{"id":2572,"date":"2012-11-02T17:08:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T00:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2014-09-03T11:20:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T18:20:09","slug":"idku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2012\/idku\/","title":{"rendered":"IDKU"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:right; width:110px; height:475px; border:1px solid red; margin-left:40px; margin-right:-15px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/mvp\/wp-content\/tiffany-idk-you.png\" alt=\"modified photograph of T\" \/><\/div>\n<p>I. Don&#8217;t. Know. You.<\/p>\n<p>I wasn&#8217;t looking for you. I found you during a Web search for one of my many friends. Now I&#8217;ve seen you &#8212; far more of you than I, who am not your husband, should have seen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you mean to look sad?<\/strong> Perhaps you were trying to look seductive or at least inviting, kneeling upright there in the grass.<\/p>\n<p>But what&#8217;s striking and attention-grabbing to me is your face, not the rest of your body. <b>You look sad<\/b>, T. (I&#8217;d make this even more personal by using your name, but then I would be helping the curious and the perverts to find you.)<\/p>\n<p>Do you look sad because you know&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top:-1.3em\">\n<li>you are giving away your &#8220;scenic views&#8221; so cheaply?<\/li>\n<li>you have little prime &#8220;real estate&#8221; left covered and unexploited?<\/li>\n<li>you are demeaning yourself for little return?<\/li>\n<li>you two have turned you into mere eye candy for lustful men?<\/li>\n<li>you won&#8217;t get the affection your soul craves?<\/li>\n<li>you should be protecting your modesty and your value?<\/li>\n<li>the photographer should have protected your modesty and your value?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Or is the sad face your attempt to sear an unspoken truth into the eyes and conscience of the photog and all other lookers? <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Then again, maybe it&#8217;s just my imagination. Maybe you aren&#8217;t sad.<\/p>\n<p>Whether you are or aren&#8217;t, I&#8217;m sad for you. (And for the photographer as well, come to think of it.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>You are meant for better.<\/strong> Far better.<\/p>\n<p>You are meant to <em>be<\/em> better. Far better.<\/p>\n<p>You are meant to <em>have<\/em> better. Far better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>He who created you did not design you and form you and give you life for this . . . this . . . <i>use<\/i>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I pray you find your Creator and your Good Shepherd. I pray that He becomes your Redeemer. May you find in Jesus Christ true fulness, satisfaction, joy, peace, meaning, and worth.<\/p>\n<p>Do I still have the original copy of the above photo? <span class=\"verse\">Absolutely. Not.<\/span> It was on my computer only long enough for me to hastily replace it with the above version. And while I had it, I didn&#8217;t violate you &#8212; as though merely seeing you so exposed were no violation of itself, even as short and dispassionate as that seeing was.<\/p>\n<p>When I know you aren&#8217;t likely to read this, why post it? (Maybe I hope the Sovereign One will draw you here&#8230;and draw you to Himself.)<\/p>\n<p>When I know the potential peril to my own reputation, why post it?<\/p>\n<p>Primarily, I guess I&#8217;m appealing to Christian men to <span class=\"verse\">value any woman as her Creator values her<\/span>&#8230;and view her and treat her accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>Secondarily, though no less, I&#8217;m appealing to women, especially Christian women, to <span class=\"verse\">protect their virtue and integrity<\/span>. (I don&#8217;t understand why so many of you want to show us what we shouldn&#8217;t see, no matter how nice it may be.)<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, though, perhaps the biggest benefit of posting this is to me. While the replacement image above did not immediately erase the original&#8217;s imprint on my mind, thinking about this article and composing it strongly reinforces right thinking. (Thankfully, the original image already has faded substantially from my conscious mind.)<\/p>\n<p>So, no, I don&#8217;t know you.<\/p>\n<p>And, no, I didn&#8217;t look for you.<\/p>\n<p>You came into my consciousness quite &#8220;by accident,&#8221; but I hope much good comes from it&#8230;and this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I wish you the discovery and full enjoyment of God&#8217;s best for you.<\/strong> To that end, I wish you the Creator&#8217;s blessing, T.<\/p>\n<table style=\"width:100%; border:none\">\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width:55%\">\n<strong>Other articles by Mark Roth<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top:-1.3em\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/too-cheap\/\" title=\"Too Cheap\">Too Cheap<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/2008\/misused-beauty\/\" title=\"Misused Beauty\">Misused Beauty<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.anabaptists.org\/writings\/softporn.html\" title=\"Alarm! &amp; Just Another Catalog?\">Alarm!<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.anabaptists.org\/clp\/youth\/5-409.html\" title=\"Safeguarding Moral Purity\">Safeguarding Moral Purity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/2008\/defraud-not\/\" title=\"Defraud Not\">Defraud Not<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2011\/seduced-he-went-after-her\/\" title=\"Seduced: He Went After Her\">Seduced: He Went After Her<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width:45%\">\n<strong>Three recommended books<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top:-1.3em\">\n<li><a class=\"amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0878136460\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0878136460&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=markroth-ac-20\">Daughters of Eve, Daughters of God<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B001E0XVOC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=B001E0XVOC&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=markroth-ac-20\">Living a Pure Life<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1890050717\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=1890050717&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=markroth-ac-20\">Keep Yourself Pure<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn\u2019t violate you \u2014 as though seeing you exposed were no violation.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,999,534],"tags":[416,595,800],"class_list":["post-2572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lessons-for-living","category-soul-and-spirit","category-todays-thought","tag-morality","tag-purity","tag-relationships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/srJUJ-idku","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}