Teenage girl? No thanks.

There’s a reason many younger 9-12 year olds dislike teenagers. There’s also pretty good reasons why the teenager’s parents dislike teenagers. In fact, I dislike teenagers. Teenager. Just another label thrown at my generation. You could call me lots of things: kid, girl, teenager, teenage girl, etc. What should we be called? And what’s the difference?

Last week, a woman I had talked with a little bit told my mom that I was certainly a young woman, not a girl. And then I got to thinking. What’s the big difference between young woman and a girl? Certainly age has something to do with it, but I know many young women that are much younger than me. So, here’s my list of differences between a girl and young woman:

1. Respect

I’m talking about respecting elders, parents, peers, but I’m also talking about respecting yourself. Insecurity and under-confidence are not typical of a young woman. Girls are often insecure, unsure of who they are yet. A young woman knows who she is, who God sees her as, and is happy with that.

~1 John 5:4

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

 

2. Courage

Girls have those adrenaline rushes and feel compelled to do things (often stupid things…) and may call that “courage”. Or they bite down and ignore any feelings of fear or doubt. (Which, in many cases, are good feelings of doubt.) They forget that “courage is not the absence of fear…” A young woman has courage: courage to stand up for what she believes in, courage to stand out by doing what’s right, and courage to sit down and ignore peer pressure.

~1 Corinthians 16:13

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like (wo-)men, be strong.

*parentheses added 🙂

3. Beauty

In my (admittedly limited) experience, girls seem to define beauty as an outward appearance quality, something you could recognize by just looking at a picture. They think that how much makeup you wear, how skinny you are, how fashionable your clothes are, how perfect your hair looks etc. makes you beautiful. If that were the true definition, we’d all miserably fail. I certainly wouldn’t make it anywhere near ‘beautiful’. A young woman understands that beauty is not something you can just see by looking at a picture. It’s something that radiates off of women who are beautiful on the inside, in the way they interact with others, but mostly how close they are to the Lord and Savior. It’s said that “you are who your friends are”. God is the epitome of beauty and majesty, and so it makes sense that beauty is relative to your relationship with the King of beauty.

1 Peter 3:3-4 

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

I, for one, would rather not be a girl anymore. That was a stage of life that God has used in my past, but now I need to strive to be a young woman after God’s own heart. Teenage girl? No thanks.