What do we tell them? How about the truth.

So I hurt Julien’s (pronounced Juleen) feeling yesterday. It turns out that playing Angry Birds or Photo Booth on my IPAD motivates the kids to read and study their math facts like crazy. So, we work on them and they earn time alone with the IPAD. What a headache. I was actually out of breath from doing math facts and managing the IPAD sessions a bit ago… after 3 solid hours. I am retreating to my room for a bit.

So yesterday Julien had earned time on the IPAD and I let someone go in front of her. She shut down on me and sat on the outside swing by herself. She is now the oldest girl at the Ark at 14 and she is in 9^th grade. She hangs out with the younger kids, is a bit of a tomboy, and loves to dress up too. She knows her math times tables better than anyone here; she said she learned them because her teacher hit her if she didn’t. I know that sounds shocking but she assured me it wasn’t hard and she is not glad the teacher made her.

She is dark skinned and reminds me of an African queen.

I tried to reach out to her, apologized, kissed her forehead. I realized she had silent tears streaming down her face and to the dirt. But, I couldn’t reach her.

I kissed her forehead again and told her I am here when she is ready to talk. I went to work with the 4 who were doing math facts with me on the play platform several feet away. Andy came home from running an errand. I told him to see if he could talk to her. Did he ever.

I could overhear him telling her how special she is and that she was made, not only by God; but, in God’s image. They discussed this; I couldn’t hear everything. She said she wants to come to America. He said, “Ok. You can and you can stay with us. First, you need to keep working so hard in school, get a job, and save up. You can stay with us and we will show you all the great fun things to see.” Then he asked if she would get pregnant before she got married. She adamantly said no because that would make these things impossible. He then spoke with her about how important she is and she will be to her husband if she gets married. Precious bits of conversation, teachable moments, meaningful and hopefully powerful for her future.

The program that used to be called, “Choose to Wait” isn’t really about waiting to have sex until after marriage. It is more the idea that God has a plan for our lives NOW and we can either choose to live by his design or suffer consequences…like having a machine that is being misused and will break down. The program is now called “Genesis Design.” I wondered about the name at first. I am often challenged by the Book of Genesis. I still don’t understand why the Tower of Babel was such a big deal to God, why God set up the adversarial relationship between Ismael (the Muslims) and Isaac (the Jews and Christian), why evil even existed in the first place…

On the other hand, the Book of Genesis saved me from the life of confusion and hurt I once lived. It taught me how to forgive as I studied Joseph and how he forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery. He saw that God meant to use such a hurtful thing that his brothers meant for pain for the good of many. He forgave his brothers with the wailing sounds that sometimes are needed to let go of pain. God also showed me my true reason for being on this earth in Genesis. I think I’ll leave that for more personal conversation, but it was revolutionary and counter-intuitive for me and has made all the difference in leading me to the congruent life I always wanted.

Genesis also shows that God uses very flawed people, like me. He calls, he equips, he goes before those who chose to trust him, and goes behind us. We are safe into eternity, starting the second we chose to accept the gift of God’s grace through Jesus. Yes, Jesus was present in Genesis. He just hadn’t become flesh yet. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all there as evidenced by close study of God’s Word.

So, back to what CHI professes through Genesis Design. We have individual, personal, extraordinary value because we have a Maker, he has a manual that tells us we are made in his image, and we are loved beyond imagination. Our purpose and the purpose of God’s ways are to bring blessing, and we can choose to follow the path to our greatest blessings or choose to experience the consequences.

Now, I can just hear people saying, “So you think God sent HIV/AIDS to punish!?!”

No, but the idea that I grew up with and almost everyone I know believes is that we can treat sex so lightly that it is simply recreational. No big deal between consenting adults. The idea that sex is special enough to be shared only between 1 man and 1 woman within a marriage is so foreign that most of us can not even imagine waiting until after marriage! The fact is, sex outside of the marriage commitment certainly is causing this pandemic of death, destruction, and fatherless children. So…the Lord didn’t cause HIV/AIDS to start and he didn’t create the consequences. If we were living his way, the consequences would not occur to even a small fraction of the millions it is affecting.

So. Does this mean we get married to have a license to have sex? This is the insinuation of many people when our kids get married young. I had more than one person advise me to tell Cameron and Hailey to just get it over with so they wouldn’t get married so young. No. Marriage is not for sex. Marriage is for love. But…Sex is for marriage. It is so special and so sacred. Oh how I wish I had seen it this way when I was very young because I didn’t, and I grieve the losses.

Fortunately, on the spiritual side, we can be made new when we realize that we have missed the target. We are told to go to God Our Father, tell him we realize we missed the mark, and ask Him for a new start. We know this is not only possible but assured because, again, the manual says it is and I believe it.

So that is my short summary of Genesis Design. It is not my thinking but God’s, put into a program by Sylvia Holtzhausen and others who know their stuff. They look at the original manuscripts, carefully study translations, and have opened my eyes to the beauty of our creation.

Thank you, Sylvia! Now, if you are reading this, please pray for others to like Juliene to live by her Creator’s Manual, live life in Him, have a future and a hope worthy of one so loved and cherished.