Role Models

Recently, my daughter was watching a reality show on TV about little girls participating in "beauty" pageants.  After watching these little girls be spray-tanned, manicured, primped and fluffed until they were no longer recognizable as children, looking more like miniature prostitutes in some cases, one mother seemed to have a "lightbulb moment".  She said she didn't want her daughter to grow up thinking her value was based on her looks, and said, "This is her last pageant."

As the mother of a young daughter, I am painfully aware of the lack of decent role models for young girls.  Well, I should qualify that statement by saying the good role models aren't as easily viewed as the bad ones.  Every magazine one the stands at the grocery checkout have a headline about losing weight, sexy styles for summer, makeovers or all of the above.  Magazines -- and not just fashion magazines -- are obsessed with women's appearance.  And as a rule, that appearance, according to the world, should be as sexy as possible.

Years ago, there was an ad for a woman's cigarette that said, "We've come a long way, baby!"  But have we?  Have we really?  From women being respected and cherished by their husbands as instructed in Ephesians 5:28 - 30, to a time when women are encouraged to freely display their bodies to strangers?  I suppose that is a long way to go, but is that the direction we wanted to take?

As the mother of a teenage son, I am also aware of the "long way" we've come.  On a daily basis, my husband and son are subjected to numerous visual challenges and temptations.  Is this what women wanted for themselves, to become stumbling blocks to men?

The world accuses the people of God of being backward or behind the times.  I challenge that.  I say, the women of God have as examples women like Deborah, who told Barak she'd go to battle with him, but that God would give the battle to a woman (Judges 4).  The women of God have as example women like Rahab, who literally risked her life for the Lord; she was rewarded not only with the lives of herself and her family (Joshua 6:25), but the greater reward of being included in the genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:5)!  We have as example Lydia, who was a business owner (Acts 16:14), long before women came to be considered chattel.

I could go on with numerous examples of strong, capable women of God.  But until the world sees not how far we've come, but how far we've gone, these examples will fall on deaf ears.  I can only pray, and continue to point my daughter toward strong, godly women in the Bible and in her life as role models.