Insecure. Shy. Vulnerable. Emotional. Disrespectful. Rude. Inconsiderate. Ignorant. Careless. Rebellious. These are all names used to describe teenage girls. My Generation. Me. It reminds me of a quote by Sir Thomas More.
“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
Hmm isn’t that interesting? How much of a difference could we make if we lived accordingly to Proverbs 18:21? The power of life and death is in the tongue. Our parents tell us that we can change the world but in our heads we say “Yea right! We’re just insecure, shy, emotional (and the list goes on) children. The only world changers we know are the homosexual basketball players being praised for coming out of the closet or famous women walking around dressed like prostitutes with all the men they could ever ask for”.
Well I’ll step down from my soap-box and finish this shin-dig, but first I’ll tell you about myself. My name is Bre Elise, I love kids, and Jesus, and reading. The gym is one of my best friends, I like food and coffee, I love my dog and I know how to cook, clean and change diapers. Oh yeah, one more thing, I’m fifteen years-old.
Okay, so the point of this whole thing is that we don’t have to be what everybody expects us to be. We can be bold without being disrespectful and we can be vulnerable without being crushed, We don’t HAVE to be emotional, careless Kylee Jenner or Kim Kardashian wanna-bes. Let’s try something, this week, not this year or this month. This week. Let’s not try to be better than anybody else but instead try to be a better person than you were yesterday. Not too hard. Eh?
So, what do you expect from me? Do you expect me to be insecure? Shy? Vulnerable? Emotional? Disrespectful? Rude? Inconsiderate? Ignorant? Careless? Rebellious? If you do, you don't think very much of me. I expect more. I expect myself to "put off" those expectations and rise to the expectations of people who genuinely love me and a God who truly knows my worth.
To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-24
Let‘s do this everyday, together. Just put off our old self and be renewed.
