I am a girl.

I was a very late developing adolescent girl. Junior and high school were dark dark years for me, until I met Jesus at age 15. Finding out I was loved by Jesus changed my very identity.

Through God’s calling I became a woman pastor, early in the 1980s. I was a youth pastor for 39 years before I began pastoring my church, Larger Story Church, which has teens in mind in every decision we make. (Of course.)

Working with teens since 1981 meant I have decided to relive my adolescent years again and again in the girls I love. I get to feel their awkwardness and uncertainness again and again, which reminds me of those terrible years I lived.

I love teen girls. Currently my three granddaughters are all teens. I wish they would never age out of adolescence! They feel differently about that and thankfully we have the relationship that they tell me that. I enjoy them so much. I want the best for all of our teen girls.

The world is cruel to teen girls. This is why I write this series. I have some things to say.

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You know your daughter is beautiful. But she doesn’t. Even if you’ve raised a confident young woman, this is a doubt deep inside of her. This is why she takes 10,000 selfies a day.

Adolescent development does a number on girls’ bodies. There is so much physical change over random time. Some are early maturing girls, which is not a blessing according to long-standing research (which I have read for over 30 years). Some are late maturing girls with development happening even post-high school (like me.) This creates scars that we do take with us even as we’ve been spared the extra drama of being an early maturer.

At the same time the brain is growing faster than it has since early childhood, girls are feeling complex emotions for the first time, learning new and often painful rules of friendship, and trying to make sense of bodies that suddenly feel unfamiliar. They cannot even count on their bodies for stability.

That paragraph probably triggered lots of emotions for you. If you are male, you feel for us. If you are female, you still feel this.

Tell her she’s beautiful as often and as slyly as possible. This truth may be more caught subliminally than directly.

If you don’t, some guy, or some girl, will feed that powerful need of letting her know that she is beautiful. But that guy’s, or girl’s, intention may not be as pure and loving as yours.

About those 10,000 selfies a day. I may be exaggerating that number but it is disproportionate to the rest of us who take selfies. And most of those selfies your daughter takes never make it to social media. Whew about that.

We already know social media harms girls the most. One specific reason is social media over-emphasizes and over-sexualizes beauty–and asks girls to disconnect from their bodies. This alarms me the most.

Social media teaches girls to look at their bodies instead of living in them. Girls learn to see their bodies as objects. Their body becomes a project to manage. She plucks, curls, squeezes, hoists, buys, sprays, tans and filters 10,000 selfies in the name of beauty. This constant comparison overrides the internal signals her body is sending her.

Rather than asking “What does my body need?” the question becomes “How does my body measure up?” When bodies don’t match cultural ideals, shame shows up.

I write a lot about this shame.

God’s first command to us back in Genesis 1 is to live in the image God gave us. When your body betrays you, this becomes so confusing. Don’t leave her alone in her confusion.

Let our girls know that your body in this room matters to me. You have something to contribute. You matter. Your body is not a problem to fix or a tool to earn approval. It is a place God already calls good. Her bodily presence is good simply by the very act of her creation.

Read also:  Your Body Matters and Women, It’s Hard to Have Some Vanity When the Church Taught You to Hate Your Body.

We don’t want her to disappear. Love that requires you to disappear is not love.

If being close to someone means silencing your voice, second-guessing your worth, or feeling at war with your own body, that is not connection, it is erasure. Your daughter may never voice this out loud. I am asking you to look for it and call it out.

Teach your daughter to have a little vanity.

Vanity sounds like this is a trait we don’t want to pass on to our teens. But you really do want to pass this on. Vanity is not hubris. I’m talking about your daughter knowing deep to her toes that she is specially created, specially wanted, is beautiful, and is God’s child so she will make decisions for her life protecting this vanity that is her birthright. Worthiness is her birthright.

Wise decisions are made from a little vanity.

Read more:  Raising Your Teen with Some Vanity.

I’m hoping that your daughter never unsees the beauty of her creation. This is where her identity begins and ends. Everything in the middle are the brave decisions she gets to make.

The world will offer her belonging at the cost of her body, her voice, her joy, her intuition. Love never makes that trade.

When a girl knows deeply that she is created on purpose, wanted without conditions, and held by God, she will choose differently. She will protect what is sacred in her.

This I believe is what saved my life at age 15. I had a personal encounter with Jesus and came away knowing this. I survived the rest of high school talking about Jesus all the time which didn’t endear me to those who had already rejected me. I spoke anyway. After high school I jumped naively right into ministry and thankfully I had some men open doors for me and teach me because they saw this calling in me. And thankfully, I grew into my body. That’s when I came to understand what a little vanity could do for me to help me make wise decisions.

What a brave story it has been ever since. And dang, I know I am beautiful.

My wish is for your daughter to know this every day also.