Grace full mama

Have you ever had an argument with a fourteen year old girl who may or may not be struggling with entitlement, and found yourself wanting to shake her till her teeth rattle? Yeah me neither, don’t know what brought that to my mind… weird!

It seems to me that entitlement is a raging epidemic in our culture. Amongst adults, and especially amongst teens. A trip to the mall will tell you that our enemy is trying to push girls to grow up young, in all the wrong ways. There is a strong push to look like a bombshell when your body is barely developed. I have heard girls in their early teens talk about the plastic surgeries that they want. The belief that their worth is tied in with looking a specific way leads them to a desperate kind of entitlement. A lot of parents feel obligated to give way to that entitlement, “enhancing their daughter’s self worth,” getting their daughters eyelashes, spray tans, expensive dye jobs, you name it. But I truly believe that when we give into that we are making the deeper problem worse. That perfect tan, lashes, or body isn’t going to enhance their self esteem. It is going to convince them that their self worth is entirely tied up in their ability to attract a man with their appearance, and is going to lead to much worse self esteem down the road. It is an attack on the heart, on the core of our girls. And on the surface it looks like entitlement.

It is just another form of the attack on our gender identity! (There is 100% an attack on both gender identities led by the enemy right now, but at the moment I am focusing on the attack on women) How are these girls going to feel when they are pregnant? When there is no way to make their swelling body fit into those tiny clothes? When they don’t look the way they have believed they need to look in order to have any worth? That is what is supposed to be beautiful! A woman with child is the culmination of female beauty. It is such a beautiful privilege, partnering with God to bring life into this world. More and more women in the world are choosing not to have kids. Is it for fear of losing their career? Or is it fear that they won’t reach the standard of what they have believed is beautiful anymore?

The last time I heard the words “inner beauty,” it was derogatory. It was an insinuation that if a girl can’t be “truly” beautiful, at least she has inner beauty. My goodness. What a crock. What a clever scheme of a brutal enemy. If he can get us to focus all of our energy and attention on the frame, we won’t give any attention to the picture inside it. If he can make us so self conscious that we are selfish, he has destroyed family. There is no family without a woman who sees the pinnacle of her beauty as her motherhood. In one fell swoop, this wrong focus wipes out the beauty of womanhood, the growth of love, and everything that makes our gender truly beautiful.

Therefore, “Come out from among unbelievers and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch filthy things, and I will welcome you. 2 Corinthians 6:17

I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. John 17:14-16

The canyon between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light is becoming ever more obvious. How do we teach our girls to be in the world, but not of it? At a time when their self esteem is so very delicate and impressionable, how do we as mamas impress on them a sense of self esteem rooted not in their appearance, but in their position in the kingdom of heaven. How do we teach them that redeemed is the most beautiful adornment of all? How do we teach them to be gentle and beautiful in spirit in a world filled with siren calls and attacks on our femininity, our genders, our very hearts? I would say, homeschool them! Move to the boonies! Take them out of the world! But because of circumstances with my ex husband, I can’t homeschool. I can’t protect her in that way. I need to appeal to her heart. I have to do this the hard way. God is not wringing his hands feeling like this is an impossible situation.

Just in case you are in a similar situation, I will share with you what God is showing me about how to shepherd my daughter’s hearts as they grow up in this corrupt world.

1. Pray without ceasing, Mama. Pray for her when you lay down, when you get up, when she is away from you, and when she is with you. Pray for protection. Pray warfare prayers. Pray to break down the principalities and powers of darkness that are assigned to your daughter. Pray for her friends. We have been given authority in heaven and on earth in the name of Jesus. So make sure there is no place she could ever go, that your prayers have not already been.
2. Spend time. A lot of it. Be like Jesus and make sure she knows she can come to you with anything. Listen, and never condemn. You have been forgiven, so forgive her. Let her know that your mouth will speak wisely, but more importantly, let her know there is nothing she could ever do that would make you love her less. Teach her about redemption. It is Jesus, not our own good deeds, that leave us dressed in radiant white. Show her how beautiful that is.
3. Model for her beautiful femininity. Take care of yourself. Dress beautifully and modestly, and work on your own self worth. Odds are some part of it is tainted by the world just like hers. You need to make it your business to see yourself the way Jesus does, or how are you going to teach her to?
4. Help her spend time with the body of Christ. She can go from there out into the world and see the contrast. She will not feel like the one last iceberg left over from winter, bobbing down a spring river if she knows that there are others committed to living for Jesus just like her. Church, youth group… make these things a priority on your calendar.
5. This one is most important. Listen to Holy Spirit. Listen to him about what she needs to hear, and what you need to pray. So often the behaviour we see (entitlement in this case) is not what is actually going on under the surface for our kids (a demonic attack on female identity and self worth). Ask Holy Spirit for insight and wisdom so that you go directly for the root instead of the behaviour.