But Words will never hurt me.
I’m not sure that there has ever been a more untrue children’s mantra. I think bones heal long before wounds created by words.
While at Boyd High School in McKinney I saw this circle of flowers right in the middle of the hall area where students enter. I asked this student, “What is with those flowers?”
“A Student Died, a freshman…”
“Was it suicide?”
“Yes, he was picked on a lot.”
This type of things makes me sick to my stomach. As someone who was bullied incessantly all throughout school I know what it is like to wake up every single day and dread going to class and facing cruel peers. Toss in hormonal imbalance and pressures at home and you have a recipe for disaster – especially if you feel like you have no place to turn or no one in your corner.
My mom was always there for me when I was hurt by words, but it took years for that pain to heal.
The student I was mentoring today brought up the subject of using false confidence as a way to push back the negativity. He said that he was picked on in 6th grade and that he became good at defending himself by insulting students back. I did the same thing. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I really started to understand that when I tear someone down it is really just me trying to make myself feel better about me.
Eventually I gained self-confidence and I stopped insulting others or comparing myself to others. It’s a lesson in futility – there is always someone in the world that is better than you at something or has something better than yours. It is so much better to just be content with what you have and to find peace in the Lord. It’s really so freeing when you’ve finally taken a hold of that concept.
If you have young students, please remind them that words do hurt and that if they are being picked on that they can come to you and talk about it. Then do something to help them in their situation. If nothing else, just be there to listen and to love on them – a little love can go a long way to healing a broken spirit.
Wrapped in warm shades of brown with hints of orange and subtle undertones of cream, Village Tea is an inviting sensory experience that is pleasing to the eyes and the palette.
Gnutella filled crepes served hot with fresh whipped cream and hot ginger lemon tea was one of the many highlights of the Blogher networking event planned by Jessica Ferris. When I was first invited to this soiree I thought I’d be eating finger sandwiches and sipping tea in frilly china cushioned by lace doilies. Could I have been more wrong?
Almost immediately a waitress named Carla started asking me what I’d like to drink and made the suggestion of a Chai Tea Latte sweetened with Agave Nectar. Talk about a mouthgasm. Deliciously spiced tea with just the right amount of foam made for one of the best hot drinks I’ve had in recent memory. And if the service and drinks and decor weren’t enough to keep me captivated, the owners brought out plates of sliced scones and real spinach salads and sandwiches with a variety of cheeses.
Even though I’m not a “Her” the ladies of Blogher always seem to welcome one or two men and I always appreciate their allowing me to be part of this unique culture. Hi Jenny!
Overall, Village Tea at Park and Preston in Dallas impressed me not only with their great products and AMAZING staff, but with their desire to comfort and educate their customers. Almost instantly I felt at home their despite it’s trendy and upscale location. And with free Wi-Fi and a place for kids to play in a colorful corner it is sure to be a hit with mom’s and businessmen alike.
A special thanks to the beautiful Bryce Gruber for hosting us and keeping us entertained, if you see her, tell her Eddie sent you.
While I was at the Song of Solomon conference on Oct. 2-3rd Mark & Grace Driscoll took some Q&A’s from the audience. People would text in their questions and then they would answer them live on stage.
Question: As a single woman, what do I do to satisfy my sexual desires? Don’t give me a pat answer.
Now the assumption here is that you should not be having sex before marriage. Take that one step further and you can say that you should not be masturbating before marriage. Why not? The Bible never mentions that it is a sin, therefore, we can clearly rule out that the act is a sin.
However, the Bible does clearly state that lust is a sin and so you can infer that if you are lusting while masturbating that is a sin.
I thought Grace gave a very good answer…
While masturbation and self-gratification aren’t a sin, feeling the need to satisfy your sexual urges without self-discipline can lead to destructive behaviors. Looking at Pornography, Fornication, Adulterous affairs, etc.
I thought that this was an interesting way to answer a difficult question and it applies to every area of our lives. In our American culture we are very used to instant gratification and pleasing ourselves. We have instant everything and self-discipline gets put way on the back burner.
The Only Way To Rid Yourself of Temptation is to Yield to It…
So personally I think that sexual urges are like any appetite of the flesh. It is obviously both biological and mental and anything that is biological and physiological are going to require some sort of restraint. Food is necessary to survive and without it you would die, but that doesn’t mean that you should eat sugar at every single meal.
So what do you tell your kids? If you are a dad what do you tell your son? Should you tell them that sex is bad, but when it comes to masturbation limit it to one time a week? What about your daughters? How do you talk to them about sex? Masturbation? Do you talk to them at all or just hope that this is something that they aren’t tempted to do?
I found this line on a website with some good information that you should share with your students probably as early as 10 or 11:
Remember, you need to master your behavior, or else sin will master it for you. Even a good thing can become sinful without the right heart. Even if you don’t believe that masturbation is a sin, if it is controlling you then it is a sin.
1 Corinthians 6:12 – “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’ – but I will not be mastered by anything.”
In my own childhood sexual topics were always very taboo. I’d say not talking is much more harmful than talking. It’s amazing how much being educated about something can help you make an informed decision. It might not always be the right decision, but you can’t look back and say, “Why didn’t someone tell me?”
Recently a friend of mine posted a scanned copy of our 6th grade class newsletter. I was tagged in the image and when I looked at it I saw that there was a short story that I had written about a Russian named Vladimir and a really large donut the size of a sheet cake.
Wow, 23 years ago at the age of 10 I was already writing about food! As I read through the story it was obvious that I didn’t have any real creative writing style, but, the story had a beginning, a body, and a conclusion and the grammar was awesome for a 10 year old.
I remember growing up I was always writing poetry, some of it inflammatory, but mostly it was simple rhymes and short stories.
Why didn’t anyone ever tell me back then that I should be a writer when I grow up?
There are a few things in life that come easily to me, the most natural thing I do is dance. It is something I do well without any thought or practice. For me “dancing by ear” is similar to the way people play music by ear. You don’t understand how you do it, you just do.
Later in life I realized I was pretty decent at spatial concepts and understanding balance in design. I’m no artist, but I can sense when something is right.
I think that in our culture we often direct our children down a path that seems to fit something that is accepted by society as great: Doctors, Lawyers, Fireman. We ask “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instead of asking, “What do you LIKE to do the most?”
Perhaps if we asked the latter question we would better be able to direct our children down a path that they will not only excel in, but they will also find satisfying.
I think our society and culture is wasteful. We spend hours of time and thousands of dollars forcing students to take years of math and science. Instead we should probably have our students get a general grasp of the math and science they need to relate to all parts of society as a whole, however, I have never needed to use Algebra and I’m not sure the 4 years of my life spent in Algebra classes was time well spent. What if instead I was thrust into a creative writing class, dance, art? What if once we got to high school we spent those 4 years finding out what we excelled in and then by the time we got to college we could really intensify those areas of study and then we would be awesome at our careers.Instead we force high school students to endure 2 more years of information that we should have already learned in the previous 12 years of our education and then, once we’ve spent thousands of dollars learning these “basics” we finally get to the meaty subject of what we are going to be doing for the rest of our lives and we spend just 2 years on that. It doesn’t make sense.
Now here I am at 33 years of age and I just now fully understand the areas that I am good at and I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars acquiring skills in an area that I only sort of enjoy and I will never seriously excel in without a lot of work and effort.
So my choice is to either throw away the investment that I have made in my education, or to live a life doing something that I only partly enjoy doing.
I, personally, should have been a writer, or a dancer, or possibly an interior designer. What should you have been?