Wednesday, May 1, 2019

How to Have "The Talk" With Your Kids

Moment of truth: I asked my teenage son to help me write this. He’s an almost-sixteen-year-old, who is willing to give me input about initiating the "sex talk." I kind-of-most-definitely want to hear what he has to say. I wanted to know what he feels we've succeeded in and inevitably, what he feels we've failed at over the years. I asked him because, truth be told, it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly how to initiate this conversation with kids.
My entire parenting life has always been about bearing through things together, as a unit. And thus, that has created this ebb and flow of good, healthy conversations about sex and relationships over the years. (Admittedly, there has definitely been a fair amount of backpedaling upon the realization that we may have needed to use more discretion as well, so don't go thinking we accomplished this amazing feat without a hitch!)
The entire context of Sexuality Mentality is that Biblical sexual integrity be integrated into a person's frame of mind. . . . into a family's frame of mind. . . .that it becomes part of a Christian person's mentality and mindset. If there's one thing I know, it's this: the sex talk isn't one conversation. It's a lifetime of dialogue that rinses and repeats, ebbs and flows, throughout every experience our children face in this world. It continues to come up and remains a constant companion, no matter the age. Why? Because we have a relational God who has created us to be relational people. We are required, above all else, to be in relationship with the people around us. More than anything else, we need to nurture this in our children's lives because this is the foundation on which every. single human interaction will be based. Most especially, our intimate relationships.

Key Points to Help you Initiate Conversations with Your Kids

So, instead of giving a step-by-step about having the sex talk, I wanted to share with you these key points that will help you initiate the many conversations with your kids throughout all the years of their lives.
  • Teach them God's value of all human life from conception to natural death. Let them see you living that respect and loving others unconditionally. “We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:19–21)
  • Start at the beginning and build upon it. If there's one thing I’ve learned serving in pregnancy center ministries, it's that we should never, ever assume that our kids know basic anatomy. Even if they have been taught it once in health class, they need constant reminders about how it all works. From there, it's natural to talk about how our bodies relate to one another: not just physically, but also mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. The natural progression after that point is to get your kids asking the question, “Where does God fit into my relationships? Into my life?” It is mind-blowing when they realize that it all comes full circle as God, through His Son, Jesus, is the very center of it all; every interaction.
  • Be straight with them. It's not the conversations they're dreading! It’s the (very well-intended) "moments" that make us all cringe. We have to move past the stereotype that this has to be a special conversation and acknowledge it for what it is: a part of everyday life. If they don't hear from you, who will they hear it from? What version will they get? Which leads me to my very last point. . . .
  • Be the standard. Be the ones to show the kids in your life who God created them to be and how He created them to live in relationship with others. "What does it look like to care for something of value?" Think about this! This phrase alone will set you on a solid course toward God's truth about sex, dating, marriage, and relationships; a Biblical sexuality mentality.
  • Buckle up! There is no one talk. The world is not going to give our kids one talk. The world is constantly talking, non-stop. Therefore, we need to as well. It's not like the world is coming out and saying, "You should have sex before you’re married," or "Casual sex is the way to your best life now," etc. . . . the message is incorporated in the culture that's being created around us. Christian families need to create a counter-culture that stands parallel and superior. A culture that speaks and manifests the value of each human life, the value of marriage, the value of faith, and one that values God as the Creator of it all, and the Savior of it all, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Never doubt the incredible value that God has placed on every one of our lives, yours included! You are loved. Hear of this love and the value God has placed on us, HIS children, and then take it, and teach it to your children. He says this about you: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, your walls are continually before me.” (Isaiah 49:15–16)

Learn more about fostering a healthy sexuality mentality in your kids with Heather's book

Monday, April 8, 2019

Unplanned: A Reflection From The Other Side


“Abortion is not normal.”
—Abby Johnson, Former Planned Parenthood Director
Before she became an ally of the pro-life movement, Abby Johnson was the embodiment of my opposition. Abby was the director of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, and I was the director of Christian crisis pregnancy centers. I had seen this rhetoric unfold from the other side of the fence, as my staff and I came alongside the women who left abortion clinics like Abby’s and ended up at our beautiful red door broken, hurting, and confused after being sold a deception that was supposed to give them freedom, command, and control over their lives. You could say that Abby and I were two sides of the very same coin.

Learning about the Abortion Industry

I first heard about Abby Johnson when her story began buzzing through the pro-life communitythe story of an abortion worker gone rogue. I wanted to know more. I wanted to be a fly on whatever wall was going to give me the real scoop on the abortion industry and this woman’s life from the other side. The entire narrative was awe-inspiring and yet so unbelievable at the same time. God certainly does work in mysterious and miraculous ways.
Part of me couldn’t fathom what a day in her life must have actually been like—working as a dedicated abortion center director, truly convinced that she was making a difference for the advancement of women’s reproductive rights. The other part of me wanted to get inside her head—see the things she’d seen, know the people she’s known—so I could calculate this movement in its entirety. I’ve always been someone who has to rewind a situation—go back to the beginning and piece a problem back together before I could move forward with any kind of solution.
How did we get to the place where one in four American women felt that an abortion was their only option?
And how in the world did abortion and hormonal birth control become accepted as “routine women’s reproductive health” in the first place?
Was it me? Were there aspects to this whole movement that I was refusing to see? Had I been so sheltered in my Christian upbringing that ignorance and naivety had warped my perception on the science behind and the value of every human life? You can understand why I wanted to know more about Abby’s experiences. I needed the full scope in order to resolve some inner conflicts that still lingered within the convictions of my mind. And I wondered if it wasn’t similar convictions that had kept Abby up at night as well.

Understanding the Reality of Abortion

In 2012, within a year of Abby’s story and book coming out, we held a fundraiser event benefitting the work being done at our pregnancy center. It was a preview for our community of the original 60-minute Unplanned documentary that we showed in a high school auditorium. We were thrilled that around thirty people attended. Thirty people heard the truth about abortion and thirty people were now empowered to go out and share that truth and the love of Christ with a hurting world!
Fast forward to present day, April 2, 2019. Although many of my questions have been answered and much of my ignorance about the abortion industry has fallen away, leaving instead a graduated insight and understanding, I have to say that this tremendous burden for those who haven’t seen the destruction of this sin like I have weighs heavily on me.
The stories highlighted in Unplanned are the stories of our fellow community members, church members, family members, and friends who have suffered (often silently) with the aftermath of abortion. Real girl, boys, women, and men that we know and are in relationship with. Abortion is hurting us, right now. In real time.
A casual sex culture has distracted us from the intrinsic respect for the whole person, body and soul, and instead has fixed our eyes on the lust of the body alone. When we do not comprehend the value that every human life has, first and foremost, we literally, unarguably, cannot value anything else in this world or beyond.
That reality is what has brought us to the place where we feel hopeless in the midst of an unplanned pregnancy, worthless and willing to exploit ourselves sexually, weakened and often defeated by sexual abuse, and able to compromise the emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health of women and men in order to explain away that which the physical body wants. We are willing to follow the progression of the abortion timeline that has justified that end by means of catering to women’s “reproductive rights” in order to control sex and make it our god. Serving It, all the while never realizing that it will absolutely never serve you back.
Abortion is not normal. The one true God and Creator of all things, including sex, never intended this for us.

Teaching My Daughters

It is for these reasons that I felt it was incredibly important, crucial actually, that as a mother, I come alongside my daughters as we watched the lies of an evil world unfold before our eyes through Abby’s testimony in Unplanned. I wanted my girls, from the safety of my own arms, to see the lies of a casual sex culture directly held up against the truth of God’s Word and HIS true intentions for sex, marriage, and the value of absolutely every human life.
Were there parts of the movie that were hard to watch? Yes. It’s an incredibly accurate portrayal of many painful experiences that have been entrusted to me by the women I’ve served in post-abortive ministry over the years. Does that diminish the urgency to teach our children well? No way. The culture is constantly bombarding us with beautiful and glamorous images of casual sex propaganda. The consequences of that are not pretty, however. Almost never are the public and particularly our youth privy to the real-life stories that Abby Johnson and I are all too familiar with.
While I chose to take my daughters with me to watch the movie, that may not be for everyone. I get that and respect it. Know your kids and their maturity level before you purchase them a seat beside you. Whatever you decide personally, we can all take the opportunity to open up conversations with our children and the youth in our lives to share Abby’s story with them in age-appropriate and consistently ongoing ways.

Knowing the Value of a Human Life

Generations of people are just now finding out, for the first time ever, what Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry has been up to for all these years: casual sex propaganda and abortions on demand. It has, for the better part of fifty years, led us to the place where we as a culture view abortion as part of everyday normal life.
There is nothing normal about taking the life of a unique and living human being.
There is nothing normal about telling young women that it’s no big deal. There is nothing normal about our young women being indoctrinated that their lives and the lives of their children are no more valuable than a rubber ball in the grocery store line: fun to play with . . . until they’re not anymore.
To the awe of many, Unplanned smashed through the glass ceiling of expectation in its first week. It opened in only 1,060 theaters but took number four at the box office, generating $6.4 million dollars! Unplanned received an A+ rating from CinemaScore, a prized achievement in terms of audience reception, and another six hundred screens have been added for the second week of the movie’s showing.
I think it’s safe to say that many, many more than thirty people will now have the opportunity to be a fly on that wall. To see what Abby saw and know what Abby knows. Thousands of us will now finally understand why women have bought into the lies of abortion and sought refuge within the walls of Planned Parenthood. These things did not happen of their own doing. Young people and minorities have been the target of this industry for decades to the point where we often cannot discern the truth from the lies anymore.
That is why Unplanned is irreplaceable and highly recommendable. It exposes the lies and points us right back to the great gifts of God given freely through the blood of HIS SON, a baby born to us: Jesus Christ, the Lord of Life.

Check out my book, Sexuality Mentality, for more writing on culture, youth, and sex.