A Call for Prayer...

This has been on my heart for some time now.

I think we all need to lift up the younger generation in prayer.

They are being taught

• a bad self-image.
• they can never be skinny enough or smart enough.
• it is okay to eat and eat and eat and never exercise.
• it is okay to smoke and drink and do drugs.
• it is okay to have sex before they are married.
• abortions are not murder.
• it is okay to be unethical as long as it gets them ahead.
• violence & abuse are acceptable.
• porn is acceptable.
• marriage is disposable and divorce is an acceptable fix.
• there is no God.
• they can go to heaven if they are "good people."
  

Many children feel like they are not worthy of love. They are searching desperately for companionship and meaning in life.

I watched the Tyra Banks show at the gym today (which I normally don't watch but it was either that or the news). The whole show was about rail thin models and women's self-image. One model weighed 88 pounds and said she wanted to kill herself when she weighed over 100 pounds. It was disgusting how skinny she was!! She said that she eats and is healthy but would like to lose more weight.

I think that is such a sad message that is being sent to younger generations. 80 pounds is now heavy?!

There was a lady on the show who was anorexic that had two sons and weighed 75 pounds...what a 9 year old should weigh! She said she has a cup of coffee in the morning with some cigarettes and in the evening she allows herself 150-200 calories. WOW! When they interviewed her husband he said he took off work for as long as he could just so he could spend time with her. He worries that one morning she just won't wake up. Her doctor said that her anorexia was so bad that she won't just faint and be revived; she will simply have a heart attack and die. The whole family looked so sad. She is going to a recovery center...I just hope they can help her in time.

Even when young kids come into the store it seems as if parents do not care about their children. We have fire that can burn them, heavy items that can fall on them, and stove doors that little fingers can be pinched in and the parents are completely oblivious. They let their children wander around and don't even pay any attention to them. There is no discipline. It's like they don't have time for their children.

Last week a guest speaker came and spoke in one of my classes. He said that he works 13 hours a day and spends 2 hours with his son unless he is traveling and then he doesn't see him at all. What a sad way to live! A nanny is raising his son!! It is such a shame that people are so busy that they do not even have time to spend with their children. Parenting is such a huge responsibility!

I also think about the children growing up in homes with verbal, physical, or sexual abuse or parents who smoke. Oh my goodness, my heart goes out to them. I cannot even imagine growing up in that kind of an environment. That is emotionally and physically scarring.

I also saw part of an episode of Montel this morning. The whole entire family was addicted to Vicadon. One of the daughters was 5 months pregnant with her second baby and refused help. She wants her children to live with the same addiction that she has...just because she doesn't want to deal with withdrawal.

Sometimes I wish people had to take a test before becoming a parent...so many of them would fail!! (This is not to say that anywhere near all parents are bad. Many children are growing up in homes where they feel loved and uplifted and I praise the Lord for that!)

Children need to be taught the Word of God and grow in their faith. They need their "God shaped hole" to be filled with the Lord. One day they will have to stand before the Creator of the universe and be accountable for their actions.

Children deserve so much better than this!!!! We need to realize what is happening. Please, please pray for our younger generations and the parents that are raising them. Encourage the parents around you that you know are struggling.

BVOTD: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. " 1 John 5:2 ESV

"It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us." 2 John 1:4 NIV

"Every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father." Phillippians 2:10-11 NIV