONDONED by an entity that they are supposed to view as an authority.
What kind of message does the school allowing clothing – like micro mini’s – send? Earlier this week they allowed a girl from the bus stop ( who’s perhaps around 8 ) to wear a strapless halter dress which she had to keep her hand on to keep it from falling down.
Why? Is the school worried about offending parents by expecting rules enforced? Are they worried that each day they enforce , that they’ll lose too many of their students ? Or do they just not care?
So, if parents wont protect their daughters and the public school system wont protect our children…. Who will?
In time for Easter or as a nice supplement for Bible studies!
This is a lovely and well put together set of short videos about the life of Jesus.
While it is from the LDS church (we are definitely NOT LDS) it is based off of the KJV of the Bible.
It’s pretty much word for word without any sweeping conjunctions from producers ~ my biggest pet peeve when it comes to Bible based movies!
This is six year old Adam from Ghana!
We are so excited to begin sponsoring him through World Vision!
This is something that’s been on my heart to do for a long time and I’m thrilled for us to have a way to help someone and have the children involved.
What we’ve done is divide up the sponsorship fund by the number of people old enough to commit to seeing it through. So, James and I, Violet, Gretchen, and Duel will each have to contribute $7.40 a month to cover our share. The children will accomplish this by doing extra chores for money. So the benefit is twofold, while they’re doing things that help us as a family they’ll also be spending time and energy to improve the life of this little boy!
I so want the children to understand that life elsewhere is NOT like life here. I want them to gain some sort of understanding of just how priviledged they are. Using this venue will allow them to develop a relationship (through letters and sending packages) and feel a sense of responsibility towards improving some one’s life in a tangible way. We hope that it will start the seed of a servants heart and encourage them in caring for others.
Let all that you do be done in love.
(1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV)
If you are determined to have the world and the things of the world, its pleasures and its rewards, its follies and its sins; if you must have your own way, and cannot give up anything for Christ and your soul; if this be your case, there is but one end before you.
I fairly warn you, I plainly tell you, you will sooner or later come to the unquenchable fire of hell.
But if anyone is willing to be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ stands ready to save them. “Come unto Me,” He says, “weary soul, and I will give you rest. Come, guilty and sinful soul, and I will give you free pardon. Come, lost and ruined soul, and I will give you eternal life. Come and be freely saved.”
~ J.C. Ryle
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No matter how much you may exhort, plead, explain, punish, and beseech you cannot turn anyone’s head one iota when ALL they long for is the glitz and false freedom of the ‘world’.
All of the ‘been there, done that’ advice and the desire to save them pain from foolish mistakes falls on deaf ears when there is not even a crack in their shell of ‘love of self’.
All one can do is pray that when life hits them hard … and it will eventually….it will crack the shell rather then cause them to reinforce it further. Perhaps even a small crack will cause some spiritual hunger that will change their value system….the uphill battle to fully adopt the values of Jesus rather then the cheap humanistic values that are ingrained in us.