We Are Not Alone!!

I'm still in Missouri with 4 of my children, so I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store.  As we went through the check-out line, I was disgusted once again by some of the magazines in plain view for my children to see.  Trying to save the rest of the world from viewing the magazines, Jordan said, "I'm looking for magazines to turn around that are immodest."  Mariah exclaimed, "There are too many!  They're all immodest- except for this one."  She was looking at a picture of Jennifer Hudson.  I was so grateful that Jennifer Hudson could show her beauty on the cover of a magazine in such a modest way.  I told them both not to look for the bad magazines- there were too many-so they should just look away.  Jordan looked up at the ceiling and elsewhere until we checked out. 

I'm not a prude... I'm really not.  I don't like it, but I get it... Some people want to wear tiny swimsuits in magazines, but I believe there is a HUGE difference in the sexual tone of many of these magazines.

Feeling very alone in my quest to have a safe, unsexualized place for my kids to go grocery shopping, I decided to do my part anyway and turned over the worst of the bunch- the Cosmopolitan magazine- which was featuring a sexy woman showing most of her chest. 

I recently made a phone call to a store manager about an even worse version of Cosmopolitan magazine in the check-out lane in Michigan.  He assured me they were looking into rearranging the entire check-out isles to not expose children to too much candy either... the candy was the priority???... I felt disappointed thinking that maybe the rest of the world doesn't think the sexually charged magazines are as bad as I think they are.

God reminded me of a miracle HE had given me a couple of years ago to remind me that my fight is not alone.

We were traveling, and my children and I stopped off at a gas station in Kansas.  The boys went to stand in line for the bathroom.  I was paying for my gas when they suddenly left the line and ran up to me.  Right at the bathroom entrance, at eye level for my small children to see, was a HORRIBLE magazine that was very sexually explicit in it's nature.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  This was definitely not just immodesty.  I couldn't even turn it over!  It was explicit on both sides!!  I quickly sent my boys to another part of the store- away from the magazine- and I called the employee over to see what was there.  I told him we needed to get rid of it.  He explained that it wasn't his store, so there was nothing he could do about it. 

I told him there was!!  (I didn't raise my voice, but I was firm.)  I explained to him that exposing children to pornography like this had to be against the law, so he had a choice to either take it off the rack or I would call the police to check it out.  The poor employee got a box for me.  He said he couldn't take it off the shelf as an employee, but he would let me do it.  Grateful for his cooperation, once again, I felt very alone in my quest to protect my children from the sexualized world as I quietly dumped the magazines into the box. 

Right then, a very big, tall man walked into the store and headed right toward me.  He said,  "My wife saw you in here and what you were doing... she told me I had no choice but to come in here and help you get rid of these magazines."  Towering above both me and the other employee he took down the whole magazine rack!  I was surprised and said, "These too?"  He said, "Yep, these need to go too."  The whole rack really was quite as nasty, but I had only demanded the worst to be gone.  The employee closed up the box and took the whole box to the back room of the store.

It was a miracle from God to let me know that my fight was not alone nor in vain.  Even though the world is accepting a higher level of nastiness, there are still many good people that are fighting for righteousness.  We are not alone in this fight- God wanted me to know this.  I believe this man's wife had wanted it gone for a long time, but they were empowered by my fight as I was strengthened by theirs.  My miracle couldn't have come from a better source either... HE sent the biggest man around to stand with me to fight the pornography.