Priscilla Joy

Me and my beautiful thirteen year old sister, Celia.

Last Saturday was my sisters birthday. She turned 13. Wow! My lil’ sister just turned thirteen! This post will be half about how great God made my sister and half about teenagers.

First off, I made a C-E-L-I-A acrostic for Celia.

C- Creative: You are such a talented young lady and even though you don’t think that you are very artsy or musical I do think you have a creative side to you.
E- Eclectic: You define this word, Celia. I don’t think of this word in any way but with you in mind. I love your stars, stripes and polkadots and who but you would put red and pink together. Although it makes choosing a color for our room difficult I love this crazy quality of you.
L- Loving: On the toughest days you are there with a kind word of encouragement or a thoughtful note. You give great gifts and the people you love know that you love them, which is great knowledge.
I- Interesting: If a stranger started talking to you, they would come away amazed. You are such a cool person. With your cupcake business, love for kids and special needs kids and other things you make a very interesting young lady.
A- Always smiling: Or in other words very cheerful. Your disposition is always sunny and you brighten peoples days.

Second, I want to say 13 quick things I love about Celia.

1. your laugh
2. your hugs
3. your gifts
4. your initiative
5. your verse 4 the day
6. your loyalty
7. your cuteness
8. your ease around people
9. your love for others
10. your thoughtfulness
11. your joy
12. your faith
13. your love for Jesus

So there you have it. And a big hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER CELIA!!!

Now on a different note I want to tell a quick story and move on to the topic of teenagers.

When someone was talking to our family and found out it was Celia’s 13th birthday the next day, this was her remark. “A teenager! Now I can’t talk to you until you are 20!” She quickly recovered with a quick…”Not ALL teenagers are bad, but…”

This story saddens me. She could have been joking but the main truth remains. Our culture doesn’t look too fondly on teenagers. Why?

First, let us start with the common perception of teenagers. (Fun fact: the word teenager was originated rather recently… in the past 65-75 years)

When people think of teenagers what do they think of? Some popular answers may include: lazy, rebellious, sleeps in, adolescence, punk, drugs and many others. Why does our culture think this?

Lets look at some history…. Think of some of the great people in the Bible and world history. Lots of them were young. Here are some examples: Daniel, David, Esther, Mary, Josiah, (moving into history) Joan of Arc, George Washington, Clara Barton and Alexander the Great.

Your average young person say on the frontier could manage a household, protect thier family, go on long hunting trips and more in thier early teen years. They were mature and responsible. Hard working and not wimpy.

I am not saying that all teenagers were perfect then and horrible now. What I am hinting at is that the culture back then (frontier as my example) expected more of their teens. Nowadays as we learned from the above conversation the teen years are expected to be bad.

Lets take a final look at how the Bible talks about teens (young people).

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”
1 Timothy 4:12

Teenagers are supposed to set an example!

What about this one?

“The glory of young men is thier strength.”
Proverbs 20:29

The teenage years are special years to serve the Lord. You are young and strong and God wants you to use your teen years for something special!

the teen,
Priscilla

P.S. A lot of the ideas about teenagers I got was from the book “Do Hard Things” by Alex and Brett Harris. If you are intersted feel free to read that book to learn more. Or go on their blog: therebelution.com