Wednesday August 9, 2006
Day Three of Seven
Written by Guest Blogger:
Eva Marie Everson

My 25-year-old daughter Jessica and I have now written two books together. The first one, Sex, Lies and the Media (Amazon.com: Sex, Lies And the Media: Books: Eva Marie Everson,Jessica Everson ) is a look at media's influence on youth culture. We have spent several weekends over this past year traveling from city to city to speak to parents on this subject only to discover that the parents who come are the ones already hardest hit by the effects and not those who want to know what to do to help their children when the effects hit. Bottom line is: they think it can't happen to them. They believe, as I once did, that because they live in the Christian home and raise their children with Christian values, the world won't come knocking at the doors of their children. Or, that if it does, their children won't answer.

Jessica and I are living proof that this simply is not the way it works and we talk about it as honestly as anything you'll ever read in our book. The world knocks and even Christian kids answer. The key is to help them to be IN the world but not OF it. To function normally. To survive.

For example, my granddaughter and I were shopping in the mall a few weeks ago, buying school clothes for her and maybe a baubble or two for me. A song on the overhead sound system was one that even my 8-year-old granddaughter knew was inappropriate, as she calls it. Did we run out of the mall screaming? No. I used it as a teaching moment and we talked about it.

Jessica and I discuss how to do all this in our book. We've been on The Coral Ridge Hour (Coral Ridge Hour Broadcasts) and several other shows. Yesterday we traveled to the Tampa Bay area, leaving early in the morning and returning late in the afternoon, to film HOMEKEEPERS
(Christian Television Network ) with Arthelene Rippy. Our hostess, a lovely woman of God!, was so enthralled by what we had to say, she asked us to stay and film a second show. A third show featured "just me" talking about my speaking ministry (Eva Marie) ...which was fun, too. Before we left she asked that we come again when our next book, Sex, Lies and High School (Amazon.com: Sex, Lies, And High School: What Your Teens Are Learning And Aren't Telling You: Books: Eva Marie Everson,Jessica.. ) is released.

A half hour after I got home I was teaching our homegroup Bible Study.

All in all...a pretty good day's work. But I'm tired....

So, until tomorrow....

Eva Marie Everson