Have you ever used the phrase, “enough is enough”? If you have uttered those words, when? I must confess, I have recently found my heart hurting and have to shout enough is enough!

            My dilemma, you see, comes from a recent series of ‘best seller’ books that is sweeping the tween and teen world along with many adults. Reviews for these books use words such as thrilling, engaging, a must read, a fantastic book with a wonderfully creative plot.

            Cautious, responsible parents will even be encouraged by reviews such as: “This will be a terrific discussion starter for middle-school literature groups, in which students will quickly make fruitful connections to our own society.” (www.commonsensemedia.org)

Hurray! A great book for my child. Wait!!!

With the same breath, on the same website, we read this…

Violence: Torture and deaths of many important supporting characters, with limbs blown off, faces/bodies melting, and necks broken by frightening beasts hunting them in sewers. Lots of weapon use, both in combat and for hunting. Constant sense of danger and peril. Bombings with many casualties — even hospitals and large groups of children aren’t spared.

And this

Drinking, drugs, & smoking: Lots of a drug called “morphling” — which has the same effects as morphine — is given out to sick patients, including main characters; some become addicted to it. Haymitch is a recovering alcoholic at the beginning of the book, but only because alcohol isn’t allowed in District 13. He’s back to drinking heavily when he leaves.

    This is only the tip of the iceberg of what our children have to look forward to when they read The Hunger Games. Do we really believe this is how our children will make ‘fruitful connections to our own society’?  I don’t like rotten fruit, it makes me sick!

            We must wake up to the hypocrisy of the world. Our society tells its children to “say no to drugs” while encouraging reading about excessive drug and alcohol use and says “it’s just a book, it’s not real”. It goes on campaigns against bullying and violence against women while it shouts hurray for a sixteen year old heroine whose only goal in life is to find revenge through murder.

            The author of the Hunger Games presents a world of suffering and pain to the point that the only way of escape is alcohol, drugs, or suicide. And our eleven and twelve year olds are eating it up like candy!  And we parents sit back and wonder what affects the high teen suicide rates in this country.

Shame on us for allowing this to happen without speaking a word of common sense or, more than that, a word of godly sense.

Speaking of the evil men speak, Jesus says “…For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.” (Mt 12.34b-35)

Jesus was right; we become a product of what we feed our minds.

God and His word is the source of hope, happiness, blessings, and eternal life. The world is the author of misery, murder, and the loss of all hope.

I ask you…what is your twelve year old reading? What are they feeding their minds?

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