The other day I was interacting with this adorable baby girl who kept peering over her shoulder and played the ever-popular hide and seek with the chair next to her with me. As we kept making eye contact we pass each other a toothy smile the kind the makes your eyes squint and your nose wrinkle. Her sweetness made me fall in love with her. Innocence. Cute little cheeks you could squeeze all day and tender eyes that looked at you and reminded you that there is good in this world.
Then a searing thought burned through my eyes as they shown the expression of my question that crumbled the enjoyment of this game.
When will she be told she's gotta be a bad bitch?
It hit me, when will she succumb to the weight of the pseudo-truth played over through lyrics, movies, media: Be a bad bitch. That's what men really want from you.
When will it hit her?
When she's watching the previews to the latest movie her older cousins take her to?
When she's listen to the radio as she's taken to school?
When she's forced to some sexual act with a boy?
This baby girl, still in diapers, but I knew that moment will come soon.
As I look around I see what she will be, what she has coming..... 10 and 11-year-old girl midriffs out to tease and please the eyes of the boys around them. Girls, just able to read chapter books, aiming to grab the attention of the pre-pubescent boys against the wall. That was me, I did the same thing strutting around with my midriff just enough to tease with the curve of my body, thong slightly out to beg the notice of those walking by.
That moment of false clarity, well, it was more like lies, happened to me when I was in jr high. I remember locking myself in my room turning on KISS FM and playing the latest most vulgar hip hop song that was popular at the time. I got a high from it. I would sleep with my headphones in imagining me, being one of those girls they were rapping about because then, then I would feel love by a man. I mean it only made sense to me. It was almost like a love and a curse because I would imagine myself like one of those video girls or the ones in the songs I would find almost like a how-to manual to get a man and be what I need to be for him which led to a goal that I must meet, but then I knew I couldn't. I took it as truth. Although I never acted on those impulses in their fullness, they still stunted my growth leaving me with a constant struggle to this day.
My salvation is secure, I know Christ is my atoning sacrifice, my debt has been paid for and I'm graciously loved my a man who cares for my soul and will marry me soon. BUT I struggle. I know the truth, and God has given me victory and truth to hold on to, but this world is covered in sin and even being grown the Holy Spirit has to remind me of my worth and stability in him and not the empty lies the enemy whispers in my ear 'marina, don't you wanna be a bad bitch too, come on, its better, more fun.'
I relate to my girls because I know. I know this world and its a constant struggle, and I have even been kept from a lot and its still a constant war of my soul. I teach to point out the lies dressed in sexy beats and attractive men that want more than what we need to give to them. I teach to change a pattern of depravity. I teach so they can, on their own, identify lies and stomp em out.
I teach so they know they don't gotta be a bad bitch, but to glorify God as a woman and enjoy him forever.
Bad bitch? Not this one.
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