Beginning June 1, we launched the first LifeWay Girls' Advisory Board. We will spend the next year interacting with these girls, learning about girl world from them. They have agreed to give us their input and insight on everything from book covers to music they like (or don't). This summer, I have given them the challenge and opportunity to be guest bloggers for us. One of the girls has already given us her thoughts. I posed the question, "What do you wish you had known in middle school?" Below is her answer.
I could go on for pages about things I have learned since middle and wish I knew back then. Small things and big things. I think it all boils down to one thing: God loves you more than any human can and He always…ALWAYS will.
I attended my youth group every week but I had not been told how much God loves me in the way my heart needed to hear it. I had heard it in Sunday School and would spit back the cliché answers that my teachers were looking for. Psalm 139:14 says that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. My freshman year, one of my best friends and mentor tried desperately to convey to me how much God loves us. We humans can’t even begin to wrap our minds around the amazing love God has for us. One of my favorite quotes is this: “I think it is amazing that God has a single minded obsession for all of us…at the same time.” Only God can do that. God is constantly thinking about us, every moment of everyday. He sacrificed His Son to take away our sins. Your sins.
When I understood what I could of God’s love for me, everything slowly changed. It didn’t change automatically. Things are still changing today. I am blown away daily by God’s amazing, breathtaking unbeatable love for me. Because God loves me so ferociously, I am certain that the plans He has for me are better than anything I could come up with on my own. I can’t wait to see the college He has picked out for me, the man I am going to marry, or what I will do with my life. More often then I should, I try to plan out my life without consulting God. He gently kicks me in the rear and turns me around on the path He has meant for me. I fall on my knees and begin following Him once again. I wish I always believed that everything that happens to me is because it is in God’s plan. How could a God that loves me so much lead me down the wrong path? He wouldn’t. And never will.
Way to go, Whitney. What she has written is a reminder to me that for every event we plan—from a manicure party to a mission trip to Honduras to a weekly Bible study with non-Christian girls—we need to remember to always go back to our core message: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. If we could effectively communicate that truth to the girls in our care, and if they believed an acted on that message, we could literally transform a generation.
Whitley was raised in a military family and has moved many times. (She made a big circle and is living in the same town she was born in.) She loves being outdoors to hike and rock climb. She hopes to one day become a Youth Minister or work in the mission field overseas. She enjoy reading books, playing her guitar, and writing songs. Music is her first language. She loves cheesy pick-up lines and bad jokes.
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