Tabloids.

I feel like there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who like Taylor Swift and those who don’t.
That being said, I spent the holiday week with my fam in the city : )

'Merica.

 Then I drove through one of those gorgeous neighborhoods. I want to live here. 

I had to stop and take a picture of my dream house. Oh man. If any of you readers live in this house, please invite me over.

I would even take the ivy-covered cottage.

 

Stucco. Total swoon. I will pick stucco every time.

Can't get enough of that kid.

Grandma cuddles are the best.

 

American much?

Can't have a vacation without that embarrassing moment at McD's when they ask how many creams you want in your medium coffee and you go, "Ah....ha....um....haha.....FOUR."

God is good. Do you know that today?

I hope so.

~~~

When I was in the city I was at my grandmother’s one day, and, like always, there on her coffee table was People magazine along with Vanity Fair. Not magazines I read at home, but at grandma’s house? Yeah, I page through them, I admit.
Anyway, there gracing the cover of VF was none other than America’s sweetheart herself: Taylor Swift.
Say what you want, I am in the “like” category. I know, I had the same thought: aren’t I a little old for that?
The answer is yes. And no.
Taylor Swift writes about what every American girl either

A.      Thinks about or

B.      Has thought about.

That’s why she is endearing. And I think for a long time she was really liked by the masses. Rightfully so; she is like the anit-Lohan of girls that age (huzzah!). Not a whole lot of scandal with this blond. And sure, she had her skeptics: the pop crowd thought she was too country (give her a break! She lives in Nashville, what do you expect?!), and the country crowd thought she was too pop (give her a break! She grew up in the suburbs in Pennsylvania! What do you expect?), some complained she wasn’t a great singer (but then again, she never claimed to be Celine Dion…), etc. And sure, she apparently thinks about boys a lot. But she is an unmarried girl in her twenties- what else is new.

I don’t care. I think she is fun and adorable, and I had an assistant once who looks just like her, so I guess I am partial. Because I loved that assistant and I associate the two of them together.

How do I ramble so?

As I was saying, I was reading an article about her in VF and it talked a bit about how lately, unlike at the beginning of her career, she is getting a lot of flack. People- other celebrities, tabloids- are saying nasty mean things about her. Being downright ugly to her. Scorning her.

How rude.

Can you imagine, saying in print, or at an awards show, or in an interview, nasty terrible things about some person? Some person who, like the article mentioned, a lot of those talkers had never even met before?
(Sadly, I have said terrible nasty things in my life. And probably worse is that it has always been about someone I know. Of these things I am not proud, but I wanted you to know that I have been in that boat.)

But this article got me thinking. And maybe just the week in general, being in a city surrounded by millions of people everywhere, so much busyness, so much—showy-ness, being out of my cute routined life, reading less-than-kosher magazines, it all got me thinking. It all made me very aware of just how much unholiness there is in this world.

How there is like zero regard for God among the culture of the world.

It turns my stomach.

Taylor Swift seemed to be the only decent story I saw in those glossies. Seeing all the other terrible garbage, well, it made me feel like I was reading one of those nasty articles in the tabloids like the kind that are now being written about her. Only it was as if the whole magazine was a tabloid scorning the Person I love most in the world.

Which, I suppose it was in a roundabout way. Like, those magazines are full of stories and articles about things that are the furthest thing from godly, holy, and while they may not say verbatim “God is the worst idea you have ever had,” it’s advertised lifestyles pretty much say that. They parade around things and activities and thoughts that are contrary entirely to Jesus, his cross, his gospel. Some articles are overtly in praise of things I won’t even talk about, let alone live out.

And, like I said, it made my stomach turn.
Turn the way it would if I was reading in a magazine the slander someone had spoken about my husband they had never met (no, I am not secretly married).
But were talking about him as if they had met him. As if what they were blasting was truth.
As if I was reading how he is abusive and a drunk and how we are getting divorced and he lost all of our money and he is the meanest man in America—except none of that is true, and I know it’s not true, but the tabloids are spreading the word as if it IS true.

I would want to yell from the rooftops “Lies!” and run up to every person I saw reading it and say, “It’s not true! I promise you, none of it is true!”

Do you know what I am talking about? Do you look at the world, read the news, hear conversations in the coffee shop, read Facebook statuses for crying out loud, and just feel the need to apologize? To God?
“Really, I promise they wouldn’t be saying these things if they knew you….they just think they know you. But they don’t….I’m so sorry they are saying this kind of stuff, doing this kind of stuff.”

It’s an ok thought. Not really based on truth, for God does not NEED us to defend him; what the world thinks about him has no bearing on who he is. But my human mind wants to make up for it.

If I was friends with Taylor Swift, at every chance I got I would say, “You know, she actually is really great,” and I would try to prove the tabloids wrong and tell those people-the ones who don’t know her- the truth about who she is.

I guess I have to ask myself the question then—Do I do that for Jesus?

Like, when I hear someone saying nasty stuff about the One I love most, or claiming he is something he is not, how often do I say, “You know, he actually isn’t like that….”
Yeah, I know that’ pretty elementary. And I would hope that when the time comes I would say something more eloquent, but think about the concept: Proving the tabloids wrong.

And think about how to go about this. Imagine that you were someone the tabloids talked about. Say you were the wife in the relationship the magazines had said was breaking up. And you went ahead and invited over for dinner some person who believed that you two were splitting up. Do you think, after seeing an entire evening of you two still in love, still making it work, still a couple, that they would leave still believing the tabloid rumors? No. Of course not. They would know that what got said is not true.

Isn’t it the same about this culture? What if we invited someone over for dinner, someone opposed to Christ and his Christians, and we loved them, got to know them, shared our life with them. We didn’t bring them in “to convert” them, not seeing them for who they are, we didn’t view them as a project, but as a person—would they be able to leave the house still holding the belief that all Christians are greedy haters of everything?

I didn’t think so.

Maybe this doesn’t make any sense, but I guess I just don’t see any difference between nasty, untrue things being said about TS and nasty, untrue things being said about God and the church. Both are wrong, rude, and helping no one. The people who are writing them, speaking them, advertising them, chances are they don’t actually know what they are talking about.

And maybe now I just feel a little more like I want to prove the tabloids wrong. Tell my corner of the world the truth. Because if I would stand up for TS, or if I would speak out about untrue things being said about my husband, then, since I do believe I am referred to as “the bride” in the Bible, I should probably be standing up a little more for “the bridegroom,” huh? Living to tell the truth.