It’s back to school time, which usually means parents buy school supplies and start waking kids up earlier in the morning. But one elementary school just sent out a letter informing the parents that the school is welcoming a new family with a transgendered “3rd grade girl.”

The letter urges the parents and students to welcome and accept her and treat her the same as any other girl. Not so subtly, the letter also informed parents that the school district does not tolerate discrimination in respect to gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability or religion.

YIKES!!!

My heart absolutely breaks to learn of this. I’m sure the school administrators (and possibly, it’s just one person) are patting themselves on the back for being so progressive and politically correct. I can’t imagine that they are aware of the pressure this puts on this poor confused little boy, as well as an entire school, to engage in this social experiment.

If a third grader decided brushing his teeth is a stupid waste of time and he wasn’t going to do it anymore, responsible parents would never give in to the little tyrant who is completely unable to see the long-term consequences of foolish choices.

If a third grader decided that school itself is a stupid waste of time and he wasn’t going anymore, responsible parents wouldn’t give in to that misguided tantrum, either.

But when a third grader is so consumed by confusion about being a boy, when his whole life is permeated with the hopeless despair of believing It’s not okay to be me, and when his parents capitulate to his fantasy, something bigger than mere confusion is going on. This kid is driving the bus of not only his life, but his parents’ as well. And just as we would never let third-graders drive a literal bus, it’s equally nuts and scary to let them sit at the controls of anyone’s life.

When my friend Ricky was four, he decided he wanted to be a horse. His mother wisely did not build a stable in their back yard and feed him hay just because her little boy wanted to be something other than who he was. She said, “No, you’re not a horse, you’re a human boy.” And in time, he grew to accept who he was.

It’s politically correct to affirm whatever feelings children have, such as “I’m a boy but I feel like a girl,” as valid. When school administrators try to get a whole school to indulge the fantasy, it’s only a matter of time before things blow up in their faces, because their rhetoric isn’t powerful enough to disable kids’ baloney detectors. At least some kids’. Telling children to accept a boy as a girl and expecting them to swallow it without thinking is sheer hubris, I think.

“. . . male and female He created them.” Gen. 1:27

Children know that we live in a binary world: boys and girls, male and female. And it is not good, or loving, to indulge the fantasy that one can change the reality God created. Or that He made a mistake in choosing a baby’s gender.

I pray for this confused little boy, that his parents will get him the help for his gender identity disorder now while there’s still lots of hope for help. And I pray for the Christians in that school to be lovingly bold in proclaiming that it’s not in this student’s best interest, or the best interests of the rest of the students, to take make-believe to a scary new level.

And I pray that the Lord will gently pick up this precious, confused little boy from his bus driver’s seat and place him in His lap.

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/the-3rd-grade-transgender-bus-driver/ on August 18, 2009.

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series currently hold three of the top ten slots on Amazon’s best sellers list. Her Young Adult novels about a love story between a human girl (Bella) and her vampire boyfriend (Edward) are popular with far more than just young adults. And “popular” is quite the understatement.

A friend who does ladies’ nails told me that one of her 60-something clients confessed, “Don’t tell my husband, but I’m in love with Edward.” She also told me that when she invited one of her friends to go out to a movie, she was rebuffed with, “Oh, sorry, but I’m going to stay in with Edward tonight.”

“Popular” doesn’t quite describe the series. “Obsession” works well, though.

What’s all the fuss about? And is it safe for young readers?

What struck me as I read Twilight is how much the vampire Edward displays the beauty and strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder people are attracted to him! Whether this is intentional or not—the author is a Mormon, though I don’t see Mormon theology anywhere in the book—I believe it’s easy to get wrapped up in the transcendent relationship of a god-like figure and his beloved human sweetheart because it echoes the love story of God and His people.

Consider the way Edward is written:

• He is able to read minds (hearing the thoughts of those near him, with the exception of Bella)
• He has superhuman strength
• He has superhuman speed
• He consistently exhibits strong self-control, keeping his emotions and his great power in check
• He is loving, kind, and thoughtful
• He is self-sacrificing
• He is tender and sensitive, at the same time the essence of masculine strength and leadership
• He is lavishly generous
• He anticipates Bella’s needs and desires and is prepared to meet them in ways that are in her best interests, even if it costs him
• He sparkles in the sunlight with a stunning radiance

Edward and Bella’s relationship echoes the dynamics of Christ and His beloved bride, the Church. The relationship is a mixture of agony and sacrificial love. Human and vampire are very different and very other, yet they both desire oneness and intimacy. This reflects the way humanity and divinity come together in Christ and the Church.

Bella tells Edward, “You are my life” (p. 474). This sense of connecting to and being lost in the transcendent is the foundation of a healthy relationship with our Creator and Savior; but it is the essence of unhealthy emotional dependency in another creature. It sounds very romantic, to put all one’s eggs in another’s basket, but it also gives all our power away to that person since they have the power to make and keep us happy and fulfilled. This is safe in Jesus’ hands, but no one else’s.

I think there is a good reason for the strong reaction to the characters and the dynamics of the story. They resonate with the far larger Story of God wooing His people.

I found one passage that hints at a worldview perspective on the Twilight series. On page 308, Bella asks Edward where vampirism started originally. He answers,

“Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn’t we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don’t believe all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?”

However, thinking biblically, we know that the vampire “kind” doesn’t truly exist. It’s a fantasy. There are no “undead” people like vampires. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that “it is appointed unto man to die once; and after this comes judgment.” Transitioning from human to vampire by being bitten with a vampire’s venom doesn’t happen.

The book’s cover features a pair of hands proffering an apple. Just after the table of contents, this quotation from Genesis 2:17 appears by itself on a page: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

The author says on her website,

The apple on the cover of Twilight represents “forbidden fruit.” I used the scripture from Genesis (located just after the table of contents) because I loved the phrase “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.” Isn’t this exactly what Bella ends up with? A working knowledge of what good is, and what evil is. The nice thing about the apple is it has so many symbolic roots. You’ve got the apple in Snow White, one bite and you’re frozen forever in a state of not-quite-death… Then you have Paris and the golden apple in Greek mythology—look how much trouble that started. Apples are quite the versatile fruit. In the end, I love the beautiful simplicity of the picture. To me it says: choice. (www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight_faq.html#apple)

Should tweens and teens read this series? I think it provides an opportunity for parents and other authority figures (like youth group leaders) to read and discuss the themes of the book with youth, particularly what makes Edward so attractive. People are drawn to him for the same reason that a seeking heart is drawn to Jesus. The best use of this book and series is if the reader can be pointed to the One who can actually fulfill the fantasy that Stephenie Meyer writes so well, of being cherished by a strong and beautiful Lover who thinks and acts sacrificially.

Because the heart that is drawn to Edward is actually looking for Jesus.

Note: Since writing this blog post, I have read all the books and done a lot of research, coming to a different conclusion. Please be sure and read Part 2: A New Look at Twilight: Different Conclusion. Thanks!

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/the_appeal_of_twilight
on March 16, 2009.

Have you noticed how many blank pages you can find at the back of your Bible? I don’t know why Bible publishers put them there, but I think we can put them to good use as a place to record milestones and aspects of our journey to maturity.

Record the results of a “treasure hunt.” Over several years, as I read through the Bible, I drew a box around every name and title of God I found, and then wrote them in the back of my Bible. What a great way to worship Him now, to just read through His names to tell Him how wonderful and magnificent He is!

Record ways in which God reveals His love to us. Every day, God sends what I call “hugs and kisses” to say “Hello precious one, I’m here and I love you.” Most of the time, though, we miss them because we’re not looking for them. When we write down specific incidents that makes us feel loved (or at least aware that He does love us), we have a place to go back and remember the intimacies that show us Father’s heart of compassion. Even the small things, and perhaps especially the small things, will help us learn to pay attention and remember when we forget. For example, on a day when the skies were threatening to open up and I didn’t have an umbrella, I got to my car just in time before the rain started. I mean literally, the second I closed the door, the deluge started. There was no mistaking the love in His timing. I’m so glad I wrote that down, because my mind is a leaky bucket and I forget!

Record “God sightings.” Slightly different from His hugs and kisses, these are stories where God shows up and shows off. Here’s the first entry in the back of my NIV:
4/79 This Bible itself is an answered prayer. I had been praying for a new NIV when [Dallas radio station] KVIL had a “Take Your Radio to Work” promotion. I sent in four postcards inviting them to visit me at Probe. Sure enough, traffic helicopter reporter Ben Laurie walked in and gave me a $50 bill!

Record words of wisdom. I love to write down things that make me think, “Ooh, I want to remember that!” I started with the white spaces in the front of my Bible and when those filled up, I started a separate “wisdom journal.” If my house ever catches fire, that’s one of the things I’m grabbing.

What can you use YOUR blank pages for?

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/the_blank_pages_in_our_bibles
on September 29, 2009.

September 23, 2008

A dear friend of mine is a writer of songs and a writer of words. She went through a period of time when all the songs she wrote were all the key of F.

“I wondered why I could not write songs in any other key,” she wrote. “It really bothered me. Not everything in F was the best range for my voice, or fit the song I was trying to convey.”

She thought she was in a musical rut. She prayed to get out of the rut, and still wrote in F. She got frustrated that nothing changed.

“But as one season changed into the next, I started writing in other keys. I thought maybe it was the lovely colors of fall, and maybe they evoked different keys in me.

I got so happy that I was writing in other keys. I thought, ‘I’m over my rut! Yay!!’

But one day, the heater was too much, and I went and turned on the fan…

…and I started playing even the new pieces I had written back in F.”

What’s up with that? She looked up and had this epiphany. The ceiling fan’s mechanical “hum” was in the key of F!!

All through the summer, she could only write in F because the background noise of the fan was her internal tuning fork. She kept going back to the F major key because the music in her head was tuned to the fan! She turned off the fan—and was able to think in other keys.

In Romans 8, Paul tells us to set our minds on the spirit instead of the flesh. And when we do that, the music of our lives is in the key of Jesus.

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/the_hum_of_a_ceiling_fan

Last week my dear friend Sandi Glahn wrote another boffo blog post about the myths of infertility, which included some of the dumb things people say.

It may be insensitivity or a lack of education that spurs people to say things that are unhelpful at the least and downright hurtful much of the time. I still remember my own daggers to the heart after our first baby died nine days after her birth. And for the past several years, I have been collecting actual quotes said to those already in pain.

So here’s my current list of What Not To Say when someone is hurting:

Don’t start any sentence with “At least. . . .”
• “At least you didn’t have time to really love her.”
• “At least he’s in heaven now.”
• “At least you have two other children.”
• “At least that’s one less mouth you’ll have to feed.”
• “At least it didn’t have to go through the pain of birth.”
• “At least you’ve had a good life so far, before the cancer diagnosis.”

Don’t attempt to minimize the other person’s pain.
• “Cancer isn’t really a problem.” (e.g., Shame on you for thinking that losing your hair/body part/health is a problem.)
• “It’s okay, you can have other children.”

Don’t try to explain what God is doing behind the scenes.
• “I guess God knew you weren’t ready to be parents yet.”
• “Now you’ll find out who your friends are.”
• “This baby must have just not been meant to be.”
• “There must have been something wrong with the baby.”
• “Just look ahead because God is pruning you for great works.”
• “Cancer is really a blessing.”
• “Cancer is a gift from God because you are so strong.”

Don’t blame the other person:
• “If you had more faith, your daughter would be healed.”
• “Remember that time you had a negative thought? That let the cancer in.”
• “You are not praying hard enough.”
• “Maybe God is punishing you. Have you done something sinful?”
• “Oh, you’re not going to let this get you down, are you?” (Meaning: just go on without dealing with it.)

Don’t compare what the other person is going through to ANYTHING else or anyone else’s problem:
• “It’s not as bad as that time I. . .”
• “My sister-in-law had a double mastectomy and you only lost one breast.”

Don’t use the word “should”:
• “You should be happy/grateful that God is refining you.”

Don’t use clichés and platitudes:
• “Look on the bright side.”
• “He’s in a better place.”
• “She’s an angel now.” (NO! People and angels are two different created kinds! People do not get turned into angels when they die.)
• “He’s with the Lord.”

Don’t instruct the person:
• “This is sent for your own good, and you need to embrace it to get all the benefit out of it.”
• “Remember that God is in control.”
• “Remember, all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28 is powerful to comfort oneself, but it can feel like being bludgeoned when it comes from anyone else.)

What TO say:
• “I love you.”
• “I am so sorry.” You don’t have to explain. Anything.

What TO do:
• A wordless hug.
• A card that says simply, “I grieve with you.”
• Instead of bringing cakes, drop off or (better) send gift certificates for restaurants or pizza places.

And pray. Then pray some more. It’s the most powerful thing we can say or do.

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/what-not-to-say-when-someone-is-grieving/
on January 20, 2009, and you can read the many comments there.

The power of words to hurt and offend seems limitless, as Sandra Glahn and I have learned both in life and in the comments from our blogs about “what not to say.” [See Infertility: People Say the Dumbest Things and What Not to Say When Someone is Grieving.]

I came across a new list of What Not to Say About Adoption from a single dad blogger. With some editing, here is his contribution:

Single Dad Laughing’s Guide to Adoption Etiquette.

1. Never, ever, ever, ask how much a child costs. This includes the phrase, “How much did you pay for him?” First of all, it’s none of your business. Second of all, if you’re interested in adoption, research it through the appropriate channels. Speak with an adoption agency. Adoptive parents don’t purchase children. They simply pay legal fees and agency fees. Just like biological parents pay hospital and doctor bills. Don’t turn the child into nothing more than a commodity.

2. Never ask if a celebrity inspired the adoption. Believe it or not, Tom Cruise, Connie Chung, and Angelina Jolie did not convince me one way or the other in the biggest decision of my life. Are you serious?

3. Never ask “Where is his real dad?” Forget the fact that it will hurt my feelings. How do you think it will affect my son’s feelings to feel like I’m not a real dad to him? Adoptive parents are real parents. The term you’re looking for is “birth mother” or “birth father.”

4. Don’t say things like, “As soon as you adopt you’re going to get pregnant” when you find out somebody is adopting. First of all, there are usually many, many years of pain and financial burden strapped to infertility, treatments, and heartache. Do you really think that what you’re saying will help them? Secondly, while it is funny when it happens, it’s rare.

5. Never say, “Why did she give him away?” Do I really need to explain why this one would hurt a child? The proper term is “placed.” A birth mother and birth father place their child for adoption. And again, it’s personal and none of your business, so don’t ask if you aren’t my BFF.

6. Don’t say, “It’s like he’s your real son.” This is similar to number three, but worthy of mentioning. He is my real son.

7. Don’t say, “Do you love him as if he was your own?” Ummm… probably more than you love your little terror, that’s for sure. And again… he is my own.

8. Never say things like, “You’re so wonderful to adopt a child.” I am a parent. Just like anybody else with kids.

9. Don’t start spewing your horrible adoption stories. “This one time, my friend’s sister’s aunt’s dog’s previous owner’s niece adopted a baby and the real dad came back and they took the baby away after they had him for two years.” First of all, it probably isn’t true. Second of all, how would you feel if I told you about all the ways you could lose your child? Adoption is permanent. And in the extremely rare circumstances that something like that happens, it’s not something you should spread because the hurt that exists for all the parties involved must be immeasurable.

10. Don’t say things like, “Is it hard for him to be adopted?” Well, it wasn’t, until you asked me that right in front of him, you thoughtless soul.

11. I don’t want to hear about your second cousin who was on a waiting list for twelve years and never got a baby. Granted, this one was much more annoying when we were going through the adoption process. Nobody wants to know that some people never get chosen. Show some kindness. Even to ugly people.

Some of our dearest friends have grown their families through adoption, and they have their own contributions to make, such as, “How can you ever love your adopted child as much as your biological children?” (Because the heart just grows bigger that way. Because the same God who adopted us into His family loves us just as much as the natural kids. Because love grows from the heart, not from the uterus.)

I am grateful for the input from people who have been on the receiving end of thoughtless comments and questions to help the rest of us be more loving in the way we interact with others.

Do you have anything to add to this list?

This blog post originally appeared at
blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/what_not_to_say_adoption
on Sept. 28, 2010.

Recently I watched Disney’s The Kid again. This is a movie recommended by a counselor friend of mine, and I have heard of several other counselors who assign people to watch it because of its insights into why we can become the adults we are. Bruce Willis plays a not very nice man who meets up with his 8-year-old self, and the two have some important information to give each other.

There is a scene where a friend helps him process what it means to be talking to his little boy self, and asks, “What would I say if little Deirdre turned up, bursting out of her St. Mary’s uniform, asking me what comes next?” Suddenly, my eyes welled with tears at the thought: what would I say if little 8-year-old Susan LeClair appeared in my living room? What would I want her to know, after 30+ years of intentionally seeking “wisdom beyond my years,” the prayer the Lord instructed me to pray for myself right after becoming a Christian?

Here’s my first pass:

“You are not damaged goods. You are not the ugly crippled girl you think you are. God made you beautiful, and He put you in a handicapped body to greater put His glory on display. Your frailty will make your gifts, and your intensity, less threatening to others. When His joy radiates out from you, He will get the glory, and you will love that. It’s OK that you had polio. One day, your scars will be beauty marks, and you will see that your ever-present limp simply is. It’s not a shameful thing. Jacob’s limp was the souvenir Yahweh chose for his nighttime wrestling match with Him.

“Your purity is a precious gift. Don’t let anyone steal it from you.

“Your intellect doesn’t make you better than anyone else. It’s like the color of your hair or eyes. It’s just part of the package God put together when He made you. Yes, you’re smart. Don’t be a show-off about it. That’s ugly. And nobody will figure out, especially seventh-grade girls who will leave a deep wound on your soul, that you’re desperately trying to cover up a core of shame by proving you’re not hopelessly rotten, damaged, not-OK. Speaking of which, you ARE hopelessly rotten, damaged, and not-OK in your flesh, the part of you that operates independently from God. That part of you deserves to die, and one day you’ll recognize that and it will be crucified with Jesus. Then He’ll give you a new heart and a new spirit that is whole and perfect and indescribably lovely—just like Him. You will realize that all the parts of you that you really like are all gifts from Jesus or His character shining through you.

“Oh, and Mom tells you that since your eyes change color depending on what you’re wearing, you have hazel eyes. You don’t. They’re green. Mom doesn’t know everything, but it will take you 40 more years to learn that.”

In the movie, Deirdre says she would answer little Deirdre’s question by saying, “Baby, don’t you worry about a thing. Everything’s just going to be great!” If it were me, I’d cup little Susan’s face in my hand and reassure her, “Sweetheart, I’m not going to spoil the adventure by telling you how it’s going to play out. I can just promise you that because you’ll put your trust in Jesus in college, He’s going to give you a life so full of joy that you can’t begin to imagine it right now. He’s not going to make your dreams come true; He’s going to give you new and better dreams, and make those come true. There will be pain, but the joy and richness will far outpace it. It’s going to be a delightful life, sweetie. I promise.”

What would you say to your 8-year-old self?

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/what_would_you_say_to_your_8-year-old_self on June 9, 2009.

Yesterday (August 3, 2009), Ray and I celebrated 35 years of marriage. My good friend and fellow Engage blogger Gwynne Johnsons wrote on my Facebook, “Congratulations . . . got you beat by 15 years : ) 🙂 …Good guys are the BEST of God’s gifts . . .” Amen to that!

We’ve been privileged to walk through almost all those years with our dear friends and fellow Probe Ministries staff Kerby and Susanne Anderson (whom you may recognize from the national radio show Point of View), who were married the same day. Last night, as we visited together, I asked the Andersons and Ray what they had learned over our 35 years, and we were all in agreement about the basics.

The non-negotiable part of a successful marriage is to continually love, accept and forgive the other. That starts with the absolute commitment to mean and to live out our wedding vows. It’s a covenant, a “promise on steroids,” that goes far beyond “I promise to be here as long as love shall last.”

I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned for sure over 35 years.

As one of our pastors once said, “The AIDS of marriage is justified self-centeredness.” Selfishness is a oneness-killer. God intends to use our spouse to shape us and mold us and give us daily opportunities to crucify our flesh, our self-centeredness, as He forms us into the people He intends us to be.

It’s helpful to see marriage as two “forgiven forgivers.” Extending forgiveness as we have received it from God, as quickly as possible, keeps the oneness and intimacy flowing.

We need to keep a balance between what we overlook and let go from a heart of grace, and what we need to address because it is big enough to cause us to withdraw from the other. Godly conflict resolution is essential for living well with another sinner.

Cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” and verbally expressing gratitude for the small things the other does to serve and love us, goes a long way.

There is no substitute for creating habits of kindness toward our spouse. And we are just as pleasant and courteous to each others as we are to strangers, which is simply a habit as well as a character issue.

Learning about communication skills truly enhances the marriage relationship. The most powerful tools I’ve ever come across, and which we have made a part of how we live with each other, are:
1. Don’t interrupt the other person.
2. Tell the other what you heard to make sure you understood them right.
3. Avoid being a WENI (sounds like “weenie”): Withdrawing, Escalating when arguing, Negatively interpreting what the other is saying, and Invalidating the other.

God has been good, and we thank Him for His blessing of a great friendship and relationship with each other!

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/35_years_and_counting

Last year (June 8, 2010) I blogged about Twilight, connecting the dots between the supernatural vampire character of Edward Cullen and Jesus. I suggested that perhaps the reason millions of people so resonate with that character is that what they’re really looking for is the glory and perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, which Edward appears to manifest in various ways.

Since then, I have read all the books and done months of research. It’s like pulling the camera focus back, back, back. . . . and finding some extremely disturbing details now in our field of vision.

I have now come to a very different conclusion.

I was stunned to learn about how the idea for Twilight came to the author, Stephenie Meyer. She tells this story:

“I woke up . . . from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately.”

“Fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire”? Consider what vampires are, in the vampire genre that arose in the 1800s: demon-possessed, undead, former human beings who suck blood from their victims to sustain themselves. A vampire is evil. And the vampire who came to Stephenie Meyer in a dream is not only supernaturally beautiful and sparkly, but when she awoke she was deeply in love with this being who virtually moved into her head, creating conversations for months that she typed out (obsessively, she says) until Twilight was written.

When I heard this part of the story, it gave me chills. 2 Corinthians 11:14 tells us that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, which is a perfect description of the Edward Cullen character.

Then I learned that “Edward” came to Meyer in a second dream that frightened her. She said, “I had this dream that Edward actually showed up and told me that I got it all wrong and like he exists and everything but he couldn’t live off animals. . . and I kind of got the sense he was going to kill me. It was really terrifying and bizarrely different from every other time I’ve thought about his character.”

I believe that Stephenie Meyer’s dream was not your ordinary dream. The fact that “Edward” came to her in a second dream that terrified her (but she dismissed it and kept on writing), indicates this may have been a demonic visitation. I do believe Twilight was demonically inspired.

But there’s more.

All four books are permeated with the occult. The Twilight vampires all have various kinds of powers that don’t come from God. They are supernaturally fast, supernaturally strong, able to read others’ minds and control others’ feelings. Some can tell the future, others can see things at great distances. These aspects of the occult are an important part of what makes Twilight so successful.

In both the Old and New Testaments, God strongly warns us not to have anything to do with the occult,  which is part of the “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13). Twilight glorifies the occult, the very thing God calls detestable (Deuteronomy 18:9). This is reason enough for Christ-followers to stay away from it!

Last year I wondered if Edward was something of a Christ-figure. Now I think this character is a devious spiritual counterfeit to Jesus that has captured the hearts of millions of obsessed fans who are in love with a demonic “angel of light.”

And they don’t know it.

Note: My article on the Probe website is now online, with much more information than what’s in this blog post: probe.org/twilight

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/a_new_look_at_twilight_different_conclusion

August 26, 2008

At our son’s rehearsal dinner, we invited our guests to come up to a podium for a time of addressing the happy couple. Kevin had asked for this since his now-wife’s love language is words of affirmation. (But even if he hadn’t, we would have planned that anyway. I’m a huge believer in helping people love and encourage each other publicly.) My husband, as the host, first welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming, then it was my turn.

I had donned a bright red, brand new apron for the occasion and spoke to my precious new daughter-in-love. “For 24 years I have been the number one woman in Kevin’s life, but that ends now. Lauren, I have a gift for you. . .” I untied the apron and gathered the strings in my left hand, and from a pocket on the apron I pulled out a pair of scissors with the other. I snipped off the strings and handed them to Lauren.

Her mother exclaimed out loud, “She’s cutting off the apron strings!” But Lauren’s face was a mixture of bewilderment and confusion. She was clearly thinking, “What’s going on?!??”

All the people in the room over 40 knew what I was doing: making a symbolic statement that I was no longer Mommy, and I would not be mothering my son the way I did up to that point in his life. But the under-40 crowd didn’t have a clue. Many of them hadn’t seen their mothers in an apron, and the expression “cutting off the apron strings” as a metaphor for letting a child go free into adulthood was foreign to them.

In my fantasy, it was going to be a sweet, tender and powerful moment. I was going to make an eloquent statement that would communicate to everyone there my faith in Kevin to be a full adult man and my promise to his bride that I would not interfere with the priorities of his affections.

It sure didn’t turn out that way!

It was more like lamely having to explain the punch line of a joke.

Which is why we need to be aware of how culture shifts and changes, and that what is relevant to one generation may well be lost to the next. If we want to minister to women across all age ranges, we need to keep our eyes and ears open to what it’s like to be 20, or 30, or 40, or beyond. My son and his wife live on a college campus where they are surrounded by youth culture, and they have already blessed me with perspective on songs I need to be aware of, and the ways college students are thinking and processing life.

Which is why, when Glamour magazine started arriving unordered at my house, I didn’t toss it. I read it. Yikes!

And Lord have mercy.

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/aprons_and_glamour