Girl's Group

Tonight I sat on the floor of my living room with Madie (my 13 year old) and a few of her friends. We talked about the media and how it gives us the wrong impression of what we are suppose to be like...look like...and believe.

When my non profit gets up and running...soon I hope...I want to be able to conduct workshops in the community and bible studies with youth groups that help girls be content with who God created them to be. I desire to show them that they are beautiful...and to look at how the world defines beautiful and "perfect" in comparision to God's view of beautiful.

So I asked Madie if I could practice on her and her friends. She wanted to call it Girl's Group. So that is what we named it. The girls ate dinner and laughed and I got to listen in to their different personalities so I could know a little more about them. Then we sat in the middle of the living room and started talking. None of the girls live in Christian homes. None of the girls go to church or have been introduced to what it means to have God in their lives.

We took a bunch of teen magazines and cut out pictures to make collages. The pictures we cut out were images and words that these magazines were "telling" us what we should look like and what the media thinks is acceptable. Wow...the girls really created some interesting collages...scary...amazing...it made me want to go out and grab every girl in middle school and tell them they are being bombarded with lies.

We talked about how wrong and sad those pictures and words were. One picture was of a girl who couldn't have been more than 16 and under her picture in her short skirt and high heels the caption said..."the shorter the better".

As we were talking one of Madie's friends began to tell us about a few girls who won't eat at lunch and are constantly looking at themselves in the mirror. One of this girls friends sits with these few girls sometimes at lunch and when she does she won't eat either. But when she sits with Madie's friend she eats her normal lunch. She wants to eat...but she wants to fit in and be like these other girls. Oh that breaks my heart so much that I can't describe it.

I seriously want to go to the school and sit with these girls during lunch and tell them who they really are...valuable, special, worthy, lovely...but they only see these impossible images that can't be reached.

So I would love prayer in what direction to go with this non profit and my sense of urgency. The non profit is going to be called "What is Beautiful?"

We are God's masterpiece...How do we get that concept in to the girls...and women of today...I can't explain the fire in my heart at this very moment.

Love, Teresa