"You don't own me..."

"You don't own me,
don't try to change me in any way.
You don't own me,
don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay...."

I love this scene from the movie, "First Wives Club."  I can't get enough of watching these three dance!  And the song...oh my...what a fast trip on the train to my childhood. 

I used to babysit for a woman who listened to Lesley Gore singing, "You Don't Own Me," everytime she got ready for a date with her husband.  It always made me giggle the way she would sit in front of her vanity mirror, and use her hairbrush as a microphone while she sang into it, at the top of her lungs.  Either she didn't think I could see...or hear...her, or she didn't care.  I was just an eleven year old kid from the neighborhood.

But this morning, I woke up feeling pretty awful and this was the song that came into my head.  It made me giggle...again.  I thought about Mrs. Nelson singing into her hairbrush...and how fierce she was...and I thought, "You don't own me!"

I was talking to the voice in my head that said, "Blahhh, I feel horrible and I don't think I can put my feet on the floor, much less go wake the girls up for school." 

And so I started singing to myself as I pulled myself into a sitting position, stood, and headed upstairs. 

Reaching the girls room, I was met with a "blahhhh..." from them. 

Now I was really fierce.

I told the girls I would pray and then I started singing this song from a deeply spiritual place.

Not only did the voice of "Blahh..." not own me, it sure as shootin' didn't own my children. 

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says,

"Mankind must learn that evil is not power.
Its so-called despotism is but a phase of nothingness."

"The despotic tendencies, inherent in mortal mind
and always germinating in new forms of tyranny,
must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind."

"No person is benefited
by yielding his mentality to any mental despotism..."

Here was a spiritual "rock" I could stand on.  This was a platform I could sing from.  And because I love my girls, I was going to sing....and sing loudly!

A despot is  "a ruler, or other person, who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way."

That was exactly how I was feeling.  Like there was a voice in my head telling me to yield control of my day to a cruel and oppressive ruler.  And not just my day, but my children's day.  Not happening.

I prayed from the standpoint of God's sovereignty and love.

Within moments I was feeling as strong and fierce as the song. 

And in just a few more moments, my daughters were feeling the same peace, joy, and strength of spirit. 

Only God owns me...my body, my thoughts, my heart....His children...

thanks Mrs. Nelson...love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS