First, be true to yourself—don’t let anyone browbeat you, bully you, or trick you into doing something that you feel uncomfortable doing.
I doubt that there has ever been a time or place in which young women have had to grow up with so much coarseness heaped on us—not by young men, not by enemies from another country, but by our elders. To put it bluntly, we are forced to find our way into womanhood in a brutally sexualized world. The movies, TV, and the internet ooze with sexual come-ons that are utterly divorced from what sex is really all about: the love between a husband and wife, and the children that love produces. Unfortunately, pornography has become mainstreamed—it rushes at us through big screens, little screens, portable screens; soft-core porn is on mainstream TV cable stations, hard-core porn is just a mouse click away on the internet, and the envelope of what is acceptable seems to get pushed farther and farther as more and more people are exposed to this material.
The result is that girls grow up in a culture where it is hard to have an innocent, healthy, normal view of themselves, how they should behave, how they should act, and how they should dress. From at least the age of thirteen, the fashion sense of girls is led by a supersexualized image of what a young lady should look like. Take Abercrombie & Fitch, a teen clothing store that rakes in profits by selling sex (in all forms) to kids. Girls in particular are vulnerable to the image stores like this try to sell them of what’s “cool” or “sexy.” This store—and others like it—grab Mommy and Daddy by the wallet and won’t let go. Parents find themselves unwilling to call a stop to this madness, perhaps because they might be caught up in it themselves—they are as vulnerable to media manipulation as anyone else.
Kids are under peer pressure, sure, but it is parents who are, well, the parents—and too many parents seem unwilling to take the time and make the effort and set the standards and live the standards that parenthood requires. More important than peer pressure, kids model their behavior on that of their elders. Before kids even have peers, they’re looking and watching and learning from what Mom and Dad do. It doesn’t help if what Mom and Dad do is put Mary or Susie in front of the TV all day. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Hollywood raising my kids. Considering what I have seen of the Hollywood crowd and what they show us, it doesn’t surprise me that so many girls think that “girls-gone-wild” behavior is how every girl is expected to act on Spring Break. All the moral guardrails that parents and schools used to put up to protect young women have been torn down. That might be useful to the sleaze merchants who peddle DVDs of girls getting drunk and lifting their shirts, but it’s certainly not helpful to teenage and college age girls.
How can we defend this? It seems to me we can’t. It seems to me that before we let our daughters make their way in this world, they need to be given the shield of faith, a moral education that is worlds removed from the values of Hollywood, a moral education that is based on timeless truth—however hard some of that truth might seem. They need to know that mistakes can haunt them forever. What I most want Emily and other young girls to know is that they should live every day as if everything they do might become public knowledge; they should know too that God is watching their every step.
Today, it’s not just morality that we need, but we need to guard our privacy. With the internet, too many young people are laying themselves open to the world in ways that might not be in their best interests. A snapshot of anything a girl does can be seen by everyone she knows—and can even be seen by many she doesn’t. A snapshot has only to be posted on the internet, and it will live forever.
Believe me, I know.
After the old photos of me came out, Miles began to hear from concerned people inside The Rock. They asked, “Will Carrie’s pictures hurt the image of the Church?” Some wondered if it might be best to put a little distance between The Rock and me. Miles’s answer was firm. He said, “People have a perception that if you are imperfect you don’t have the right to have an opinion. If that’s the case, then no one would have opinions.” He also smiles when we talk about this. “It’s a good thing,” Miles says, “that most people don’t have pictures of what all of us were doing when we were seventeen.” It’s basic Christian doctrine that we’re all sinners in need of forgiveness. We just have to ask for it, and we need to be willing to give it.
I appreciate Miles’s support. But every time I read in the papers about some promiscuous teen, it brings home to me just how damaging a frivolous or thoughtless moment can be. It also brought home to me how important it is for young women to stand our ground and learn to say, “No.”
This worried me so much, that I decided to set an example by blogging an apology.
To all my fans out there:To the ones who have supported me since day one, and to the thousands of little girls who look up to me as a role model, let me apologize for old pictures you may have seen of me. I acknowledge that I should never have put myself in a position where a photographer could snap inappropriate images of me and sell them for a lot of money. I was a model at the time, and very naïve. I should have known better. Again, I am sorry. There is an important lesson here for all young women who are coming of age in this highly sexualized world. We are all children of God. Our bodies are temples of the Lord. We should earn respect and admiration for our hearts, not for showing skin to try to look sexy. I hope you learn from my mistakes. After all, in your life you too will be faced with similar decisions. Never do things to seek man’s approval. Do things to seek God’s approval. Listen to that still quiet voice. In my case, I didn’t feel right about this photo shoot. I knew something just wasn’t right when the photographer showed me what I was going to be wearing. I should have taken a stand. I have since learned that your outer beauty can only get you so far in life. At the end of your life, you are only left with one thing—your soul, what’s inside it, and the wisdom from God to choose right from wrong.
Sincerely,
Carrie
I want to tell girls that you don’t have to be another public spectacle in the sexual marketplace. If you have an internal filter in your heart and mind, like Emily’s dad is teaching her to have, you can filter out all the peer pressure. It’s not about do’s and don’ts, it about what you really want for yourself. To teens: You don’t have to just go out and drink because everybody else is doing it. Go to a party some time and just watch while everyone else is drinking and you’re not. See how they behave. Is that what you want to be—red-faced, out-of-control, or worse? There’s a lot more to life than that; it’s a better life to keep all your senses, including your mind, intact, unpolluted by alcohol or drugs, and appreciating God’s creation—from a beautiful sunset to a beautiful person—as someone who is beautiful inside and out.
One other thing—you can be athletic and feminine at the same time. God gave us our bodies, and it’s perfectly right that we use them in ways where we can give glory to God by making our bodies, our temples of the Holy Spirit, strong and fast. You can do all that and still be a girl. You can play basketball, tennis, soccer, volleyball, or be a football cheerleader. You can get out there and sprint around like the best running back in the NFL and still be the girl you’ve always been. You can do all that, and still be pretty on the inside. Just remember to whom you owe the glory; just remember that even if you fail, even if you come in last place, if you did the best you could, if you gave God your best effort, you did just fine. I’m a competitor, but I know that it’s not just the winner who merits God’s love.
Two: Never fear that God’s standard is the right standard.
Often in my life, I’ve seen people succumb to the peer pressure to do the wrong thing, to think, for instance, that hooking up and promiscuity are no big deal. I’ve seen how girls are pressured into thinking that unless they’re willing to sleep around, they won’t be able to “get a boyfriend.” I know how easy it is to think, perversely, that to be good is bad (“she’s a prude,” or a “goody-goody”), and to be a bad girl is good.
But the “
hook-up” culture only opens people up to a whole lot of unnecessary pain. At the most basic level, of course, casual sex leads to horrible, sometimes deadly, diseases. But it goes deeper than that. Sleeping around is psychologically and spiritually damaging, especially to girls. It leads to loneliness and destroys a woman’s sense of self worth. After all, casual sex isn’t about love at all, and it does not lead to commitment. Girls who fall into this lifestyle (and I’ve seen so many girls who have) don’t even know what love is. In fact, they do not believe that they are worthy of love.
Don’t let the whole “beauty queen” thing fool you. True love and commitment are not about how pretty or sexy a girl is. Men might like to look at me, they might think of me as sexy, but that isn’t love. It’s hard for a man to appreciate a woman’s heart, when today’s culture places so much emphasis on outer beauty and how “hot” a girl is. Believe me, I’ve had my fair share of heartbreaks. I know as well as the next girl how much it hurts to find out that your boyfriend has cheated on you. Maybe you caught him lying, or you just don’t feel secure in a relationship. And I know what a broken heart feels like.
Another thing I’ve learned: never feel that your standards are too high. A girl should have ideals, and she should expect the man she’s with to live up to them—or at least to try. Of course, it cuts both ways. A woman should strive to be worthy of the man she dreams of. Before you focus on being in a relationship with someone else, set your sights on developing yourself as the woman God made you to be. Be independent. When you have that focus, everything else just falls into place. Sometimes if you just stop looking, the right man will run right into you.
Our culture nowadays equates love with sex. The word “love” gets thrown around so casually that people don’t even know what it means. We look to pop culture to define the term for us. (After all, Miley Cyrus can sing about love—she must know what it is.) Or how about those songs on the radio kids hear on a daily basis, touting promiscuity and the supposed joys of “making love.” After all, I doubt any of these singers even know what true love means. All the pop culture knows is that love definitely should include a lot of sex.
I encourage girls to rise above that worldly standard. The lifestyle the world encourages us to embrace only leads to misery; it can’t lead to love. True love is about commitment. It goes so much deeper than any kind of physical closeness, or the way someone makes you feel, and it certainly cannot be found in a one-night stand.
Three: Grace turns losses into gains and accidents into your best opportunities.
The amazing thing about grace is that once you seek it, it will not only help you avoid making the wrong choices—it will lead you to opportunities that are far better and more satisfying than anything you ever imagined.
When I was at the center of a hate campaign, it seemed as if my whole world was coming apart. That plane ride from Las Vegas to New York was the loneliest ride I’ve ever had. I silently prayed and prayed, and yet felt God was not with me. If we sometimes feel abandoned like I did, it’s not because God isn’t listening. It is because we’re impatient. As soon as I landed, spiritual guidance was already there, waiting for me, just a few blocks from my hotel.
I think back to the night I was given the wrong directions to the event at the children’s hospital. Had I been given the right directions, I would have driven several more hours to sit among a throng of people at a rubber-chicken dinner. It didn’t work out that way. At first, when I got to the hospital, I came in from the parking lot with my sash and gown. Standing there under fluorescent lights, I felt foolish and out of place. But that very mistake took me just where I needed to be: the children’s cancer ward.
God keeps teaching us that what we want is not what we need; and what we get fills both our needs and our wants. I know, it is difficult to let go of what you really want. Miles saw years of hard work on the gridiron come to a complete end in the NFL. He had to run into that brick wall before he could see where God needed him to be.
The challenges we run into can seem rude, abrupt, like the end of the world. Miles wanted a big, glittering Super Bowl ring. I wanted the glittering crown of Miss USA, or even Miss Universe. When we learn to toss away our fondest ambitions as trash—we find a crown awaiting us that is far more meaningful and beautiful than anything we could ever imagine for ourselves.
Life will distract you with drama. “Don’t care about all the drama,” Miles says. “God has a plan for you. Don’t get distracted from his plan.”
Four: Seek advice from a “multitude of counsel.”
People come up to me all the time and tell me that they would have crumbled under the pressure I was under. What they don’t realize is that I did crumble. I was knitted back together thanks to the support I had from strong people around me.
The Book of Proverbs advises us to seek “a multitude of counsel.” I had a multitude, from my mom and dad, my sister, my pastor, my friends, and my supporters. I had a lot of people to turn to and to remind me that I was on the right path, to show me that people were with me and behind me. When you face your trials, having friends, family, and a faith community that shares your commitment is the only way to make it through.
Miles says that the effort to stay true to our faith is a lifelong struggle. “This is a fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield,” Miles says, “and you are going to get hit—and you might even get your ear bitten off.”
As the Book of Timothy promises, if you’re a Christian, you are going to be persecuted. You are going to be made fun of. You are going to be called names. Your commitment to Christ is going to alienate people you’d like to have as friends.
Whenever this path seems like a tall order, I try to remember how easy we have it today compared to the earliest Christians, the ones who suffered torture and death rather than renounce Christ. If they could be so brave, can’t we stand together to shuck off a little social embarrassment and ostracism? When you are given an opportunity to stand up for Christ, do it. No questions asked. Don’t compromise your faith for anyone or anything.
Five: Forgiveness heals.
At Liberty University, I thanked Perez Hilton for giving me this chance to proclaim my beliefs as a Christian. I was pushed hard. In these pages I have pushed back. I think it is all right and more than a little natural to get angry and set the record straight. But I’ve learned not to let anger make a home in my heart. After all, I was accused of being a hater. The challenge to me is not to hate anyone. And so I struggle to love everyone who has crossed me, as I hope they forgive any slights or injuries I might have inflicted on them. There are few wiser words than those of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Six: Don’t leave yourself outside of the circle of forgiveness.
You are going to make mistakes. You are going to do things that you are not especially proud of. Realize that, acknowledge that, change that, but don’t harp on it.
Christians are often accused of being judgmental people. But we, more than anyone else, know how little excuse we have for judging anyone else. We are not perfect people. We are imperfect people trying to uphold a perfect standard.
“The Church doesn’t exist to house perfect people,” Miles says. “It exists to help people walk away from where they are. It exists to help them be more obedient.”
Seven: Don’t let the culture convince you that trying to hold to a high standard is being “too judgmental.”
The Rock has a lot of regular families and married couples with children. But we also have strippers and even active call girls in our Church. The fact that they are in the pews is their acknowledgement that they want to change. Miles likens their lifestyle to that of an alcoholic. One person wants with all her heart and soul to get out and live a cleaner life—and does it. Another person wants to try to have it both ways, to keep going to Church while staying in a trap of addiction and sin.
“You love both of them,” Miles says, “but you’ve got to
keep moving forward.”
It is the high standard set by Christ that attracts Christians to the Church, but it is also what infuriates others. “People object to the standards of God’s love,” Miles says. “But it is not my standard!”
If people are offended by your belief in God’s standards, that is truly their problem, not yours. One such standard is the Biblical teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman. But holding such a standard is not the same thing as being intolerant. It would surprise many in Hollywood to see how everyone who comes to The Rock is met with love, encouragement, and acceptance. After all, the splinter in your eye may be nothing compared to the redwood log in mine. Judgment of people (as opposed to behavior) is just seen as another sin.
Miles laughs and says, “People in this Church are beauty contestants, criminals, lawyers, doctors, crackheads. . . . So wonderful to have all these people in this Church. All servants of one. I am honored beyond belief that they feel loved and accepted at The Rock.”
Eight: Stand up with courage.
This last point comes home to me through the story of another beauty queen, another one who stood up on a stage to risk her very life. I am so grateful to Miles for making me aware of the lessons of the Book of Esther and helping our whole congregation draw strength from it.
The story of Esther takes place in ancient Persia, where the Jews were a captive people under the rule of the Persian king Ahasuerus. After the king’s wife refuses to display her beauty before the guests at a feast, he removes her. (I guess I’m not the first beauty queen to be fired.)
Having gotten rid of his queen, King Ahasuerus has to shop for a replacement. So he orders his court to present him with the most beautiful girls in his kingdom. A kind of personal beauty pageant is held for him. The girls are brought before him one at a time, and the king chooses the most beautiful and desirable girl, Esther.
Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks Page 16