Hopeful Hearts Ministry

‘Chris Brown can beat me anytime’… Is just one comment taken from an article posted by Matt Stopera, where 25 teens commented on the media hype about Chris Brown appearing on the Grammy’s after having made media headlines a few years before for brutally beating his famous girlfriend Rhianna. ‘Chris Brown can punch me in the face as long as he kisses it.’  These comments continue in pretty much the same fashion. Beautiful girls posting the fact they would give up all dignity and respect just to be with a famous singer.

A friend of mine forwarded the article and it made me very sad and angry.   As my friend stated, “They might as well substitute ‘take advantage of’ and ‘rape’ for ‘beat’ and ‘punch’, because they are all stating the same thing.”  When I received this email I had just been informed I was going to speak at a Christian high school in the Delta area.  I knew this was a great lead in to the message I felt called to share – preserving your dignity.

To me the young women in the article were shouting,  ‘DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO ME, I DON’T MATTER!’  I quickly put together a presentation including statistics of teen violence and sexual abuse.  Did you know that 1 in 4 teens report verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse?  And that 1 in 5 high school girls has been physically or sexually abused by a dating partner?  The statistics continue and are maddening.  Even more so because I was one of them.  🙁

I allowed this to lead me into my personal testimony and how in many ways I put my dignity and self-respect aside in hopes of attracting ‘THE’ guy that would fill my need to be accepted, loved, desired and happy.  The audience was a mixture of young men and women and I could see the boys getting antsy in their seats.  I then shared with them one of my favorite quotes:

“It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman.”  Pope John Paul II

Dignity.  I’ve been saying it a lot.  I made sure everyone knew what it meant.  Bearing conduct or speech indicative of self-respect.  Nobility or elevation of character; worthiness.

Chivalry isn’t dead!  Young men want to feel empowered and in control and the natural way God gave them this instinct is through the natural course of chivalry – being a gentleman – protecting the woman.  Except in society today young women send conflicting messages.  They push back.  It’s a tragedy of errors really.  They want to feel empowered and in control so they are more assertive yet the way they go about getting attention is by lowering their standards, saying and texting things and wearing things that society has made as the acceptable way to get a man’s attention (they are competing with technology – computer images).

I encouraged the men to be MEN and offer respect and dignity to a young woman even IF she wasn’t doing it for herself.  EVEN IF.  Toward the end of the presentation I shared the letter that I have featured on this website ON HIS PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE (located on the main page under BLOG – ARTICLES, at the end).  And in the end I encouraged them to TALK.  Talk to a friend, counselor, teacher, youth minister, parent, etc.  But TALK about what they are going through.

When it was all said and done I had a few young women come and ‘talk’…and one young man that said he knew someone who needed to hear my story and wanted to know how he could share it with her.  To know he listened and had the courage to come up to me was one of the greatest gifts I’ve received.

This was the kick off to my time in the Mississippi Delta.  I began with an intense head cold.  That morning I felt I was speaking in a tunnel and knew that I still had a book signing that evening and the women’s retreat to lead the next day.  But these responses were confirmation to me as well.  The sickness would not hold me back.  😉

God gave me a chance to laugh just before I went into the book signing that evening.  I happened to come upon this shop as we were driving through downtown Greenwood, MS: