Parenting on PURPOSE

The recent story about the news anchor getting an email referring to her weight kind of pushed me over the edge.  I struggle with judgmental thoughts, and sometimes they get the best of me, but what makes someone think they have the right to say that to another person?

Has bullying in schools become so bad because PARENTS say the same type of things in front of their children, thereby making it okay?  What happened to TEACHING KINDNESS & COMPASSION!?!?!?!  

I wrote the above prior to doing my weekly Bible study.  Once a week I sit with some of the physically prettiest ladies God put on His earth, and do you know what we do?  We study the Bible & use Beth Moore's book "So Long Insecurity" and we are weeding our lives of insecurity because God didn't make us that way.  He did not make us weak and frail, He made us like this..."She is clothed with strength and dignity: she can laugh at the days to come." -Proverbs 31:25  For some reason however, each of us has been beat up by a world that is not our home and now we have the scars of insecurity to prove it.  Lord knows I have struggled with insecurity most, if not all of, my life.  As I was doing my Bible study tonight it kind of all fell together.  Maybe bullying is so bad because we are living in a world that makes us hate ourselves.  What happens when you hate yourself?  It's a heck of a lot easier to lash out at others.  Maybe we pick at or point out in them what we hate in ourselves.  Maybe we judge them on what makes us feel insecure.  Whatever the reason, it's like putting a band-aid on a sucking belly wound. 

I have caught myself more times than I'd like to admit saying something nasty about someone, or thinking something mean, or judging the motives of someone all I guess in an effort to make myself feel better.  I let myself get away with that crap for a long time.  It took having the eyes of a little girl looking straight up at me to teach her the world for me to realize that I needed some serious help. Okay, that's not really true.  I knew I needed help, it took having Ella for me to get help.  I don't think I'm alone....I think there are a whole lot of us that need help.  Our poor kids need help, their parents need help, our teachers need help, our sad & lonely world needs help.

Here is what has helped me morph into a significantly more secure person in week 8 of this 10 week study than I was week 1.  First, even though I came by a lot of my insecurities honestly, they don't define who I am.  God does.  Secondly, He didn't make me to be insecure.  He clothed me with strength and dignity.  Rest assured, He did the same for you.  Lastly, is the one He has been popping me on the head with for several weeks now, and the one I know our children need to understand, He made each of us in HIS image.
If you are still reading this, maybe you felt like me.  Maybe you have moments in the car where you are really nasty to another driver, or you see someone in public and criticize them (in your head, I know we are much to nice and Southern to say that to someone's face), I sure know I do that sometimes.  Now, God has been calling me out to remind myself that that person who I am thinking so lowly of.....THAT person was made in God's image.  That is the message I want to teach my daughter.  The girl at school that the other kids are calling fat....yep, made in His image. The one they call a slut...made in His image. The boy at school who "acts gay".....made in His image.  The lady sitting next to you at the restaurant who is overweight....still in His image.  The old man driving oh so slowly in front of you.....made in His image. 

"No matter how our beliefs may differ, you were created in the image of God and therefore possess a dignity that deserves my respect."  - Beth Moore (& now Beth Courter)

I hope those words touch your heart like they touched mine.  I want to teach my daughter this.  I want her to live this.  I want to live this.  I wonder what our schools and our world would look like if we all tried this for a week, a month, a year.  I know she is looking at me.....I don't have a choice.  I have to parent with a purpose, because she is my purpose.  God is my purpose.