Trending on Facebook is Bristol Palin. She first stirred the pot recently with her article on Miley Cyrus and now with her pregnancy announcement.
I can’t shuffle through the comments of her Facebook posts without my eyes burning. Bristol, at only twenty four years of age, handles a lot of hate on a daily basis, even when her blog posts are entirely innocent.
She deserves it, right? She argued against Miley’s claims to be the “least judgmental person on earth,” yet Bristol actively fights against (and “judges”) the LGBT mission. Bristol advocates for abstinence but is now pregnant again out of wedlock. Her mistakes are constantly thrown in her face because she’s an outspoken Christian. So is it safe to safe Bristol Palin is a fraud?
Not so fast.
If you read her pregnancy announcement, you know that she’s aware of her screw up: “I know this has been, and will be, a huge disappointment to my family, to my close friends, and to many of you.” I guess it’s easy to hate on Bristol because she takes most of us out of our comfort zone. Nobody wants to be to told that waiting until marriage to have sex is ideal. Nobody wants to hear from someone who is sexually active outside of marriage that we should practice abstinence. Nobody wants to hear the bible preached because it directly draws a line of fire on our sin.
But Bristol is exactly who we should hear abstinence from. I don’t want some girl who made one mistake say abstinence is the best solution. I want to hear it from someone who struggles with it like I do. Sex is amazing and it’s hard to abstain from, plain and simple. It’s easy to preach to our teens that waiting to have sex is the safest and God’s intention for unwed couples because the talk is easier than the walk. It’s just like the alcoholic who tells you to stay away from alcohol, or the one-pack-a-day smoker who tells you to never smoke. I want to hear from a drug addict why I shouldn’t use drugs, and not from my goodie-two-shoes health teacher. Have an inmate tell me why I shouldn’t join a gang, or a teen mother tell me why teen sex is a bad idea.
We all have vices and we know what it’s like on this side of the fence. It’s not hypocritical to tell others not to jump over and join us. As to be expected, conservatives are getting hit hard because of the consequences of Bristol’s actions. People area damning us because we preach the Word but constantly fall short in the public eye. One thing people forget is that Conservatives are human too. We all suffer from debauchery on a daily basis. The flesh is weak, but that does not mean we shouldn’t continue to work hard to better ourselves and preach the gospel.
Bristol being pregnant doesn’t make her less Christian or a hypocritical conservative. It means she struggles like we do. She needs God now more than ever as she embarks on this new life of being a single mother of two. God is merciful and loving and has a plan for Bristol and her two children. Don’t let the sin or sinner keep you from the faith, but let it draw you closer to it. Live by the two greatest commandments: love God and love your neighbor.