THAT lady

True Confession time:

I'm that lady.

The one who stands in line at the grocery store and places copies of Better Homes and Gardens and Cooking Lite over Glamour, Cosmo, Health, and Redbook.

I'm not anti-glamorous, anti-health, or anti-cosmopolitan (whatever that might mean). I'm not even discounting the fact that those magazines actually contain helpful and interesting information that I am interested in reading as well. I don't oppose anyone who wants to buy one or all of them. I don't.

But I AM anti-half-naked. And I have a wide-eyed little boy in my cart whose eyes (in a very short amount of time here) are going to become, um, even wider (in more ways than one, might I add). Is this how I want him to see women?

Maybe someday I'll have a little girl in my cart. Is this how I want her to see herself? Enslaved to impossible standards of beauty and success? Our culture calls it liberation. But can we call it bondage?

They pick these things up at an early age. My friends who are kindergarten teachers already see little boys become riveted, transfixed, and stupefied by mothers who come to help the class with their bosoms pouring out of their shirt. Talks about modesty and respect have to happen sooner rather than later.

Already I whisper in Levi's ear when we approach a Victoria's Secret at the mall - with it's floor-to-ceiling advertisement for a push-up bra - Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart, son. He doesn't know what I'm talking about, I know that. But soon he will. Soon he will start feeling the undertow of a culture that vomits sexuality all over his face, and an industry that hopes to claim him - and make him a lifelong addict - by the age of 8.

Some days I want to weep when I see that I'm at the downstream end of Class 5 rapids, feeling like I need to paddle UP with a blow-up ring and a spoon, clutching the hand of my child. See dignity and worth in girls, my sweet boy. Daughter, clothe yourself with strength and dignity, not deceitful charm. Point it out to me when I do not walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which I have been called! Do not buy the lie that how you look, how you dress, how-to-catch-a-man...those are what you strive for.

This weekend is the Superbowl, and please bear this in mind: the largest sporting event of the year is also the largest sex-trafficking event of the year. No, not prostitutes who are "choosing" this lifestyle (and please don't think that most prostitutes choose their lifestyle, by the way, many of them are coerced, bullied, and abused into it), but most of them minors who are sold into sexual slavery and trafficked over our borders. Where there is a demand, it will be met.

It starts with a look.

And gives way to curiosity.

And leaves us stuffing our faces with the fruit of bondage. Yet wanting more.

Desire when it has conceived...

....gives birth to sin....

...which fully grown brings forth death.

And THAT is why I am "that" lady.