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Tween and teen girls are interesting.
Emotional, joyful attitudes often mix with disrespectful expectations and some entitlement. There is no better season or year than the here and now to instill the fruit that points to eternity. Teaching girls to be kingdom minded at a young age will help propel them into a future where entitlement won’t matter and joy will follow despite any thing that they may lack.
A young girl I know did have a struggle. For sometimes, her attitude wasn’t the best. She often had over emotional responses to every day trials that left her sitting in a darkened room to think through her reactions.
Having a difficult time processing disappointments, or any kind of strife which were counter intuitive to her own ideal of how things should line up often left Maddy in an emotional tearful wreck. She often cried about how life hadn’t been fair and how priorities were messed up. As a child, she didn’t understand that life goes this way no matter our faith walk and that the Lord is the one who holds us up when things go awry.
Because of the lack of processing, this young lady would find herself in trouble for outbursts, thinking that she was disappointing her family, and specifically her mom. Her emotional attachment to her family created a greater internal struggle with life expectations.
One day, as she sat in her bedroom and pondered through her latest emotional meltdown, Maddy reflected upon something that her mom had said years prior. It had to do with a gift and what she did with it.
Her mom stood in the kitchen excited over a new blender. Her grandmother sent this fun gift knowing how much her own daughter loved to make smoothies. Mom was very excited as she spoke about all the fun things she would make for herself and for the kids. Murmuring as she headed into the refrigerator, she started to pull out whatever ingredients she had on hand to make her first masterpiece.
As Mom added fruit to the blender, she spoke about mango trees, and strawberry fields growing up. The love of picking the fresh fruit from the vine was a precious memory for her mom. As she placed berries in the blender, she started to ponder over a different fruit. She mentioned love and joy while wanting to understand how to attain peace in a chaotic world. At some point she hollered out to any child in ear’s reach to look up the verse. She wanted confirmation that the fruit led to freedom from chaos.
GALATIANS 5:22-23 NIV BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, FORBEARANCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS AND SELF-CONTROL. AGAINST SUCH THINGS THERE IS NO LAW. Mom came back to one fruit in particular. She stood there claiming that the best one wrapped up all the others together making them attainable: self-control over emotion. That and keeping our thoughts focused on the cross would help us to be able to understand the rest. Without it, we become too wrapped up in our selfish ways to see the truth of the Gospel.
Maddy thought through these things. She knew that her outbursts were looked at as being disobedient to the fruit even though on the inside she felt good intentions. She loved her family, friends, community and most of all Jesus, and she didn’t want to displease any.
This young lady often became very offended when people didn’t believe or follow the truth that Jesus presented. Her heart ached and outrage followed suit. She didn’t understand why her family didn’t seem to react in the same way. They often appeared to live with joyful hearts despite a chaotic world. What was failed to be seen was that joy is what held everyone together within the self-control.
JOY IS SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO BE HELD ON TO AND CAN BE ATTAINED THROUGH THE FREEDOM THAT JESUS PRESENTS US. Self-control can help us hang on to this joy as we encounter push-back in our faith. Maddy didn’t want to be between a wall and lies any longer. She knew that she needed to seek out the fruit in each part of life. There was a need to give up her high emotions to the Lord and allow for Him to nurture the high spirit inside of her.
Mom always told her that she enjoyed her spirit. She would pray that Maddy would use her spirit for the good of her faith. There were prayers that she would turn her spirit back the Lord in praise. As a child of God she wanted to honor Him with her life. Maddy wanted to embrace the fruit, strive for the fruit and proclaim the truth through the fruit.
There is freedom in the truth and the spirit of a person will do well following the Lord’s statutes.
ROMANS 15:13 MAY THE GOD OF HOPE FILL YOU WITH ALL WITH JOY AND PEACE AS YOU TRUST IN HIM, SO THAT YOU MAY OVERFLOW WITH HOPE BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. I encourage you to embrace the young people in your lives and speak truth into them. Look for opportunities to mentor and teach them in the ways that they should go so that they may not depart of them as they grow.
I have heard some great things on this series. Let me know what you think.
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