Hum, this is a little awkward, but this guest post might be a little too … gritty for some of you.
This guest post is by a writer whose blog I have just recently subscribed to. She writes poignantly about whatever she chooses, often dealing with some of the daily plights that females might face.
The post I am providing a link to, today, is called Girl.
Girl reads something like a diary entry, written by a teenage girl. It is specific enough in it’s detail to let the reader understand the heart of this girl, yet leaves enough ‘holes’ where there is an absence of details to make you wonder.
As I read it I thought of the teenage girls I pass in the halls of the high school I work, every. day.
I thought of individual girls … girls who fake confidence … girls who ‘look’ tough … girls whose eyes … don’t … look.
Girls who struggle to fit. anywhere. with anyone.
Girls who were once …
cradled in their mother’s arms
cheered as they took their first steps
wondered at the bean seed they planted
smiled proudly as they were applauded at Christmas concerts
giggled with their girlfriends while swinging higher on the playground
What happened?
What is happening?
To our girls.
I say this as a mom who delights in the whimsical, beautiful, confusing, frustrating, magical, wonder-filled packages of hormone-filled females that my daughters are.
I say this as woman who works in a high school, and I see girls who are losing … have lost, all that they were created for.
I say this as a Christian woman, who knows that my breaking, broken heart for this beautiful creatures is breaking and broken like their Creator.
They were created for
SO MUCH MORE!
So, some of you might not want to click on the link I have provided today.
It might be too gritty.
It might be too upsetting.
But, I believe, it is the social justice issue that never gets mentioned, has always existed, and is within the power of all of us living in the First World to improve, impact, and maybe even … change.
“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power,
revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day,
and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere.
So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-4
In 1 John 4:7 we are told, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” Then, later in 1 Corinthians 13 we are told it is “is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (v. 4-7).
It would appear that if we are to love like God loves, we need to do so with the mind and actions of Christ in all that we do … otherwise, Christ, and all that He brings to the table is omitted.
Everywhere we go today we are faced with two words. They are ‘trendy’ words. They are ‘in’ words. But they are not always accompanied by the love of Christ. They are … social justice.
Social justice is an attempt within a society to address issues such as world poverty, clean water, sickness, human trafficking, homelessness, the environment, and oppression around the world. It is a valid, and valiant desire to fulfill the Golden Rule (“do for others what you would want done for you” aka Luke 6:31).
Our North American society is gaga over social justice. The phrase “first world problems” (complaints made by only those of us who live in the privileged 10-15% of the world) has replaced the phrase “out of the box thinking” of just a few years ago. The Occupy movement that littered many cities with everything from human refuse to biodegradable coffee cups, preached an end to the injustice of economic inequality.
Politicians pull out Social Justice issues to win over voters and elections. Teachers integrate into our curriculum teaching of the need to give and to do for those who are not as fortunate as those of us in the ‘first world’. Preachers preach of our need to love our neighbor … in another country, another continent.
“… but if we don’t have love …”
Back in December, I wrote in my post, A God Thing, about the apathy of my homeroom class in choosing one of the prescribed causes to support. The overwhelming response was, “I can easily donate _____ to one of the causes, but it really does not have any real meaning for me.”
I wonder if what these teenage students were really saying, “I can give, but I don’t have love … heck, I do not even know who I am giving to.”
I believe strongly in social justice, I donate to causes and organizations that are the hands and feet of my moula (as well as of Christ), but I have to admit that, like those teens in my homeroom, I have become so satiated with the message of social justice that it is losing any real meaning for me.
Social justice has become so trendy, so … loveless.
What if, rather than try to save those living on the streets of Tijuana, we help our neighbor who is struggling under financial burdens that might make that family homeless?
What if, rather than try to get kids out of prostitution in Thailand, we work towards building up the young girls in our neighborhoods, our schools, our churches, so that they are not tempted into
What if, rather than helping the sick, the lame, the disabled in a third world country, we got to know the senior citizen who lives alone, or the single mom whose son is Autistic, or the gentleman in the wheelchair who you see whenever you go to the swimming pool?
What if …
we showed love …
to those most near to us?
Could there be a more ‘just’ action to do as a society?
Then maybe helping those under oppression, without basic needs, and without hope around the world would have more meaning to us?
Hum, this is a little awkward, but this guest post might be a little too … gritty for some of you.
itsawonderfilledlife 