She Deserves Better Quotes

“25–59). If our idea of Christian selflessness is that we always take care of everyone else’s needs before we take care of our own, we are expecting more of ourselves than Jesus did of himself. And he was God.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“What impact could it have on a daughter who is hearing at church that she is supposed to be selfless, who is being taught to consider everyone else as more important than herself, and who also sees her female role models being treated like second-class citizens in their marriages, families, or even churches? How will she learn that she is of infinite worth? How will she feel equipped to speak up if in the future her husband dismisses her opinions, needs, or desires as secondary to his own?”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“It sounds super spiritual, doesn’t it? And it’s a very intoxicating message to believe: You don’t actually have to do anything but trust. Let God do it for you. So we don’t advocate for ourselves. We don’t say anything when we’re being hurt. We don’t rock the boat, because it’s God who will eventually vindicate us. We don’t need to draw boundaries, because we can let God take care of it and rest easy knowing whatever happens was simply meant to happen.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“there was an eighteen-year-old young man attending the youth group who gave off a distinctly predatory vibe. However, even after some of the girls expressed their fear of this young man to the youth leader and gave their reasons for why they found him dangerous, the youth leader simply chastised the girls for being judgmental. Instead of being concerned about safety, the leader told the girls to prioritize the boy’s opinion of Jesus. The girls were told to “accept” him even though he was “weird.” (The girls had no problem with “weird.” It was “dangerous” they were concerned with.)”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“I’m surprised no one saw my choice of favorite verses as a neon sign on my forehead flashing “OCD” (with which I was later diagnosed). I remember feeling forgotten by God and wondered how long I’d have to deal with thoughts that didn’t feel like mine. Unfortunately, none of the grown-ups picked up on what my favorite Scripture passage revealed about my mental state. While I clung to the promises at the end of the psalm like a life raft, I wish someone had helped me get to safe harbor. I found my way to shore myself, and I’ve forgiven those who didn’t see me. But I sometimes wonder how much of my life could have been different if someone had taken the time to notice me and truly hear and help process my emotions and experiences.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Religiosity is a protective factor in future well-being, but as we told you earlier, fear-based messages hurt. When God is your daughter’s safe space and she knows that he truly hears her and cares for her, your daughter’s well-being increases. When God instead becomes a source of threat, where if she is authentic she will disappoint him and where every bad emotion is a sign that she’s failed, well, is it any wonder that anxiety plagues so many of our girls?”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Many of the platitudes are well-meaning. Many even quote Scripture! But they all shut down empathy and don’t allow space for real intimacy and vulnerability. Every time we throw a platitude at our daughters when they’re confused, hurt, or anxious, we communicate to them that they don’t get to be heard, because it makes others uncomfortable. (Sounds an awful lot like Job’s friends, doesn’t it?)”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“If your daughter is systematically taught that negative emotions mean she’s done something wrong, how is she supposed to recognize when her emotions are warning her that something around her is toxic?”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Yes, our spiritual health impacts our mental and psychological well-being. But if all mental illness were caused by a lack of faith or a demon, would that mean that medications like Zoloft are a substitute for belief or that therapies like EMDR are equivalent to an exorcism? Because Zoloft and EMDR are very effective.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Telling someone, “You don’t feel what you think you feel,” or training someone to systematically doubt and mistrust their own instincts is a form of psychological abuse called gaslighting. When we consider the fact that LGBTQ+ youth in the church have a seven-times-higher suicide rate than those outside of it, this kind of advice becomes doubly alarming. If you are afraid that your child is not straight, it may be tempting to simply brush off their “feelings” as untrue. But gaslighting your child won’t make them straight—though it may contribute to a higher likelihood that they will want to die.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Picture an overwhelmed, anxious fifteen-year-old. How do you think being told “anxiety is a belief issue”8 would affect her? Because that’s what she would read in Lies Young Women Believe, and our already anxious girl might wonder if she has failed God. That same girl might hear something similar watching “5 Tips for Overcoming Crazy Girl Emotions” on the Girl Defined YouTube channel, run by Bethany Beal and Kristen Clark. In their video, Beal and Clark explain: “If our hearts and thoughts are in a godly place, our emotions will be peaceful. . . . Our emotions are a reflection of what’s going on in our hearts. . . . Our emotions are a dictator of where our heart is.” Listing the fruits of the Spirit, they conclude, “[The fruits of the Spirit] result in awesome emotions. If that’s what’s on the inside, the emotions will be stable on the outside, not like a hurricane. The opposites of the fruits of the Spirit are things like anger, anxiety, worry, things the Bible actually calls sin.”9 Read the Prophets, though, and you won’t exactly see accounts of people who were emotionally placid—but you will see a lot of hurricanes of emotion. Hearing that we need to take every thought captive and confront our depression and worry and focus on gratitude may work wonderfully for the stressed-out thirty-five-year-old who gets a bit grumpy sometimes. But for the fifteen-year-old who feels isolated and alone and wonders how she can get up in the morning? When you’re dealing with all-or-nothing thinking, this advice, when not paired with an acknowledgment of how deep and debilitating depression can be, can cause shame, as we’ve heard from these mothers: • “My daughter asked to stop going to church because of the predominant views taught in youth group about mental health (all depression/anxiety is a spiritual problem). She loves Jesus and seeks to know God/understand how she was made by him uniquely and perfectly. To be told she isn’t yielding to God or knowing who she is in Christ as a result of autism and related anxiety was as un-Christlike as it comes. I stay home on Sundays with her now.” • “My children were told during a chapel service at their Christian school that it was a sin against God to feel anxious or depressed. One of them was in therapy at the time for issues that were in part aggravated by the school environment. My children are no longer at that school.” These moms protected their kids. But it’s an embarrassment to the gospel that our Christian spaces can be so cold and unfeeling toward those in our midst who need the most compassion.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“if Jeremiah really felt that emotions couldn’t be trusted, he wouldn’t have written Lamentations. Far too often, emotions are pitted against a healthy Christian walk with God. We are told our feelings are waiting to sabotage us with lies and deceit. Marc Alan Schelske, in his book The Wisdom of Your Heart, explains instead how emotions are our early warning signs of what’s happening so that we can take stock and make decisions. When we are emotionally healthy, our emotions become our litmus test for the world. They’re our “spidey-senses” that something isn’t quite right. They tell us this relationship isn’t good for us, this job environment is toxic, this university degree just isn’t the right fit. Yet, as Schelske explains, we’re often told to ignore those warning signs. “Ignore the emotion, and it would go away. That was often called living by faith. We were taught to keep the proper sequence: faith, fact, feelings, in that order. There was no encouragement to stop and reflect on the feelings we were having.”7 When we’re advised to ignore feelings, though, and live only by faith and logic, we can end up doing great harm.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Religiosity can be a positive coping skill. By allowing us to reframe the world so that we aren’t at the center of it but rather are put back in our “place,” it reminds us that the world doesn’t sit on our shoulders. Everything’s not going to come crashing down if we don’t perform perfectly. We have a purpose, we have a calling, but we’re not the “main character” of the bigger story.5”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“not all coping skills we learn are helpful. Anxiety is actually a coping skill—it’s just a maladaptive one! If you’re obsessively concerned about getting a low grade, you’re more likely to study more, go to class, do the assignments, and as a result get a good grade. But you could have achieved the same result by developing self-control rather than relying on panic and terror.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“The order is belong, then believe, then behave. We want people to belong, even before they believe, and only after that do we talk about how to behave. But for so many of us, we have to behave before we even believe or belong.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“we submit our sexual desires to God’s will as a result of our love for God, not as our primary way to love God. The greatest commandment given to our girls is not that they keep their legs shut. The greatest commandment given to our girls is that they love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that they love their neighbor as themselves.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Christian girls, though, are told that sexual purity and getting married someday is the main plotline of their story.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“The quickest way to make your daughter run away from the faith is to show her that the Christian walk is all about being in the “right crowd” rather than living a life characterized by radical transformation into the likeness of Jesus (Rom. 8:29) as we serve one another (James 1:27).”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“When we place doctrinal alignment above how people act, it cheapens what it means to follow Christ.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“But a relationship with Jesus isn’t strengthened by devastating your debate opponents. It isn’t strengthened simply by knowing more. A relationship is a deep knowing—it requires internal evidence, not just head knowledge.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Simply believing in a higher power means that you’re here for a reason, you’re not the most important being on this planet, and you have a purpose in this life—this isn’t all about you, but you still matter. Our decisions, the consequences of those decisions, and how our decisions affect others are more often talked about in religious homes and during religious services than they might be in nonreligious settings or families because religious people believe serving God is the first priority for the family. Additionally, families who are well-connected in religious communities and go to church frequently are more likely to have a solid social support network of people gathering around shared beliefs. You can make friends with similar convictions more easily. Your peer group growing up is more likely to have the same boundaries you do in terms of what behaviors are inappropriate and what are fine. If your family falls on hard times, you’re more likely to have a hand to help you up. But there’s one more big reason that we can easily overlook when we talk about how religion actually acts as a protective factor for our kids, building up their resilience against the hardships of life: hope. Simply put, Jesus gives us hope. As your child wades through the rocky waters of adolescence, starts questioning everything she knows, and tries to sort out how to navigate as an adult in this incredibly complex world, she has an anchor, a rock, a safe resting place in Christ. This may explain why studies have found that personal devotion to faith is a greater predictor of positive outcomes than simply strict adherence to religious beliefs, especially when it comes to teenagers.1”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“All the gains in self-esteem from church attendance are lost if the church is toxic in its teachings. What kind of church we attend matters.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Church attendance yields good fruit—but there are still some bad apples.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Those who attended church at least once a week, compared to those who never attended church, were 18% more likely to be happier as adults, 28% more likely to be involved in volunteer work, and 33% less likely to do illicit drugs.5 Put simply, faith is a force for good.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Even Rebecca’s psychology professors at her secular university were constantly touting the health and well-being benefits of religiosity, because the proof is widespread. People benefit from spiritual community, a sense of belonging, and purpose for life, and data (including our surveys) repeatedly bears that out.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“we want to clear up something vitally important: going to church tends to be a very positive thing with lots of great fruit!”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“In the last ten years, that Christian bubble has popped. Parents today are woefully aware that the Christian subculture they so gladly embraced as adolescents did not provide the safety it promised. The sex abuse scandals, the devastation left in the wake of purity culture, and the mass church exodus these things caused have made it impossible to ignore any longer: the bubble may have kept some harmful stuff out, but it also allowed a different form of harm to grow unchallenged. Kids were protected from the lyrics in Nirvana or Alanis Morissette songs but not from sixty-year-old elders who blamed their lust problems on preteen girls.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“But on average, those same girls who took purity pledges before puberty had lower self-esteem in high school (and they still have lower self-esteem today), and they knew less about how sex and their bodies worked in general.2 They were also more likely to suffer from vaginismus, a sexual pain disorder long known to be more prevalent among conservative Christians.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“Our young girls were told that they have inherent value and worth, but it was often with an asterisk: your inner worth is revealed by what you do with your outer body.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up

“If we better understood the purposes of sex to be intimate, mutual, and pleasurable for both, it would be easier to tell our daughters about the benefits of waiting without having to trick them or manipulate them.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up