Dear youth group girls,
Some days I write at my desk at home about bodies, then make my way to our youth group—and all the nice words and ideas on my desk dissolve into thin air. Bodies come up a lot for us—fat jokes and general teenage awkwardness—and so often all I can think of to say is, “All bodies are good bodies!” Then we’re on to the next game.
What I want to do is call a halt to everything and ask you if you know how precious you are. Sooner or later I will ask how you’ve been told bodies “should” be—and if you see how much of it comes from those who want to use you, profit from you, or dim your light.
Adolescence means sometimes you feel trapped in a body and an emotional life far outside your own control. As everything shifts on the inside and people start to treat you differently outside, you wish for a cocoon—but this whole growing-up process is something we all have to do in community.
Now your community has expanded through technology to fill every waking moment of your day, and your awareness stretches far outside our own town. Do you feel equipped to live in this crowded world, or just that it’s become more complicated? You’re more aware of broadly feminist ideas and the #metoo movement than I ever could have been, growing up in a suburb like yours. But I wonder how much those grand theories and historical moments matter to you, alone in your room, after the thousandth airbrushed ad of the day—or when the text pestering you for nude photos comes through.
There is a difference between believing you should love yourself, and knowing your worthiness in your bones.
When I say “All bodies are good bodies,” I want to find some way to fill in that gap. Because others’ anger about their past wounds doesn’t necessarily teach you how to advocate for your own right to respect. Because understanding that women are systemically disrespected and disadvantaged doesn’t mean you know how to stand in your own power to make change. And believing in the value of humanity doesn’t mean you have heard God’s voice singing love over your very-good self.
I want you to know how deeply God values you, how precious all of our right-now, right-here bodies are to God, how safe you are to choose your own light. I want to give you some kind of shield to deflect the thousands of messages about what other people think your body should be, look like, do, want—so, even if only for five seconds, you could simply be and be at home with yourself.
I wonder if I say “All bodies are good bodies” often enough, if it will begin to drown out all the noise, pushing back a space for you to listen to your own voice, and God’s.
Because that thing we call “confidence” doesn’t come from thinking you’ve lived up to impossible expectations; it comes from knowing yourself well beyond the limits of those expectations, and loving yourself regardless of how other people choose to measure your worth.
But sometimes, everything about being a teenager seems to be an exercise in other people measuring your worth.
When that text comes through.
When people who call your counterparts “young men” still refuse to take you seriously.
When the pang of hunger feels like consolation from the sting of rejection.
When catcalls make you feel small.
When you can see yourself through everyone’s eyes but your own.
When their judgment steals your time, your attention, your brilliance, your peace.
When having a body is hard, and living in a woman’s body feels like too much—
I hope someday I’ll teach you something about how to settle into your own breath, and dance to your own heartbeat, and encounter this world with your own senses, because God is always pouring God’s love into your own embodied self.
Your body is a safe place to be. Your body is your self, and you are worthy of dignity, respect, power, and joy. You deserve to be confident, because you deserve to inhabit your own body, connect with your whole self, and know your own God-given value in every cell of you.
Even as you struggle against injustice, on behalf of yourself and others, I hope you know your greatest power lies not only in being right, but in being worthy and being loved.
As many lessons and letters as I may try to write, I know I can’t only communicate what you deserve by what I say. This whole helping-you-grow-up thing has a lot more to do with asking good questions than providing brilliant answers, more letting you surprise me than thinking I know what you’re capable of, more praying than fixing.
And it’s about letting you see me continue to grow up, because the truth is we’re all sometimes wishing for a cocoon, and afraid to trust the process. So I’m learning to meet God and reconnect with my body in every hard moment and every peaceful place—because if I can’t show you, I can’t tell you how to live at peace with yourselves.
I promise to be present with myself and with you. I promise to keep learning to love myself, because that’s the best chance I have of reminding you there’s another way: the way of abiding ever deeper in love, awkwardness, flaws and all— because all of us embodied creatures are created so very good.
Love,
Lyndsey
Your youth director
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