Daughters

I am doing a study on Esther and throughout it (altho only 3 weeks now) I have learned and reflected on the craziness of being a girl. Lets face facts, most girls are maniacal, self-centered, self-driven, and petty towards each other. In high school, its all out for yourself, no matter who it is and where the cards fall, its all about making yourself the 'bigger' person. Girls, by far, are the first to cut a friend down, whether in front of that friend or behind their back. Girls start rumors about girls whom they are jealous of and for the most part girls are just mean. (That is the focus of our study this week, meanness.)  Girls are so mean that there are movies about mean girls, movies about mean boys who are not mean on their own but driven by a mean girl, media stories about women who are so mean that they make men do their mean things for them and let the men take the proverbial fall.  Everywhere you listen and look, girls are mean in this world.

It's amazing to me that I have 2 daughters who are so close to each other and so different from one another too. They are like beans and peas in a pod! The connection between my girls, well it's not unlike that of best friends who are stuck together at the hip forever, do everything, have their own language, and can look at each other and know without a doubt and without words that the other knows exactly what is being thought. They support each other in just about everything, encourage each other in all things, and, even in those moments of annoyance, they still believe in each other with all of their hearts. Jennifer, our oldest, is so nice that even when she wants to be mean, she just isn't - her temperament is that of a passive heart - if something bothers her in one way or another she will take it to God and work through it on her own or write you a letter to let you know that in the end she was just having a bad day.  Sydney, our youngest, is sweet and mild mannered and yet has a sarcastic streak about her that is jokingly funny and hintingly hurtful. Although she says things in the moment, she never really means them and in truth I believe she has a "class clown" heart - she is truly heartbroken over the smallest things and doesn't know why people are mean when they shouldn't be. She will be the first to say she's sorry over a small misunderstanding and the first to cry over a big misunderstanding.  My girls, a pea and a bean living in a pod together. They understand each other better than anyone and will say whatever comes to mind to the other without regard for a 'filter'.  Neither are mean at heart and I see them growing away from those that are mean and yet they don't run from them; they are not afraid of those that are mean but do not retaliate mean for mean.

So why are girls so mean? And why does the world/media make girls the meany? Well I don't know - but I know what girls look at - they look at the outer being, the one that says 'look at me'. Girls see the thing that draws their jealous heart to the surface, the thing that is usually hidden from sight. 1 Peter 3:4 "...it should be of that inner self, the unfading beauty of gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."  I see this inner self in my girls and I'm sure others do too, altho they may not now what it is or what draws them, that is it. An inner self that is for all purposes a quiet and gentle person who has great friends and is kind to those who are not their friends. An inner self that tells all "I am me, that is all I can be, like me or not". I have 2 daughters who could be mean, both are popular in their own way at school and with their crowd, both are without a doubt able to use cutting words to strike at one another, and yet neither are mean at heart. Both are able to smile at the stupid stuff and make people smile when they least want to; both are the unfading beauty that neither see.

Daughters. Growing daughters to beautiful women, how the time passes so quickly. From giggling girls playing hopscotch to teenagers wearing make-up to fit in, to young adults knowing who they are without make-up and without trying to fit in....daughters.  My hope is that in all things they keep their inner beauty, that they keep their sense of humor and yet hold a gentleness that is unmistakable and unhidden.