It's a Girl Thing

Something I have come to realize about myself in the last couple of years is that I really dislike the spotlight. Now, I recognize this is coming from somebody who has no trouble standing in front of a room and carrying on like tomorrow will never come so, perhaps, I would be more accurate in saying this- I don't like having attention placed upon me for any reason having to do with personal accomplishments, recognition, or the like. Crowd control? Yes. Anything else? No thank you. However, I can truthfully say this is a 180-degree turn from where I was at growing up. 

Ready for a little secret? I loved the limelight as a child simply because I needed to know people liked me. Ready for another secret? I have, only in the last couple of years, decided to take stand against my insecurity and form, for myself, the healthy self image God intended me to have.

Well, that's a weight off the proverbial chest.

What I have really come to recognize after working with girls in a variety of contexts is the super difficult position in which our young ladies are placed in today's society. I was entirely overwhelmed at the beginning of my first summer at camp with all of the girls and their emotions and their general need for obsessive reassurance over the most trivial of daily issues. (No, I do not care whether you wear your purple shirt or your black shirt and, no, I don't think anybody will remember you wore that shirt to run to the bath house to brush your teeth last night. No, I do not think you are weird for wearing that shirt again and I promise to tell nobody... I'm just not going to tell you the last time I have, or haven't, washed this hoodie. Ha!) The all-consuming insecurities faced by these girls at all ages just broke. my. heart. And the staff wasn't immune to petty insecurity either. Approximately one night each week was spent in the bathroom over analyzing what other people may have thought of our behavior at a specific point, how the boys possibly did- or didn't- view us in a specific situation, whether we'll ever measure up as "big girls" in a consumingly degrading society... any sort of lighthearted material (*ahem*) we could muster at whatever hour of the day. Let me assure you... Girls in the school are not any different than those girls at camp. Uffda!

But, I digress. That summer, my heart really began to break for young women as a general subset of population, especially young Christian women. We, as a collective Christian community, are seeking to raise and disciple girls at a time where we are asking them to be meek and mild, supremely intelligent and self-disciplined, simultaneously be "in the world but not of it", and sharing the light of Christ with all while being strong, secure, and capable as the creation God has created each to be. Other than the fact some of those demands are directly contradictory, we are placing a ginormous burden upon out girls, many of whom are struggling to love themselves while we demand they show love to everybody else. Now yes, I often say that life is not about me and selfishness is not healthy, but I fear the number of girls we are losing because they become so overwhelmed with everything that they count it all a loss.

It seems like at least once a day, in whatever class for whatever grade, so many of my female students talk about how yet another boy ignored them for whatever reason or another boy did them wrong in one way or another. Some of it is teenage angst, but you can also tell that some of those girls actually believe it. I am so grateful that my dad sends me a little gifts every once in awhile, both because I felt special that he remembered and it was also a good example to my girls that life is what you make it. Of course I wouldn't have turned down flowers (or anything else for that matter!) from anybody else (I mean... the mysterious "KJ" sends me flowers every year on my birthday and I eat it up every year!), but I'm choosing to think that maybe they were just given an example that security and acceptance doesn't need to come from outside sources.

It's so tough to be a girl... Especially when you don't know where true love and acceptance really are.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that is did not know him. 1 John 3:1