The next page to turn

Next week my oldest starts youth group. Needless to say, I'm very nervous about this. Have any of you ever seen the inside of a church youth group? It's full of some of the best friends you'll ever meet. You'll encounter God in ways you never did in elementary school and the teaching starts to really relate to your everyday life. I had a lot of great experiences in youth group.

But there's a flip side! There is back-stabbing by those friends. There is gossip galore. A lot of unsupervised time alone with your peers. And peers of the opposite sex. There falls the largest problem I see. Hormones are starting to fly come middle school and definitely in high school. The little crushes in elementary school were totally cutesy in comparison to the way things pan out in middle/high school. They all talk about boys and girls and relationships and some even talk about PDA (public display of affection) or do it and then there's the big no-no at this age. Sex. That should never be talked about without an adult present unless it's saying they'll wait and then nothing more. Oh, but I've heard it. I used to be there. I've been that girl who had the boyfriends and kissed on them in public like it was some trophy. I know gross, huh, but most of us have done that. Let the confessions fly.

Here's my problem. My daughter who is 11 and turning 12 in less than a week is moving up to this unsupervised fest. I know it's not all that, but as a parent our worst nightmares are all we can see when it's about letting our sweet, wonderful, innocent child take their step into a level of independence. So she will hear her peers talk about liking boys and other girls saying "ooo he's hot today" or things like that and boys "looking" at her. Whether she knows it or not. It's the way they were made. We can only pray that God has convicted them to remain pure. She will hear and see boyfriend/girlfriend relationships play out in front of her and break up a gazillion times over and be tempted to think that it's just the way it is. But it's not. And I've spent a lot of time on prayer hours and curriculums to teach her and her friends that it's not the way God designed it to be.

My daughter needs to be able to show us though that she can walk her faith in real life. She needs to show it to herself. I need to see if she can. Her faith has never been really challenged by anything. Her friends are Christians, she grows up in a christian family, she's homeschooled. All sounds great to me. But we require a testing of our faith to show what we're really made of. And that's what my girl will encounter in a small way of course 'cause it's still church. We'll see. Pray for her and I. Pray for all children to keep their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and seek only Him.