Themed Inspiration

It can be fun to branch out and try different styles. Here are a few fun ones to try out!

Look #1 : Western Inspired

Wear this awesome skirt with these caramel-colored boots and wear this T-shirt (untucked) for a classy, western inspired outfit. Add some accessories like this and this and add a simple pair of these. This would also look adorable with your new ensemble.

Look #2 : Black & White

Wear this over this with these and a pair of these. Glam it up with some fun accessories like black stud earrings, matching bracelet, and ring.

This is a cute bag with an adorable black wallet and white sunglasses to go with.

Look #3 : All-American

Wear this button-up plaid shirt with these Bermuda shorts and these khaki-colored flats. Add a simple pair of hoop earrings with these sunglasses.

This red bag compliments this outfit perfectly and you’d have plenty of room in there for a cute one of these.

Look # 4 : Fine ‘n Fancy

Sometimes it’s fun to get all dressed up! Try this dress and have fun with all kinds of accessories to fancy it up. Depending on the length you might add black leggings underneath for a worry-free, modest approach to a cute dress. Pull your hair into a messy side pony and add this cute clip to cover up the rubber band. Wear these shoes and get this purse and wallet. Wear it with this necklace, this ring, and these earrings.

Have fun!

In my experience, these are the top 10 areas that will cause friction between you and your parents as you walk through this season as a teen girl.

10. Keeping your room in utter disarray

 9. Interjecting “like” into every sentence as a filler word (“Does he, like, even know, like, how great a girl I am? Like, who does he think he is?”)

8. Having disrespectful friends

7. Getting distracted from school and homework (keep in mind your calling for right now is to be a student — are you living out God’s calling in your life as much as you can be?)

6. Abusing curfew

5. Dating punks (not “punks” as in a form of music or fashion style, but punks as in lousy guys who don’t deserve you)

4. Skipping out on family time to be with friends (these last four areas could probably tie for first!)

3. Text messaging during church/family meals/conversations/school

2. Leaving out important details/not telling the whole truth

 … and the big #1 area that will cause friction between teen girls and their parents is …

1. Having an attitude

While this list is not exactly Holy Spirit inspired and delivered to me via handwriting on the wall, it does come from the wisdom and experience I’ve gleaned from my own recent teen girl experience.

There are lots of verses in the Bible that give a command and show the reward — here’s the famous one regarding your parents:“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 5:16, NIV).

Notice that it’s a command? It’s not an “if you do this” statement — it’s a full-blown command with a rewarding outcome. Honoring your parents is the key to a happy home. If you’ve looked at the list above and your blood starts boiling remembering a recent tiff with your parents, think of ways you could better honor them and restore peace and happiness to your relationship with them.

Do you fight about keeping your room clean? Honor them by respecting the money they have invested in the home they’ve created for you — at the end of each day bring any dirty dishes out of your room back to the kitchen. If you don’t have time or energy to put away your clothes, at least lay them over the back of a chair instead of continuing to walk over them.

Do you fight about your cell phone usage? Honor your parents by putting your phone on silent and keeping it in your purse during dinner to show that you value your time with them and the meal they’ve provided.

And if you fight about your attitude, which all of us girls are guilty of liberally dishing out, honor your parents by taking a deep breath before you speak so you have a nanosecond to analyze the tone of voice you’re about to use and the sentence you are about to say. Does it sound respectful and mature? If someone spoke to you that way would you think they were a brat or would you appreciate their answer?

Above all else remember that you and your parents are all individuals trying to love and live under the same roof. There will be times when you’re on the same page and times when you can’t see eye to eye at all. But knowing what frustrates your parents will help you make better choices in showing them that you love them!

Have you ever stopped to think about how amazingly complex the human body is? Here are some facts I bet you didn’t know:

It takes the interaction of 72 different muscles to produce human speech.

The air from a human sneeze can travel at speeds of 100 MPH.

When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop – even your heart!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

Our eyes are the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.

The average man trims about a pound of whiskers every 10 years.

Your fingernails grow twice as fast as your toenails.

There are about 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.

Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour, which is about 1.5 pounds each year, so the average person will lose around 100 pounds of skin by the age of 70.

Your feet account for one quarter of all the bones in your body – there are 52 bones in the feet alone.

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

Babies are born with 350 bones, but humans end up with about 206 bones as adults.

Similar to fingerprints, everyone also has a unique tongue print.

The human nose can remember about 50,000 different scents.

During his or her lifetime, the average human produces about 25,000 quarts of saliva – enough to fill two swimming pools.

You are a designer original. God created you in His image. Uniquely. Intentionally. And He even spent time doing it.

“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God – you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration – what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day” (Psalm 139:13-16, MSG).

Just as a clothing or handbag designer puts time and care into his creations and can charge an extraordinary amount of money for the brand, so is it with us. God, the highest-end creator and designer of all, put time and care into His work creating you and instead of looking in the mirror and noting our flaws, we need to marvel at the detail God put into us and the plan He’s laying out for us.

“All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16, NIV).

God had a plan for your life before He even made you — isn’t that amazing encouraging? When He presents an opportunity for you to share God’s love with a hurting friend he is to thank for the 72 muscles that intricately work together to formulate your speech. He gave you 45 miles of nerves on your skin to be able to sense the warmth of a family member’s hug. And He put a quarter of all of the bones in your body in your feet so you would be equipped to go into all of the world to share His love … your high school, your family, other nations, the needy families in your city, your teammates … all of the world.

Feeling frustrated or overwhelmed? Take a minute to think about how amazing God is and of the gift of life … going all the way back to the half an hour when you were a single cell being!

Summer is a time for relaxation! Take a look at your summer wardrobe and see if you’re adequately prepared for the relaxing aspects of summer vacation.

Three-quarter Sleeves

Be comfy in this with a pair of these and these. Or in this with these and these. This is great too!

Tank Tops

Try wearing two different style tank tops for a layered and colorful look like by wearing this underneath this with these. This is a cute tank that could easily be layered over something like this with this and this.

Tees

Stock up on different colored T-shirts this summer. They’re versatile because they can be combined with comfy shorts for a casual look or dressed up with a skirt and some jewelry.

Shorts

Pack up the pants and make room for some cute shorts. Bermuda shorts are an awesome style of shorts that are in style right now! They’re casual, comfortable, and can help you easily meet the fingertip rule … the bottom of your shorts should fall at your fingertips. Be careful where you wear comfy shorts that are too short or have slits up the side. They’re fine to bum around the house in or hang out at a girlfriend’s pool, but grab something longer before you run out the door to meet your friends at the mall.

Above and beyond what you wear this summer, sleep in, drink water, and make new friends. Happy summer vacation!

According to my life experiences (as short as they may be), there are two kinds of nightmares — involuntary ones that happen as a result of being on some kind of medication when you’re sick, from eating certain foods, suppressed emotions, or from other factors. The other kind comes on as a result of poor choices — voluntary and downright self-inflicted nightmares.

When I was a kid taking a nasal decongestant pill at bedtime not only meant relief for my poor stuffy nose and fever, but terrible nightmares. There was one nightmare in particular that was reccurring. It was like I was dizzy in my sleep and I was seeing my room in all different angles. Don’t laugh — for some reason it was terrifying to me. It’s funny how different things look in the morning when you look back on what had scared you so badly the night before!

Then there are the nightmares that are brought on because of an overconsumption of scary stories, movies, and books. Those nightmares are pretty much self-inflicted. I have hilarious memories of elementary school when up at our family cabin in the dark, wooded night several of my younger cousins and I would beg our Uncle Jon to tell us the infamous scary story, “Kachunk, kachunk.” At one point in the tale of terror he lunged at us and I tipped right off the tree stump I had been sitting on.

I was in high school when the movie The Ring came out. I had just broken into a big group of friends that hung out pretty much every weekend, and I loved being included. One weekend my new, fun friends rented The Ring and we all huddled together in the basement of our friend’s house prepared to be scared out of our minds.

Yours truly didn’t even make it halfway through the movie. Creatures were stirring in the shadows of the dark basement, figures moved silently past the outside, and I could no longer stand the chills running up my back. I grabbed my purse and made my poor guy friend walk me to my car and wait until I was safely belted and locked into my clunker car. I turned on some worship music and took the long way home … which allowed me to drive under street lights with other cars instead of the dark, lonely short cut where no one would hear my desperate cries for help if the creepy girl from the well came to get me. When I got home I jumped into bed and wrapped myself tightly in the covers.

It was one of those nights when I prayed for a long time before falling asleep — praying that God would forgive me and keep the bad spirits away from me and that I wouldn’t have consequences from that action because I learned my lesson. I contemplated jumping out of bed and opening my Bible on my desk as a way to somehow ward off bad nightmares … but that would have required touching my feet to the ground, making me vulnerable to be snatched by a creature underneath the bed.

Yes, this was in high school. That’s how utterly scared I was. To this day I have not let myself be so consumed with something that could scare me like that.

Be careful with your scary story, movie, or book intake. If your thoughts are dwelling more on the fear of or on the obsession with a good scare, you might need to check yourself. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things,” Philippians 4:8. We need to be careful that what we watch or read does not open ourselves up for Satan to have control in our lives. We need to flee from evil — not taunt it.

If an innocent dose of nasal decongestant or an overindulgence of pepperoni pizza causes a flood of nightmares, remember that:

·       God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind — 2 Timothy 1:7.

·       The Lord is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid? — Psalm 27:1.

It’s time to say good-bye to our winter hair and makeup and say hello to a new summer style!

Summer Hair

Be carefree! Abandon the curling or flat iron and buy some mousse with a formula designed to enhance your natural curl. Using mousse will give your curls a more natural, earthy appearance instead of the hard, wet-looking gel look.

Gently scrunch your hair while blow-drying it. Here is another awesome product. After blow-drying, spray your hair with the Sprunch Spray, scrunching your hair in your hands as you go. This is basically a hair spray but it’s flexible and allows you to still shape your hair as you spray. If you’re like me and your hair gets flat towards the scalp, try backcombing to add volume.

Summer Makeup

Foundation: If you can’t bring yourself to completely put aside your makeup for the summer, try out some of these neat products that will at least help you lighten up a bit. If you have fairly even toned skin to start with, mineral make up is amazing. Here’s one I’ve tried and loved but other product lines sell it too. Mineral foundation is great because it usually contains an SPF, which protects your face from the sun. It also adds some coverage and color to your skin without feeling heavy, getting splotchy after sweating, and lets your pores breath! I like to apply a little amount of moisturizer before so the mineral powder has something to better “cling to.”

Eyes: Quickly apply a light coat of a neutral eye shadow across the lid of your eye, even up to your brow. Choose a more muted eye liner to make your eyes pop but to still give you a fresh, natural look. Brush on some mascara and admire your evolving summer look!

Cheeks: Choose a pale pink for a fresh, summer look.

Lips: Here are my favorite lip glosses for summer. I also love this brand for the wet lip gloss look — it’s thick and long lasting and even as it wears off it still leaves your lips with a hint of color.

However you decide you wear your hair or make up this season just have fun. Go swimming and dunk your head. Don’t worry about needing to be “cute.” Wear sunscreen to protect your skin. Don’t worry about needing to be tan. Be confident and be yourself!

I was driving into work late one morning after an early doctor appointment. A large, grungy pick-up truck pulled up to my left as I was stopped at a light about two miles away from the office. I’ve learned to resist the temptation to look over at the person in the car next to me so as to not incite any kind of unwanted attention.

As I kept my gaze fixed ahead something in the corner of my eye caught my attention — a brown, hulking figure slowly leaned forward in the front passenger window of that car next to me. Frustration and annoyance began to well up within in me as I had this “NO WAY am I getting hit on at a stop light two miles from work at 9:00 in the morning! Who do they think they are?” speech angrily racing through my head.

Completely peeved I turned to my left to offer my disapproving glare only to see a brown, hulking hound dog sitting in the front passenger seat eagerly looking out the window at me.

Enter, humility. No one was hitting on me. No one wanted to give me a compliment. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to me.  I had worked myself up over a scenario that didn’t even happen.

As girls, a part of us seeks attention from the opposite sex so we try to present ourselves as attractive. Another part of us gets offended when we either don’t get the attention we seek or when it comes from the wrong kind of person.

What do we do with the other parts? We develop:

Grace: Dictionary.com defines this as “a pleasing or attractive quality.” This doesn’t mean seeking out attention by wearing provocative clothes. Or having regular dates with the tanning bed. Or experimenting with hair dye, fake nails, piercings, vocabulary, attitudes, or anything else that you think the world defines as pleasing or attractive. Grace is a quality … an “air” about someone. Not something you put on for the day.

Elegance: Dictionary.com defines this as “Refinement, grace, and beauty in movement, appearance, or manners.” This has to do with how we present ourselves.

• We can be elegant in our movement by walking like a lady. I’m not suggesting you need to wear the high heels everyday, just carry yourself like the respectable young woman you are. Stand up tall with your shoulders back. Take smaller steps instead of long, gangly strides. Be confident. Look people in the eye when you greet them.
• We can be elegant in our appearance by taking everything in moderation — hair dye, lipstick, foundation, eye shadow, piercings — all of these things can get out of control quickly! None of them are bad, but use them in moderation and be tasteful.
• We can be elegant in our manners by actually implementing manners into your routine (no obnoxious burps, help clear the table after dinner, thank the hostess, take people’s coats from them when company comes to your house) speaking kindly of others instead of being the first one to verbally bash someone, and by being more complimentary of other people.

Maturity: This is probably the part of your being that you will spend the most time developing … and it lasts forever. Believe me! Girls have lots of emotions so it’s hard to learn to override them when you need to. Don’t let your emotions control you. If you find you are mad at your friend or family member, stop before reacting — there’s most likely a logical explanation for or solution to your dilemma. Look for this and then you will come across as a young woman developing maturity instead of a girl who needs to be petty. The same can be said about girls who seem to need attention — it’s possible to survive a day without a guy commenting on your looks or hurling a “Yeah!” out the window of his car while he’s driving next to you. Maturity is being able to look at a situation, assess it, and make a sound decision without a lot of unnecessary drama. Maybe you don’t get a compliment for a few days — it’s okay. You know your worth and you don’t need to change anything to go get that affirmation.

The combination of these three qualities will make you irresistible to the right kind of people. You will attract loyal friends and respectable guys as they realize your humility and your classiness.

Now back to the traffic light. After the light turned green I sped away from the grungy pick-up truck, swallowing my pride and allowing humility to wash over me. I’m not all that. I’m nothing without Jesus. I’m on a journey. God help me grow in grace, elegance, and maturity. 

My last summer at our district-wide kids camp was actually quite traumatic. For whatever reason the girls of the camp were housed in the small, rickety old cabins while the boys were housed in the glimmering new eight-person dorms. As the girls in my cabin crawled into bed one night a crisis broke out — there was a spider somewhere in the vicinity of the top bunk bed. Because of the frantic nature of girls encountering bugs, none of us could find it to kill it once we finally settled down. As a result, my friend from the top bunk spent the night with me in the bottom bunk — the twin-sized bottom bunk. We grew very close that night. She had already been complaining of a sore throat when we went to bed, so by the morning we had both contracted Strep throat.

There are many things that are contagious. A smile, sickness, a bad attitude, laughter, poison ivy…as Christians, we need to make sure we are contagious with qualities that bring life to those around us.

Joy: Do you know someone who has the ability to light up a room with her presence? Those people are so fun to be around because they bring life and a breath of fresh air. As Christians, we should have every reason to be oozing with joy! We know the God that created the whole world, died for our sins, and is showing us His unique plan for our lives every day. Even in difficult times James 1:2-4 has good words to live by. Let your joy show on your face and in your attitude and you will find that it is contagious.

Service: It’s really hard to sit back and watch other people help out and serve others and do nothing. As Christians we desire to be more and more like Jesus everyday — ever noticed the pattern of service you see in the New Testament of Jesus doing things for other people?  Stepping up to the plate and serving others when you see an opportunity will no doubt be a contagious action.

Make a point to be contagious this week! Smile more. Hand out a compliment or two. Stay late after youth group to help clean up. Your peers will start to view you as a leader and you’ll be showing them the love of Jesus. Not bad!

Summer clothes are so much fun. This is the season we all look forward to — we can be more relaxed with our hair, our make-up, and our dress. We abandon the wool skirts, tights/nylons, and close-toed shoes and embrace the freedom of summer. Summer is wonderful because you can throw on a simple pair of shorts or a skirt and a t-shirt and be ready to go. Let’s take a look at two outfits that will give you a glorious, carefree, but polished summer look.

Outfit #1:

Start with this adorable top and layer a gray one of these underneath. Don’t limit yourself to just two-finger-width straps — the days of multi-shirt layering are here which will help expand your wardrobe options this summer while still being modest! Get a pair of light wash, distressed jeans or a denim crop. Add an adorable pair of these or a simple pair of these. Put on a fun ring and leave the rest of the jewelry behind. It’s summer! But make sure you have a pair of these with you at all times.

Outfit #2:

Take this tank top and match it with this cute skirt. Add these flip flops, a cute new tote, and sunglasses and enjoy the rest of your day! You could literally be adorable and ready for the day in under 2 minutes with an outfit like this.

Our culture is very focused on love. It seems like 99.9864986% of our movies and music have a central theme of L-O-V-E.

We all make fun of giddy couples in love. Classic signs of a couple in love include holding hands even when it’s completely inconvenient and downright awkward, feeding each other while gazing lovingly into the other person’s eyes while at a public restaurant, and embarrassing pet names and high pitched baby voices which plague even the most stable and mature relationships. I had a friend growing up whose favorite thing to do was walk directly through the middle of couples who were holding hands while strolling along. We were a little cynical.

But let’s face it. A majority of us secretly hope our lives end up like that. I did. And I eventually got that. And now my husband and I fit every silly stereotype of lovey-dovey couples, down to the ridiculous pet names … gulp … “bunny” … and even the occasional “bunny-boo.” Guilty as charged.

So how do you combat the emotions that rise to the surface when the school year ends and you start the summer single?

1. Savor the moment! Being single is not a disease and there is most likely nothing wrong with you. Absolutely do not put your life on hold until you meet Mr. Wonderful. Can you imagine how much you would miss out on if you waited for a boyfriend or a husband to do it all with?! Take part in missions trips or educational trips. Plan fun holiday parties for all of your friends and mingle with whomever you want. Explore the colleges or post-high school options you are interested in, knowing that if you were dating someone you’d probably be crafting your plans around that person. Be content where God has you and focus on growing into the woman of God He has called you to be. And whatever you do, do not go looking for a man. Let him find you … his priceless treasure.

2. Pray for him. On my Minnesota summer mornings I would wake up early (like, 9:00 … let’s be reasonable), throw on some grubbies, and head out for a walk. God and I had great talks covering a multitude of topics. One topic I lingered on a little longer than others was my future husband. I prayed that God would help him make wise choices. I prayed that he would grow to be a strong head of the household and would have a vision and passion for our life together (I can get pretty deep at 9:00 in the morning). It’s human nature to want to do something about the situation even when you know it’s totally out of your hands, so why not pray? It helps! You can also pray that God has His way with your life and with your future hubby’s life so that you are both making the most of your current phase of life.

3. Take time to develop yourself. This was probably my favorite part of single life — self-improvement. Make a list of areas you want to improve in (don’t make a list of your flaws … we’re girls … we’re hard enough on ourselves as it is) and make it a fun project. Making improvements in your life is much more fun when they’re your idea and not the idea/mandate of your mom or your friends. Start an exercise routine, volunteer at church, learn how to cook, educate yourself on current events, quiz yourself regularly on new vocabulary words, memorize Scripture. Find your own areas of interest and run with them. Learn all you can while you don’t have the distraction of a boy. When you do end up meeting someone special you can tell him all the things you learned while you were waiting for him!