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Most of us who have spent any amount of time in a church pew have heard the story known as "the prodigal son". The son in this passage breaks social and religious custom by demanding his inheritance early and leaving the family home. We understand that the parable involves a son, but the principles illustrated by Jesus equally apply to God's daughters who might have wandered away from home. There are women and young girls sitting in every church in Ohio who have made bad decisions that affect not only their lives, but the lives of their friends and family. Everything from marrying the wrong man, to allowing themselves to be used as a punching bag, and everything in between. Some of them have messed up with their money, and others have not exercised caution and discretion in their entertainment habits and find themselves addicted to pornography or gruesomely violent books and movies. There are a wide variety of problems Black women are dealing with, but many of them revolve around sexual behavior and choices, and the inevitable consequences of those choices. Black women are being diagnosed with HIV at alarming rates. Almost half of young Black girls are now infected with a sexually transmitted disease. Black women have 38% of the abortions in this country. Walking the hallways of local high schools are Black girls who have either begun experimenting with homosexuality, or are full-blown lesbians. Most Black women are now giving birth to children without being married to the child's father. These are indeed serious problems, but what's the real problem here? Is it poverty, or lack of economic opportunity? Is it discrimination and prejudice? Is it because 42.3% of Black women have never been married? These circumstances can combine together to make it more difficult for women to make the right choices about their bodies and their lives, but behavior is something ultimately controlled by the woman herself. So then why are we making decisions that are destroying our lives? "Where there is no vision, the people perish, but whoso keepeth the law, happy is he". That's what Proverbs tells us. In this verse, perish also means to cast off restraint, and vision means revelation knowledge from God. So put another way, it's saying, when people do not receive and accept knowledge of and from God, they cast off restraint. But now the question becomes, why aren't we accepting and receiving knowledge of and from God? Could it be our persistent insistence on living according to the deception of the mass media and refusing to turn to God? " 'They pile lie upon lie and utterly refuse to acknowledge me,' says the Lord." That's what Jeremiah says. In many ways similar to the prodigal son, God's own daughters have angrily snatched our inheritance from the Lord-His protection, mercy, and grace-and have strut off to do our own thing. But now we find ourselves in the hog pen: stricken with disease, struggling to hold on to ungodly relationships, killing our own children in the womb, giving our bodies and hearts to those who don't deserve them and could never repay what we've given them. And you know what? Some of our sisters are stubborn enough to keep repeating the lie they've heard so often in the beauty shop, on tv, and yes, even in some of our churches-the lie that we are in fact not in the hog pen, but "living high on the hog." We're being told that we have achieved ultimate freedom and justice because we can now do whatever we want with our bodies, and no one can stop us. Sleep with whomever you want, just use a condom or take a pill. If that fails, have the baby sucked out or cut out of your body. Have sex with men, women, or both-it's your right. But are we really free? Does hunting down a man to pay you to help take care of your child feel like freedom? When you're alone after the five minutes of sex he “gave” you, do you feel carefree and liberated? Is taking 20 pills a day to temporarily hold back a disease that is ravaging your body and will eventually kill you, your civil right? Like the prodigal son, God's daughters have a way out. Come back home. It may take some serious effort, but the first step is to come to your senses. That's what the son in the story did. He took an honest look at his situation and realized he'd been duped. He was a son, but had reduced himself to a vagabond hanging out with pigs in a place that did not recognize or acknowledge who he was. My precious sisters, look around you. Call that wild, unrestrained life you’ve been living what it is-a hog pen. Then call out to God. He will give you the strength to come to your senses and come back home. And believe me, He will run to you even before you make it all the way back, throw Himself on your neck, and love you like you've never been loved before. Don't stay out there another minute. He's calling you back home. Chandra White-Cummings
Director, Dayton Black Americans for Life
www.daytonblackamericansforlife.org
(937) 461-5433
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