Dear Miss Ariana:
I doubt that that you will read this as this is a post on a very small blog. I only have known about you for several years because my beautiful, precious daughter, has been an avid fan of yours for several years. She has adored you. She has looked to you as a role model. I know that many other fans also adore you and look to you as role models. You possess tremendous influence over your many adoring fans who look up to you as a role model.
But last week, I was surprised and saddened to scroll on my Facebook Newsfeed and see the headline of an article that claimed that you licked donuts in a public place and then joked, "I hate America. I hate Americans." Later, I shared the photo of you with your quoted words against America and Americans. I did share that photo, and, unlike the majority of my posts, it generated comments by angry Facebook users whose patriotism had been offended. I felt obligated to share the video which caught your comments, with my daughter. So I emailed it to her. On Facebook, your name was trending as a hashtag for days.
Miss Ariana, I was not able to get my sound up and running until the other day. It was not until then that I actually heard what the video captured you as having said. I had trouble hearing what you said and catching your words. But I could hear them. You may have said these words in jest. You may not have meant anything by these words. However, Someone, many years ago, said that "Out of the abundance of the heart a person speaks." What you say reveals what kind of a person you are underneath. Your words reveal your character. It is not only what you said, if in jest. It is that you used profanity, as indicated by the fact that the curse word was bleeped out.
I know that you have apologized for your remarks. You actually are said to have apologized two times. I understand that you are blessed with forgiving fans who created the hastag #IForgiveAriana. That is good! Yes, you have been quoted as saying that you "did not mean it" when you made the statements against America or Americans. I know that you are a young woman, not much older than my daughter and probably many of your other fans. Yes, I know that you are human, and humans make mistakes. That is because we humans are polluted by something called sin. I do not know if my daughter got my email and opened the video.
Miss Ariana, I suspect that the fact that you and other celebrities have so much influence over our young people says as much about our culture as it does about you. Many of your fans can be called what are known as "the unpaid bills" of the modern American Church, which has failed our youth. I fear that the fact that you and other celebrities have so much influence over your young fans is because we, their parents, have lost our young people's trust and respect and so they look to you and other celebrities for what so many of us parents and our local church fellowships are failing to provide them--guidance, teaching, and understanding. Your fans are also "the unpaid bills of many of us parents. Because of our "celebrity culture," many of us tend to give up trying to communicate with our youth as they tend to get very uncommunicative in their teen years. Even without our failures as local fellowships and as parents, our culture idolizes celebrities like you so you have this influence.
Miss Ariana, there is another matter we need to address. Like all of us, you have a problem that is referred by the nasty three letter word S-I-N. This means that, like all of us, you were born with a nature that is opposed to God. This nature expresses itself in everything from using profanity, as you were caught doing on that video, to lying, stealing, cheating, gluttony, wrong use of our sex drive (outside of male-female marriage), outbursts of temper to gossip, selfishness, thinking you are better than others, and arrogance. There are many more expressions of that nasty word S-I-N. But God came into the world in His Son, Who lived a perfect human life and did not commit even one sin. He died on a cross to take your place and my place and He took His own punishment that we deserved for our sins.
Miss Ariana, if you are reading this, I invite you to repent (change your mind about your sin), turn to God and ask for His forgiveness so you can be saved. Let Him change you and your life. Then, you will be able to use your celebrity to share with your fans something that is of far more value than a wild night of musical performance or music CD's.
If you are reading this and are a fan, whether of Ariana or of any other celebrity, remember that celebrities are ordinary people, just like you and me. The only thing that separates them from us is their money and their fame. They cannot fill up the empty hole in your heart. That can only be filled by coming to Christ and giving Him your life, telling Him you are sorry for your sins (and meaning it) and living the rest of your life for Him.
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Ariana Grande Apology
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