When we dance

I am loving teaching girls PE this final semester. Mostly because I always wished I'd had a safe place to experiment with and practice being kind to my body. I wished I had a safe place where I hadn't felt stared at and compared to. I love our girl conversations about femininity and modesty. I wish someone had told me in high school about modesty, how modesty doesn't limit your wardrobe, but gives a girl a beautiful backbone to stand tall instead of lowering herself to the desires of others. I wish we'd sat down in a circle where peers and teachers identified and encouraged our strengths, and told us that we might be tempted to seek our strengths from the love of boys, when we deserve to believe in and trust ourselves. I wished we'd had a place where it was safe to talk about our weaknesses. Where it was cool to be yourself, because after all it is in our weaknesses that the Water of Life runs deep. I wished someone sat me down and told me what heartbreak was like, how it would feel like the world was over, but that it goes away and life returns, joy returns. I wished someone had taught me that disappointment is a beautiful thing, because it means we have beautiful dreams, and that our dreams don't always happen how we planned, but to ruffle our hair up and keep on dreaming. I wished someone had prepared me more for the bigger world, and taught me how to trust myself. I wished someone had told me I have to believe in myself on hard days, when nobody is there to believe in me, but that I can do it because I am smart, loving, pretty, funny (and pretty funny) and worthy of dreaming big and chasing after my dreams, because settling is for the weak. I wished I'd had a class that taught me how to relieve stress by swinging my arms and spinning around to a beat, moving freely until my body felt flushed of anxiety. Oh, how I love growing with such beautiful and strong young women. They are the essence of purity with all the possibility in the world. I remind myself by reminding them everyday to dream big and pray hard. Because Jesus loves us too much to let us chase our dreams alone, and so He whispers into our ears that we are the bravest, the most beautiful, the smartest, and kindest with the most potential to become more like Him because we are His daughters.

Meet my girls. Some days we make it a point to say nice things about each other. Some days we dance till we fall on the floor laughing. Some days we do yoga till we touch our toes. And some days we pray till we're back on our feet again. What beautiful young women.