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This week I welcome, Christi Avant Watson to sit with us on the back porch on Rocky Top.  It may be cold outside but this blog will warm and challenge your heart!    Christi is my oldest daughter.  She has performed on stage as an actress/singer to audiences of thousands but recently she experienced something that brought her more joy than the applause of an audience.  My momma’s heart is full knowing she is learning to live on a daily basis to an audience of ONE!

Today my American passport feels heavier, and it’s not because I have an extra stamp.

Last week I sat in a foreign coffee shop getting to know a new friend. Lovely hazel eyes locked on mine from the shadow of a veil covering her hair and forehead. Her eyes were consumed with a hunger to vicariously experience my life. Why? I am an American woman.

“Is United States like the movies?” she asked in broken English.

“In what way?” I responded.

“Can you go where you want? Can you do what you want?”

Linguistically, I understood, but I also understood like a woman in the dark understands a flashlight, and suddenly the passport I kept hidden snug around my waist felt like lead. Even though my new friend is well educated and in her late twenties, she must have a male relative escort her home after dark, not because the streets aren’t safe but because otherwise she is suspected of “impurity.” Without her family’s permission, my new friend cannot travel, because as a woman, she is considered incapable of such an independent pursuit. Even if her family approved travel plans, my friend is limited on where she can go without being raped or killed. For my new friend, selecting her own husband is a daydream.

On my friend’s passport, her religion is stamped in permanent ink. A mark on her heart that differed from the one on her passport could be paid for with her blood. Within the confines of her religion, God is inaccessible to my new friend when she is menstruating, after she sleeps with her husband, and for at least six weeks after she gives birth. The very things that were created unique to women make her dirty before her god.

Her questions led to some of my own. Why am I dished out such freedom while she heads out the door, in a headpiece chosen for her, to a world that expects nothing from her? I don’t know. I do know that this busted-up, unjust world looks an awful lot like the only one that makes sense when the daughters of Eve chose what we did not have over the Giver of life, and the sons of Adam stood by and let it happen. I do know that anything good found in the rubble of the Fall, like the freedom I have because of my American passport, is a gift to be invested and not wasted.

Because I am a woman in America, I am free on this Earth. Because I am a citizen of Heaven, I am free in Christ.  Neither set of liberties make sense and neither set of liberties came cheap.

Before I walked a mile in my new friend’s homeland, I never realized the weight of responsibility I carry as a daughter of the King with an American passport.

Yes, sweet new friend, I can do what I want, so I won’t waste hours of my truly FREE time comparing or complaining on social media. I will use my unique gifts to invest my time in people, places, and experiences that are eternal. I will use my freedom of speech to bring life to my home and my workplace. I will use my freedom of religion to practice the “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27) so that one day my sweet new friend may be truly free.

American women, we are guaranteed freedom on Earth because of the blood of those who have gone before us and because of the blood of God’s Son, but we are NOT guaranteed how much time we have. For all our American freedoms, I see fear keeping us in bondage while the clock is ticking on God’s patience. When we stay behind our computer screens rather than getting involved, we might as well pick up a scarf and hide our face. “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’” (Matthew 16: 24-26).

A cross in your heart and an American passport in your hands is a call to die to apathy and rise in action. Our American freedoms are a blessing from God, but the very best of God’s blessings become curses when we hoard them, and this explains the joy I felt worshipping with believers who have NO American freedoms, and the lack of joy I so often feel in American churches. Our God is THE gift giver. We are created in HIS image. When he gives us a gift, it is always meant to be given away. Rather than being defined by the gift-Giver and His sacrificial mission, we allow our gifts to define who we are until we don’t know who we are. When I began surrendering the gifts that defined my identity, at first, it felt like death, but as I waited for the emptiness to come, I found a life wealthier than I ever could have imagined coming at me like a tsunami. Do you want to experience a flood of joy? Don’t wait another minute. Take your American privileges and the unique gifts that you’ve been given, and die to yourself. Go broke spending them all on someone else in the name of Jesus. Then, open up your hands and get ready to experience a freedom no passport can grant you, and no oppressor can strip away.

It was December 2001, Preacher was outside hanging up Christmas lights on a warm December afternoon in Georgia. The driveway was still wet from a short morning rain. I had just gone outside to encourage and thank him for working so hard to hang up our Christmas lights. Preacher hates doing things like this…..anything involving electricity or repairing something brings him much frustration because it usually ends up in some sort of disaster. This day would be no exception.

When I went outside he was already in frustration mode because he couldn’t figure out why some light bulbs were not working. He was barefoot on the wet pavement. I had on tennis shoes. As I was watching him, he picked up two exposed wires just about the time I leaned in to give him an encouraging kiss. Yep……….that is when I received the most electrifying kiss of our marriage.

We both fell down on the pavement and I began to scream, “I’ve been shocked. I’ve been shocked.”

About this time, 11 year old Trey ran out of the house in his camo with his BB gun ready to protect his parents who were lying on the pavement. Trey had heard me yelling, but thought I was screaming, “I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot.”

As funny as that story seems, Trey’s reaction to what he heard me scream came from the beginning of a new era in our nation……….raising children in the age of terror.

This generation and the ones to follow have become a part of a new era.  This era began with our children witnessing the fall of the twin towers, hurricanes destroy cities, tsunamis kill thousands, gunmen murder people in movie theatres, teenagers kill and wound fellow students in classrooms, terrorist kill those just trying to enjoy a cup of coffee. These children have seen it all in color on big screen TVs and on their IPADS and lap tops.

How does one raise a child in the age of terror? …….How does one raise a child to not live in fear but in hope in confidence??

1. Limit their exposure to TV news. When tragic events are going on in the world, be careful how much exposure children and even students have to these events on TV, IPADS and laptops. If they do see tragedy, talk to them about it. Reassure them we serve a Sovereign God who is in control!! FOX news does not need to be the constant blare in the background of any home!
2. Teach them God’s word! We need to arm our children not just with BB guns, we need to arm them with His word! We need to arm ourselves with His word! There is a reason God’s word talks about fear over 300 times. Teach it to them and live it out! “For God does not give us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.” II Timothy 1:7   The “power” in this verse is the same “power” that rose Christ from the dead. The “love” in this verse is the same “love” that caused Christ to lay down His life for us! And the “sound mind” is a mind that can distinguish truth from a lie. We must teach our kids to be able to distinguish truth from a lie. When they are afraid, we need to ask them what is “Truth” in this situation? What does God’s word say?   When we arm them with God’s word we instill God confidence into their lives and enable them to live on the offense and not on the defense.
3. Give them Hope!   How does one give Hope in this world that seems so out of control? The best way to give any young person hope is for them to see that Christ in them can make a difference in this world. Allow your child to serve others!!!

• Make a meal together for a family in need!
• Choose to go without something in order to provide for someone in need….make an Operation Christmas child box together. Or buy a pair of shoes for a child who needs them.
• Go sing Christmas carols at the nursing home or to a shut in.
• Allow your student to go on a mission trip……..YES……..even overseas or to cities that are far away!!! Parents if you cling on to your student in fear……you will raise a young adult who makes decisions based on fear!!! If you want to raise God-confident adults, lead them to make decisions based on what God is leading them to do and not based on fear!

Our world is in desperate need of adults who are risk-takers for HIS KINGDOM!!! We don’t need a generation of adults who cling to mommy’s apron and are afraid to take risks because of fear.

We need to raise a generation of young people who hold out HOPE to others! We need to raise a generation who shock this world with the love of Jesus Christ!!!