think about such things

For the longest time, I told myself that my intuition was wrong.

I didn’t realize I was doing it.

I grew up being exposed to a lot of things I probably should’ve never been exposed to.  At a VERY young age, my dad would let me watch movies and shows that I loved, but that were not uplifting to a young female heart.  Looking back, he should’ve tried to protect me from those things instead of squeezing in a way to get me to watch them with him when my mom wasn’t home.

Even more than the content of the movies, I watched how my dad responded to them.  When I would want to flinch or look away or leave at certain parts, I would notice that he wouldn’t even bat an eye.  So I sat strongly and forced my way through things.  If he didn’t think it was a big deal, why should I?

That continued on through most of my life.  I sat mindlessly through movies with naked women and vile torture scenes.  I listened to hip-hop songs with the most vulgar of lyrics.  I sat and remained part of conversations that consisted of men talking about parts of the female body and the women they had been with.  And I always told myself, “This is not a big deal.  This is not a big deal.”  I remember seeing one movie that affected me horribly and days later, I still cried over it.  Even then, I told myself that I am just a woman—overemotional and far too sensitive for my own good.

The first time I remember actually listening to myself was when I saw the movie “The Last House on the Left” in theaters.  I thought it was going to be a regular ol’ horror movie until it showed a graphic scene of a girl being raped.  I remember sitting there and thinking, “This is not happening.  This can't be happening.”  And the theater began to spin around me and I felt sick and nauseous and like I wanted to die.  And I tried—I really did—to talk myself into staying.  But I couldn’t.  I just couldn’t.

I ran out of that movie theater and drove around for an hour afterwards and sobbed—SOBBED like somehow I knew the girl in that movie.  But at the same time, I knew that what I did was for the best.  I would not give that movie one more second of my time, one more moment to spread its sickness inside of my heart.

That was the first time I walked away.

October of 2009 was when it all finally clicked.  I was in a state that—from what I felt—was close to an emotional breakdown.  I couldn’t pinpoint why.  Until one afternoon, I sat in a park with my mom because I needed her help to figure out why I was so lost.  And it all hit me—the conversations, the movies, the men I was spending time around.  Little by little, the bits of my feminine heart had been chiseled away.  And I couldn’t do it anymore.  I couldn’t tell myself that it wasn’t a big deal because it WAS A BIG DEAL.

So I started saying no.  I threw away all my hip-hop CD’s that had inappropriate lyrics.  I started looking away at the graphic scenes in movies and I have probably walked out of a handful of movies in the theater.  When men would start saying horrible things about women or dropping curse words like no one’s business, I would ask them to stop or I would leave.  I have even had a handful of conversations with different men and explained to them what they do and how it affects me.  I can’t say that it’s changed a whole lot in other people, but I’m only responsible for myself.  And I will be responsible to my heart by not putting up with that stuff anymore.

In the midst of continually making these changes in my life, I have found that I am not the only woman who has a tendency to listen to the lie that “it’s not a big deal.”  I have heard women talking about enduring TV shows and conversations and articles and pictures in magazines, even when they make them feel crappy about themselves.

So what I’m begging you right now is this: please don’t.



Your heart is far too precious a thing for the world to infect.



Do you know that I refuse to read magazines anymore?  I won’t do it.  I know for some of you, that’s probably like giving up air.  But when I read magazines, all I do is feel horrible about myself.  Look at this gorgeous woman and look at this outfit and oh, I wish I could look like that in a bikini and if I had that outfit and those bracelets and wore that eyeshadow, then I will be happy-perfect-beautiful-fill in the blank_____.  Why do we do that to ourselves?  It’s just another way I am being lied to about what makes me valuable as a woman.

And when you continue to endure something while your heart is telling you “this is not okay,” the gorgeous, soft, feminine heart that God gave you is slowly being hardened.  I know it because I have felt it.

I beg of you—listen to yourself.  Know that it’s okay to walk away.  It’s okay to set yourself apart.  It’s okay to look at something and acknowledge that it’s not right or good or uplifting or worthy of your time and energy.  It's okay.

I am not encouraging you to fall blind to the truth of this world.  I know I don’t have to list those travesties that we see on a day-to-day basis because we all know.  What I am saying is that there are things that we are exposed to that don’t represent truth in the correct fashion.  They skew your perception of yourself and of reality and they cause you to dwell in the places in your mind that you are not meant to dwell.  I can be aware that women are raped every single day, but that doesn’t mean I have to be exposed to it.  In fact, I think just the opposite.  Women ARE raped every single day, so putting that in a movie for someone else’s entertainment seems like a sick joke to me.

This past weekend, Ethan put in this movie “Battle for Haditha.”  It is supposedly based on true events about a group of Marines in Iraq that murdered 24 innocent civilians.  It was sickening and as soon as the killing began, I went into the kitchen and cleaned.



Yes, that may have really happened.  The world is like that.  But I am not going to give those evil people one more second or millisecond of my thoughts and time.  And I think that that is okay.  Indeed, I think it is right.

The biggest challenge for me in saying “no” was the fear that people would think that I’m stuck up or trying to be better than them.  But I found that once I started liberating myself from those chains, other women I know followed suit.

However, even if no one else had done the same, now that I have known the bliss and joy of embracing that “intuition,” that feeling of “something about this isn’t right,” or “this doesn’t feel good to my heart,” I can never, ever go back to the way I was before.  And I am absolutely okay with that.

I encourage you, ladies, embrace your intuition.  Walk away, look away, speak up about those things that hurt your heart or that display some kind of altered version of what is true and right and good.  Embrace only the things that make you smile and see joy and experience the most beautiful and uplifting things in life.

Anything less than that is not worthy of you.  And that’s the truth.

“…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…think about such things.” (Phil 4:8)