innocence, beauty & strength.

-rhianna “S&M”

Feels so good being bad (Oh oh oh oh oh) 

There's no way I'm turning back (Oh oh oh oh oh) 

Now the pain is my pleasure cause nothing could measure (Oh oh oh oh oh) 

Love is great, love is fine (Oh oh oh oh oh) 

Out the box, outta line (Oh oh oh oh oh) 

The affliction of the feeling leaves me wanting more (Oh oh oh oh oh) 

Cause I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it 

Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it 

Sticks and stones may break my bones 

But chains and whips excite me 

i have so much i want to say, but have no idea where to begin. all i know is that my heart is burdened. i heard rhianna's "s&m" song last night, and although i have heard it several times before, it makes me angry and extremely sad every time it comes on. it is easy to become desensitized to things in the media, but i absolutely refuse to become desensitized to anything that condones the very things my Savior had to die for. 


there is no doubt that there is an attack on purity, for women in particular, in our culture. look at the lyrics above, one of the top songs right now. Satan has led our culture to believe that purity and innocence is stuffy and prudish, not beautiful and attractive. instead, he has us believing that the rebellious women are the attractive ones. and it's the song lyrics we listen or sing along to, the movies we watch, and the magazines we read that not only glorify rebellion and the loss of innocence, but desensitize us to the fact that rebellion is the reason why Jesus had to atone us for our sins...rebellion is why Jesus went to the cross and suffered. 


this has been on my heart for awhile, and i ended up finding this article last night on "fighting for innocence."  i loved how it cleared up the misconceptions between being naive and being innocent. to be naive means to have never had any temptations or opportunities to sin. to be innocent means to have had all the opportunities, but to have remained strong and to have stood firm against the temptations. therefore, to be innocent certainly isn't to be naive. innocence is something that must be fought for. to be innocent is to be strong. 


why must we fight for innocence? because the loss of innocence is why everything is so messed up. it's why little girls and women are enslaved in the sex trafficking industry. it's why men are addicted to pornography. it's why the divorce rate is the highest it's ever been. it's why the shorts in the stores are getting shorter and shorter every summer. it's why Abercrombie Kids is selling padded, push-up bikini tops to little girls. and we just accept all of this... 


we have to fight for innocence so we can fight for our little sisters, daughters, nieces, and friends. we also have to fight for innocence because we are the Bride and Jesus will return for a pure Bride. to care about my innocence is to care about my sisters' in Christ innocence if we are one Bride. we need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (romans 12:1-2) to what is truly beautiful and attractive in a woman. 

Darkness mars the spectacular beauty of light. It turns white swans into messed-up, crippled, ugly ducklings. No woman is as dazzlingly attractive as the one who turns her back on darkness and passionately embraces the light. -Mary Kassian