I’m not reading Fifty Shades of Grey.
I wasn’t planning to announce this, but I can’t help myself. I told my husband, Bob, that I didn’t really want to get involved. But then, I found out my girlfriend’s 70-year-old mom has her name on a long wait list at the library to borrow Fifty Shades of Grey. And then my mom told me that a relative I love and respect for her strong faith had already devoured the book. She regretfully “can’t get the images out of her head.” So, here I am. In an attempt to keep the images out of yours, I’d like to explain to you why I’m not reading Fifty Shades of Grey.
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Dannah Uncategorized
God is stirring my heart. Wrecking it really. With the picture of this sweet pregnant teenager.
She was playing a game of “Let’s Make A Deal” at one of our Pure Freedom events for moms and teen daughters this March. She was one of three pregnant girls who attended that evening. During another event this past fall, a fourteen-year-old girl went into labor at intermission. Forget going home after school to a mom when you’re going home after school to be a mom. It makes me wonder, how many girls in those audiences weren’t carrying babies at the event…because they had recently been to an abortion clinic? It makes me mindful of how many of them are sexually active and creating hurt in their hearts because of it. I am thankful to be here to walk them through it.
Another recent heart-breaking event had to do with a new smart phone app called TOP GIRL. It introduces girls as young as twelve to a world too mature for them. For example, a girl’s online top girl character can be denied access to virtual bars if she isn’t dressed hot enough at which point she’s sent back to her virtual closet of fishnet stockings and stilettos to try again. Since we consider ourselves watchdogs for tween girls, we sent out a Secret Keeper Girl product alert. One mom responded by checking up on her daughter and commented on the Facebook page:
“Just found this on my ten-year-old daughter’s itouch…yikes!!! Thanks for the heads up! She says it was stupid and didn’t play it, I hope she is telling the truth.” Read more…
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“Have you slept with this man?”
That was one of many national headlines this week. And Tim Tebow’s face was next to the question.
There’s a bounty on him: $1 million for any woman who can provide undeniable proof that she’s had sex with football’s symbol of integrity. No, I’m not making this up. The Twitterati have been abuzz about it all week. Set by a website that matches partners looking to have adulterous affairs—think eHarmony but minus the harmony—it’s really nothing but a cheap publicity stunt. (You won’t find the name of the site here, that’s for sure.) However, it does illuminate the fact that there are those who are just waiting for Tim Tebow to be proven a hypocrite. They wait like vultures, hoping to feast on the decaying carcass of one man’s morality. Case in point: New England Patriot’s tight end jokingly offered to do the job himself. His vulgar offer—seen below—was made in front of an audience of college students, which is what makes it so despicable.
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Dannah Uncategorized Abstinence, Bounty on Tim Tebow, Dannah Gresh, Football & Sex, Intergrity, Tim Tebow, Tim Tebow bounty
WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT.
Last week, an ad featuring Jennifer Love Hewitt ran in several publications. The Hollywood Reporter ran an untouched version of the ad. Entertainment Weekly treated her to a digital breast reduction. (You can see the photos side by side later in this article.) If their goal was to make her look more modest, they didn’t. Her cup size may have shrunk to a size B, but they treated her black—is it a spaghetti strap nightie—to some shrinking as well.
No, Entertainment Weekly did not arrive at modesty, but I do think they had a final destination. Whether they did it intentionally or not, they fed into a trend that alarms me as I keep my pulse on the beauty standards of Western culture: a titillating fascination with the teenage body. From advertisements that illuminate a Catholic school girl fetish to college girl’s budgeting for regular Brazillian waxes, I see women doing almost anything to look younger. Most saddening, is that little girls do almost anything to look older.
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Dannah Uncategorized Dannah Gresh, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Love-Hewitt Breast Reduction, Retouched Photos, True Beauty
Eleven Secret Service agents and 10 military personnel are under investigation for having as many as 20 sex workers in hotel rooms before President Obama’s arrival in Colombia. It’s alleged that this isn’t unusual conduct for some members of the Secret Service whose private travel motto is “Wheels Up; Rings Off.” Read between the lines and ache at the complete absence of integrity in the officials whose spines are supposed to be strong as steel so they can sacrifice themselves for our political leader. Apparently, their character is not so solid.
As news of this Secret Service sex scandal breaks, my daughter’s bags are packed to go fight sex-trafficking in India. The village where she will be working initiates girls into prostitution on their twelfth birthday. This has been most sobering to me. As a result, the picture I’m getting of this breaking sex scandal might be different from yours. It’s all right and good that we should consider if the actions of these—do I have to use the word “men”—were a risk to our President. But what about the twenty women? And were they even women at all?
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Dannah Uncategorized Human trafficking, Integrity, Secret Service Scandal, Truckers Against Trafficking, Under-age Prostitution
I remember being a junior in college and being single (my guy and I were “taking a break”). It seemed to me like every girl on the planet got a ring during that season of loneliness. No way around it: waiting hurts! You can lean into the pain in a bad way, focusing on your loneliness. Or you can lean into it in a good way, focusing on your love relationship with God. I chose to do the second one and even had a motto:
Jesus is Enough
God is Sovereign
It was my goal not to get married until I actually believed that. You know when I knew that I believed it? When I started genuinely celebrating after hearing the details of yet another romantic proposal!
Taken from Dannah’s book, What Are You Waiting For?: The One Thing No One Ever Tells You About Sex
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One recent issue of Glamour magazine dubbed single women who prefer freedom over family as “freemales.” Cameron Diaz was touted as a role model for all women. She was quoted, “I love being by myself and I’m really good at it.”
Now, the church would never say that we’ve bought into a feminist perspective, but our lives tell a different story. In 1987, 80 percent of Christians felt that the roles of being a wife and a mom were valuable and important to teach to young women. In 2007, only 52 percent felt this way, with 47 percent stating that the roles of marriage and motherhood should not be emphasized to young women today. Christian women may not have burned their bras in the 1960s, but something much more precious and symbolic was burned up within us during the feminist movement: the desire to be wives and moms.
God says, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4, NKJV). I believe that God created woman to be in fellowship with man, primarily through marriage. Yes, the apostle Paul was right in saying that it is good not to marry so that you can be free to serve God. But God said it is best to be in an honorable one-man/one-woman marriage. Genesis 2:18 reads, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”
Want to pursue God’s best? Open your heart to the gift of marriage, and let Him make the call.
Excerpted from Dannah’s book, What Are You Waiting For? The One Thing No One Ever Tells You About Sex
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Posted by Jacqueline Gardner, Team Teacher
I’m not allowed to watch romantic comedies.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s not much I enjoy more than curling up with a container of cookie dough and my fav chick flick, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (which is ironic since I’d be far more interested in learning what it takes to keep a guy around…).
Thing is, as much as I love them, they’re just not worth the tradeoff: two hours of gushy entertainment for a night of wrestling against lust simply because my reality can’t compete with my fantasy.
Think it’s all in my head? You’d be right, since the brain’s deep limbic system is the primary sex organ. Believe it or not, viewing romantic media content affects your brain. Dannah’s research for one of her books led her to discover a biological component in exposure to romantic film content. Read more…
Dannah Uncategorized
We’ve been back from our trip to MI and OH for the Pure Freedom teen events for about a week now and we can’t stop talking about it!
For one thing, the laughter. Put four women in a van late at night and tell them to drive a few hours and hilarity is sure to ensue! We even compiled a “Blonde List” of all of the zany things that our sleep-deprived brains thought were intelligent before they came out of our mouths.
And let’s not forget the awesome volunteers! We were so blessed by so many wonderful people who gave of their time to serve us and help us serve. We literally could not have done these events without their help!
The best part, though, was watching moms and daughters pray together and cry together; their hearts connecting Read more…
Dannah Uncategorized
This contest is now closed. Congratulations to Melissa, Meghan, Anna, Macy, and Julie for each winning a copy of What Are You Waiting For! Even though the contest is over, I still want to know what you think! Leave your comments below.
Lips aside, I’m nose deep in a book deadline and if I don’t have your help, I may drown in my own thoughts. I’m going a bit antsy over something potentially controversial, and I need your stories and convictions. Don’t worry if you don’t have time. I’ll probably just miss my deadline, throwing me into a fit of untimely stress. (Feel guilty?) Oh, by the way, I’m going to send free copies of What Are You Waiting For: The One Thing No One Ever Told You About Sex to five randomly selected commentors. (Feel motivated?) OK. Here’s what I need to know. Ready? Drum roll please. (And do remember, I’m not sure what I think about this yet, that’s why I’m asking.)
Is it ever OK for a girl to ask a guy to kiss her? Before you answer, let me show you some scandalous stuff I’m finding in the Bible about girls who asked for kisses.
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