cultural assault

The more I experience life, the more I realize how tightly Satan's fingers are wrapped around our earth, specifically the culture. 

I am passionate about helping women realize the deception we face on a daily basis.  Many of the challenges in our world are the direct result of a skewed society which is like putty in the Enemy's hands.  Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the culture's obsession with feminine beauty as a means of self-worth and as the most valuable asset she can possess. 

Women want to be beautiful; were created to be beautiful.  The entrance of sin did horrendous things to us through the warping of DNA and the aging process to which we are all prone, so not all of us perfectly display the beauty to which we are heirs, but it was God's design and will, nonetheless. 

You may disagree with me, but I have come to believe that the idea of feminine beauty plays a huge role in many of the cultural and spiritual battles we face today.  Relationships have taken a huge hit in this arena.  That is Satan's ultimate goal anyway.  Relationship defines our God -- He exists in relationship (the Trinity); He comes to us in a salvation relationship (Father/child); and He plans our eternity in relationship (Christ is the Bridegroom--the church is the Bride).  In fact, the reason the human family exists in the first place is because our God desired relationship with those who could love Him back.  I firmly believe that Satan delights in destroying relationship more than anything else, for it is close to the heart of God. 

Feminine beauty affects cultural ills that are not only destroying lives but relationships as well. 

Consider this:

Because a man lusts and a woman desires to feel affirmed, they engage in intimacy outside of marriage -- their future relationship with a spouse is damaged.  A child is conceived; it is aborted--a woman faces a lifetime of guilt and all her future relationships are affected; a baby will never get to have the relationship of a mother and father.  When the parents discover the truth, the relationships of the parents and the daughter is traumatized.  And it started because a man thinks the pleasure offered in beauty is a legitmate reason to engage in intimacy and a woman is willing to trade her beauty for affirmation and love.

The insidious parasite of lust has attached itself firmly to our culture.  You cannot walk down the street, visit a mall, dine out in a restaurant or shop for groceries in Walmart without seeing its tentacles entwined in the styles, the advertising, and the manner of others.  It is draining the value of women and the sapping the moral strength of men. 

The culture will never align itself with biblical principles regarding the proper celebration of beauty, but we as Christian women must be aware of what is truth. 

The study book for women title Reflecting Beauty:  Embracing the Creator's Design is my challenge to the deception in the culture.  Writing this book was an awesome experience.  When you discover what God's Word really says about feminine beauty, it is like inhaling a fragrant breeze after escaping a stinking barnyard (sorry, farmers!)  It isn't suffocating or depressing.  It is life-giving and enlightening.

I am also trying to finish up a novel in which the characters come face to face with some current issues along this line with some suspense and romance mixed in as well.  I hope that women will read these books and be empowered to rethink and reject what the culture constantly spews in our faces.  The ideas aren't mine anyway; they are His.  God delights in beauty; but He also wants to protect beauty, and it is never a measure of a woman's worth; it is the way she reflects His majesty.  This is the message that we are to celebrate and model in our lives.  It is exciting!