why a pastor’s wife loves Miley Cyrus

I watched it on YouTube in my kitchen, with dirty pans and leftover chicken parmigiana covering the countertops.

And I wanted to look away. I wanted it to stop. I wanted her to put a robe on and keep her tongue in her mouth. Instead of this gross sexual content, I wanted to see something I haven’t seen enough of in my life: a woman who knows she shouldn’t have to prove anything to the world.

That’s when I realized that I may be a pastor’s wife who can’t dance, but watching Miley Cyrus is akin to looking in a mirror.

Miley put on a costume, played a role, and sang a song that most people just keep behind locked doors, or bottled up in the darkest regions of their hearts.

Just because we don’t let it out on national TV doesn’t mean we aren’t saying the same thing: Screw what people think. I’m in charge of my life.

All day I’ve thought of that other famous woman. The one in John 8; the woman living in the male-dominated ancient world, given an identity based on her sex, a value determined by what she can do for men.

Jesus found that woman in the streets, surrounded by a crowd of people with rocks in their hands and disgust in their hearts.

Somehow Jesus made them see that they were that woman. They dropped their stones and went away.

When I logged onto twitter today, I saw a lot of disgusted people. I understood. I was turning my head and holding my breath as Miley performed.

Maybe there are still a lot of things that haven’t changed in the world. It is a rare thing indeed when religious people and the main-line media agree on something. And everyone seems to agree about Miley.

Mr. Fantastic and I briefly spoke about it as we got lunches packed and backpacks ready for school. The kids’ ears perked and the questions came. “Who’s Miley Cyrus?” and “What are the VMAs?”

I fumbled for words, and then I ended up praying with them for Miley Cyrus.

I prayed because I know I am Miley Cyrus. I have been used and abused, taken for granted and boxed in, pushed out of place and played like a song that should never have been sung.

Life without God does that to you, and sometimes, life with God can still echo with the beat of the world, and the stones can fly in church as often as they do out where no one talks about Jesus.

So today I tweeted my own tune:

@mrsburnttoast: This AM we prayed for Miley Cyrus. My kids don’t know who she is, or what she sings about, but they know God loves her & that she needs Him.

I tweeted it and some people didn’t like it, but then someone blogged about my tweet. She wanted to go back and talk to her daughter about the way Miley Cyrus needs God just like the rest of us. A few people retweeted it, or shared it, and I thought that maybe they know what I know:

In one way or another, we’re all a broken twenty year-old girl who doesn’t know she should put on some clothes and run for cover.

144 characters can make a difference in the world, I guess. Last night in an impulse of curiosity and joy I found another way to fill exactly 144 characters:

@mrsburnttoast: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.-John 3:16

There are things that never change.

The world will always have people running around doing things they know they shouldn’t, but can’t seem to avoid. We should never forget that we are all those people- sometimes in small, secret ways, while other times we do it on a national stage with a foam finger on our hand.

Whether we are the woman standing with stones pointed at her head, or the shocked people with rocks in our hands and earthly justice in our hearts, the answer is always the same.

It is always words written in the dust, secrets whispered from God Himself, telling us to go and leave our sin behind.

I love Miley Cyrus because God loves Miley Cyrus the same way He loves me and everyone else: enough to die for all of us.