Tag Archives: Passport to Purity

He is the Father to the Fatherless by Michelle D. Howe

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I love singing.  I especially love singing worship music.  This past Sunday, our choir did a whole service of worship songs and I am always so moved by the Spirit.  Between the music and the testimonies, I can’t help but cry.  Recently, my friend gave me a signed copy of Casting Crowns new CD, Come to the Well.

Since iPods and MP3 players came out, I don’t tend to buy the hard CD cases anymore.  I usually just purchases them on iTunes, therefore I don’t read all the words or the thank yous in the cover sheets.  But, something inside of me grabbed this CD case and took out the cover and began to listen in my car.  Song after song I enjoyed reading the words (at stop lights of course) and reading the background on each song along with the bible verses.

Wake Up Call!!

The one song that just got me, I mean really went straight to my heart was the song “Just Another Birthday.”  Mark Hall and his wife of Casting Crowns are youth pastors at their church and they wrote this song to the hundreds of girls they have seen come through their student ministry over the years.  He says, “this song is a wake-up call to fathers to love their daughters and a message of hope to orphans, spiritual and physical, that God is the Father to the fatherless.”

The song was incredible on its own but it took on a whole new life when I watched in on YouTube.  Watch for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-Tu6NQ4L01w&feature=endscreen

Lately, it seems as though this is the case for so many girls and it breaks my heart.  Between my friends, church family and my daughters friends, I just see to many young girls without their Daddies around and in some cases their Mommies too.  I am thankful for my Dad that was around and present in my life when I was growing up.  I know this relationship shaped me into the woman I am today.  I tell my husband often how important his role as our girls Daddy is to them.  They base their self-worth and their future husband on their experience with him.

If Not Daddy, Then Who?

Recently, Aubrey and I did the passport to purity weekend.  During the weekend, I asked her to describe her future husband.  Well, she pretty much described her Daddy.  So what does a girl do that doesn’t have a Dad in her life or another positive male role model.

Who does she base her future husband on?

Who decides her self-worth?

Who comforts her in the dark?

Who tells her I am proud of you?

As the song mentions, the girl goes looking for love somewhere else.  Something else to fill those needs.  Something else to tell her she is special and loved.  Not the way God designed it to be for sure.

My Prayer

My girls are 10 and 12 right now.  They are becoming more and more independent but I know that this is no time to be away from home to long.  Their characters are beginning built and their little hearts are taking in everything that is going on around them.

My hope is that my girls will know how God feels about them, see them and loves them by the way their Daddy treats them, not how the world does. I pray for all the girls that don’t have an active relationships with their fathers or a healthy one to discover the Father to the Fatherless.  I pray for healthy men in churches to get involved in youth ministry so to be an example to these young girls.

Ultimately, Fathers will not be perfect, they will fail, they will be say the wrong thing but God does not and never will.  The One that will never leave us or forsake us is our Heavenly Father.  Let’s all start learning more about what He says about His daugthers then go and share with a young girl in your life.  Might sound something like this, “Did you know that God says you are worth more than gold!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz5lVjzJkjI  Love me some Britt Nicole “Gold”

What is your experience with your Dad?  How did it shape you?

Please comment then share!!  Thanks, Michelle :-)

The Week That Rocked My World – Good, Bad and the Ugly by Michelle D. Howe

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So today has started out much like last week.  My Mondays are filled with finishing up laundry, catching up with the maintenance of the house and planning my week ahead.  Except last week rocked my world.

We had just launched off our first leadership event as Everyday Lifeline and my first book as a published author.  It was a big weekend and my emotions were full for the week ahead.   On Tuesday, it was about 3:00pm and I had just got off the phone with my friend and coach, Melissa.  Then, I began reading through the surveys from the leadership event.

As I was reading them, my home phone rang, “Hello, Dad?” “Your Mom has been in an accident and was hit by dump truck. I’m heading to the hospital.”  WHAT??

Not sure what you would have been thinking but my thoughts were filled with horror.  I calmly told my daughter to get dressed that we were heading to the hospital.  On the way, I just kept speaking out loud, “Lord help her, please Jesus let her be ok, please help her be ok.”

I actually arrived before the ambulance and was able to see her come out.  I said, “Mom are you ok.” She said, “yes I’m ok but in some pain.” Now I will let you know by the grace of God, the airbags in their Lexus and some mighty angels my mom’s life was spared. She was at church yesterday and was moving very slow and gingerly.

So I would say that was the “bad” and yet gratiful part of my week.  The good and the ugly was still yet to come.

I had been planning for about a month to take my oldest daughter to a girls weekend to go through the program “Passport to Purity” by Focus on the Family.  We had been anticipating it for about a month and this was the weekend to make it happen – just a few days before her 12 birthday.

We had a fantastic time of discovery, laughter, yummy fondue and relaxing beach time just the two of us.  So fun and truly the ”good” part of my week.

As we were traveling home, I decided to take the long way home so we could get through all the CD material.  As we were approaching the last part of the CD, I was driving over a bridge that reminded me of an “ugly” moment in my life.  I felt moved to turn left into this area and park my car.  As the CD finished, I shared with my daughter about the significance of this place – the place I was date raped.

Details were not needed just an understanding that the choices she was making on this day to stay pure and not to date until we think she is mature enough to handle those situations was very precious.  Her commitment was true and right there in that same place that broke me to pieces was now the same place that my daughter signed her commitment.  This was not my intention yet the Lord lead me there.

WOW!!  Only God could take me back to a place I haven’t been for 24 years and create something new from something that was so painful.  Isn’t that just what God does – takes the broken pieces of our lives and make something beautiful and glorifying to Him.  Praise You Father!

So all I can say is what a week.  In a matter of a week, My mom who could have been severely broken and hurt was beautifully restored and so was I.  :-)

I continue to be amazed at how personal God is with me and my family.  There are so many more glimpses of God from last week and I just thank Him daily for being so real, so intimate and so loving in my life.  I really am filled to brim, overflowing with Him!!!

I really need nothing in this world – not fame, not acknowledge, not alcolades.  JUST JESUS!!!

I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times.  I, the Lord, am the one who does these things. Isaiah 45:7

Michelle :-)   1Cor 6:19

Has the Lord recently restored a broken place in your life?  Would love to hear and celebrate with you God’s goodness.  Please comment above.

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SEX is NOT a Toy – Neither are My Kids! Jenny Price

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We talk a lot about the S-word at our house.

We teach our kids that God blessed them with their SEXUALITY.

We talk about how God made each of us unique, male and female.  We keep our talk appropriate and respectful. 

We don’t hide things from our kids about their growing bodies. We don’t have made up names for our sexual parts.  We don’t give nicknames to elbows and toes.   We call ALL the parts what they are.

We have done this with our kids since they were even too small to understand that we were “teaching” them anything.

Our kids ask us questions about their changing bodies.  They feel safe.  I imagine they still have questions they don’t ask, but they know that NO question is off limits.

Having been sexually abused at age 13, I have a fear that pops up pretty strong on behalf of my kids.  This fear does not grip me, but it does bring me an awareness of my need to do all I can to protect them – knowing in my heart that only God can hold them that closely.

I don’t want anyone, ANYONE! or anything, ANYTHING! to harm my kids sexually.  I don’t want them to be sexually abused, exposed to pornography, or to hear and see all the sexual crap that is out there.  If I could, I would wrap them up in a box and protect them from all harm -emotional, spiritual, and sexual.  But, I can’t.

But I can…

Teach my boys to keep “saving their marriage” by reminding them to dodge their eyes at the countless over-sexed commercials there are out there.  They are so good at this and I am so proud of them.  YES, we could just NOT have a TV, but we aren’t going that route at this point.  I commend families that do this, but – everyone else my kids hang out with has TVs, and I am pretty sure there are TVs when they go off to college.

Teach my girls to protect their purity by challenging them about what they wear, how they wear it, what attention they seek from boys, what attitude they present to others about their body and by telling them that this will be a challenge the rest of their lives.

Protect my whole family (including ME) from the sexual attacks of our culture by placing protections on computers and cell phones that we use; by editing my fitness magazines – tearing out several pages per issue; and by setting locks on our TVs so they don’t even have to read the titles on Cinemax and other dumb channels.

Share with them my story of sexual abuse as a 13 year old girl, and pray they can learn from my pain.  I can also share with them (when it is appropriate, and maybe even in bits and pieces) about the difference in how their daddy protected his purity before marriage, and how their mommy really struggled with this a lot more.

Do more than tell them to “look out for strangers” – more often, it’s not the strangers that hurt our kids sexually; it’s people we know…coaches, neighbors, family friends, family members.  I want my kids to trust people, but I also want them to trust their instincts.  I want them to know they have a voice and that NO always means NO!

Discuss openly possible scenarios with them BEFORE they go into a situation that is not familiar.  Just recently, Kylie, then age 12, did a 4 month series with a local Theatre group. Before even going  the first time we talked about “things” – “Kylie, if one of the teachers wants to tutor you alone in a room with a closed door, is that okay?”  “Kylie, if another girl takes you to the bathroom and wants to “explore” things, what is your plan?”

Keep the dialogue open and keep asking THEM questions.  I sometimes ask my big kids at bedtime – “Is there anything going on that you need to talk about?”  “Is there anything going on with your friends, or at school, or church that you are concerned about?”  “Is there anything going on with your body that you have questions about?”  Sometimes, it’s nothing, but sometimes, the discussion is so needed.

Be there with my affection and my attention and my grace. I want to be the one my daughters talk to about when they start shaving (especially those difficult “places”). When they start using those “products” I want to support them through that confusion, and those toilsome emotions.  I want to be the one my boys tell, “Look, I have armpit hair!”  or (younger ages) “Why does my part look different from hers?”  My kids need me to navigate these waters WITH them, and for the times we all mess up, I pray HIS grace shows up in me.

SEX IS NOT A TOY – NEITHER ARE MY KIDS! 

 NEITHER ARE YOURS! 

Support your kids by keeping the S-word out on the table and teach them they have a voice.

Two amazing resources our family has used are God’s Design for Sex Series and Passport to Purity (a weekend experience with your preteen that walk them through -one on one).