Do You Remember...

I cannot stand it when adults say to teenagers, "You don't have any problems yet, just you wait." Or, "Oh, being a teenager isn't that bad. It gets worse once you get older." Or, my personal favorite *eye roll*, "You don't even know what stress is yet." Being a teenager may be one of the most difficult points in your life. Do I know from experience? Of being a teenager, yes. Of being an adult, no, however I have talked to adults who've confirmed this. I understand that adults often forget what it's like to be a teenager, to be in high school, to try to figure out who you are, to have the stress of school and jobs and thinking of the future and saving money and having a social life all at the same time. And if that's not enough, what about the family problems and drama with friends. If that's all not enough to stress a teenager out, what about that teenager who was beaten as a child and is still dealing with the stress of being terrified of going home? Or the teenager who was raped and now has to try to heal from the damage that was done without letting on to anyone that anything is wrong? Or the teenager who made one wrong choice and is now pregnant and has to give up her education and possible success to raise this child. Or the teenager whose mom just got diagnosed with terminal cancer, yet he still has to go to school and work and pretend to be strong. Or the teenager who has been made fun of so much that he needs to cut himself every single day just to be able to wake up the next morning? Or the teenager who looks in the mirror and sees only fat, fat, and more fat, so she starves herself to be accepted. Or the teenager whose parent's just announced that they're getting a divorce and they now have to decide who to live with, what town they want to live in, whether or not to leave their friends and all they know. Or the teenager who feels like they're walking on eggshells at home because their parent is an alcoholic and will snap at the smallest thing. Or the teenager who has so many secrets bottled up inside that they just might burst. Or the teenager who is friends of people who are going through stuff like this and they feel the need to be strong for their friends, meanwhile they're breaking inside for their friends. We, as teenagers, have incredible things and opportunities in our lives, not gonna lie. But we also have so much to deal with, and it really does not help when the adults around us have no sympathy whatsoever. As an adult, think about what you went through before you entered into adulthood. Were you sexually abused? Were you bullied? Were you going through family problems? Before you speak, think about what the teenager you're talking to might be going through. For some, an adult telling them that they don't know what stress or problems are might just be the breaking point between life and death for them. Teenagers are at this raw, precious age where we're figuring life out. Who we can trust. What we like to do. What we want to do for the rest of our lives. What we're good at. What love is. Who we are in general. What we need is godly men and women coming along side us and mentoring us, loving us, and being there for us. Please be that for a teenager in your life, we need it more than you know.
Blessings,
Ariel

Picky Eater

You know what bothers me? Picky eaters when it comes to the bible. They pick and choose what they like and talk about how good the food is and are so thankful and satisfied with it. But then they see food in front of them that they don't like. So they push it to the side and continue on with the other food that they do enjoy. Maybe this food they didn't like was too spicy. They didn't want to try it out in small helpings at first and then keep escalating when their tastebuds could handle more heat. It was too hard, too much work, so they just push it aside.
  So many people do this with the bible. They love the stuff where Jesus is performing miracles or when Paul is telling the church in Thessalonica that through their perserverance and faith in their suffering, they have become examples and are spreading the gospel in 1 Thessalonians 1. But wait, then they get to chapter 4 and they get a different taste in their mouths, one they're not sure of they like. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says: God wants you to be holy and to stay away from sexual sins. Pretty straight forward right? But then they start thinking, "But...if I stop having sex with my boyfriend he might break up with me...plus, I like sex...it'll be too hard to stop now...and we're going to get married eventually anyways...ah, I'm sure it's fine. God won't care. It's just sex. Everyone has sex!" And so they push the food aside. They still love food, just not that food. This, of course, isn't a problem with real food, but when it comes to spiritual food, you can't just pick out the parts that you like and leave the rest for whoever wants it. You need all of it to stay spiritually strong and healthy. Will some of the stuff that God tells you to do be hard? Heck yes! Will you always want to do it? Nope! But does Daddy know best? Always. He's the author of the world, do you think that just maybe, just maybe he knows what he's talking about?
Blessings,
Ariel