Growing Up Without Getting Lost

Back Door

Growing Up Without Getting Lost: Description: "What a valuable resource for high school girls! We have known Melissa over the years as a youth leader, mentor, and friend, and Sissy as a gifted counselor and mentor to many teens in our community. Now, they are authors who have produced a work that will help girls all over the country discover who God is calling them to be." -Michael W. and Debbie Smith, Author, Songwriters, and Recording Artist, Parents of 5

Who are you really becoming?
There was a time, not so long ago, when everything in life seemed pretty simple. You had great friends, you got along with your parents (most of the time!), and you were pretty happy with the way your life was.

But suddenly, it seems like everything is changing. Your friends expect way too much from you, and often let you down. You fight with your parents more than you’d like, and they never seem to be happy with you. You just don’t understand why your life seems so chaotic now.

Melissa and Sissy, the authors of this book, think they can help you figure out some of the big questions inundating your mind:

who am I? what do I want? what should I do? who do I want to be?

While they’re no longer teenagers, Melissa and Sissy remember a lot about what it felt like. But more than that, they talk with girls who are a lot like you every day—girls who are feeling pressure from everyone around them, who are feeling like they’re changing in ways they don’t understand—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—and they feel like their lives are out of their own control.

If you’ve ever asked yourself any of those questions above, or if you just don’t know why everything is changing and are ready to figure out who God’s made you to be, this book can help you understand who you are and give you hope for who you are becoming.

Growing Up : An Introduction

I (Sissy) am terrified of ventriloquist dummies. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the first time I got really lost. When I was eight, my mom took my cousin Blair and me to see a double feature at the drive-in theater. After sitting in the car for several hours, Blair and I started to feel a little cramped. We decided to stretch our legs by heading over to the concession stand for drinks and popcorn.

We climbed out of my mom’s car and started wandering through the maze of vehicles. We walked for what seemed like a long time before we finally saw the concessions stand. Blair and I loaded up on all of the drinks, popcorn, and candy we could carry. We turned around to head back to the car, and had no idea where to find my mom.

Even though we had walked for a long time to get to the concession stand, I expected to see my mom’s blue Volvo in the first row. Instead there was a sea of cars, all of them looking blue in the darkness. Nervously, Blair and I started walking in what we hoped was the right direction, peering through car windows and calling “Mom” every few steps.

It felt like the night was getting darker and darker, as we walked. We couldn’t find my mom anywhere. I was beyond worried—I was panicked. And then I heard it. A hideous, mon8 strous laugh poured out of the speakers sitting in the windows of the cars around us (back in the “good old days” of drive-ins, we had to hang a speaker in the car window in order to hear the movie). I looked up at the screen and saw the huge, crazy, scary face of a ventriloquist dummy. In the plot of the movie this dummy had come to life and was taking over the mind of his ventriloquist. His maniacal cackle nearly scared me to death. I have never forgotten how it felt to be lost that night. I have never forgotten that sense of terror that cut through me when I heard that laughter. And I have never forgotten how certain I was that I would never find my way back to safety.

Nearly everyone we know has a story about being lost.

You probably have one, too. Maybe you were in a crowd and reached for your sister’s hand, only to find you were holding on to someone you didn’t know. Maybe you absentmindedly got into a car after practice one afternoon and turned to see someone else’s dad in the driver’s seat. Maybe you got separated from your mom in the grocery store. Or maybe you got lost and ended up in a strange neighborhood the first time you drove home by yourself. No matter how we get lost, the feelings that come along with the lostness are the same—panic, confusion, frustration. It feels like every turn, every step, is wrong. It feels like you will never make it home.

Getting lost

It’s easy for girls to get lost in these growing-up years. We’re not talking about lost in location, like in the department store or amusement park, although that obviously happens, too. We’re talking about a deeper kind of lost. This kind of lost has more to do with who you are than where you are.

When you were a little girl life was pretty simple. You knew who you were—in a very elementary-school sort of way. Good was good. Bad was bad. The people you loved were close to perfect. Life went along without too many bumps.

But then things changed. Life didn’t make sense in quite the same way. Good and bad—well, they got kind of mixed up. The people you loved started to disappoint you. You disappointed you. You had feelings and thoughts that surprised you—and not in a good way. You did things that surprised everyone around you—also not in a good way. This is all part of getting lost. How do we know, you might wonder? How do we know what it feels like to be lost like that—especially if we’re old enough to remember drive-in movies? (And Melissa has much clearer memories of them than I do, if you know what I mean.) We know because we talk to lost girls every day. We are both counselors at a place called Daystar Counseling Ministries in Nashville, Tennessee. We have the honor of sitting with girls, much like you, who are struggling. They are lost, wandering from place to place—and sometimes from identity to identity— trying to figure out who they are.

I (Melissa) remember meeting with a girl who dressed in all black and wore heavy dark makeup. Her parents were worried about the way she dressed. They thought it might be a sign that she was deeply troubled—maybe even depressed—and they wanted me to talk with her to find out what was going on. Just a few weeks after we started meeting, this same girl bounded into my office wearing a yellow, smiley-face T-shirt and lots of brightly colored jewelry. When I looked at her with obvious surprise, she said, “Oh, I got tired of the whole Goth thing. I decided to be a skater instead.” This girl was lost. She was trying on identities like they were pairs of sunglasses. Even if you haven’t changed your image in such a drastic way, it’s likely you still feel a little lost. You still know the panic of wandering around, not really knowing which way to go. In these years between 15 and 19, you are bombarded with pressure. You’re supposed to get good grades without getting too stressed out. You’re supposed to earn your parents’ trust and your friends’ respect; live up to your potential but not stress about being perfect; look toward the future but enjoy the present; exercise and eat right but not focus on your body image. You’re supposed to fit in, stand out, be true to yourself, and impress other people. How could you not feel lost in the middle of all of that?

Asking questions

The girls we talk to are lost for many of the same reasons you are. They come to counseling because their parents are getting divorced, or they are struggling with friends, or they have gotten in trouble, or they have an eating disorder, or they’re struggling with any one of the issues facing you or your friends on any given day. Basically they are wandering around in the circles of pressure and expectations, stress and school, friends and family. And in the midst of all of it, they are asking questions —questions we know you’re asking, too.

  • Who am I?
  • What do I want in life?
  • What should I do?
  • Who do I want to be?

Our friend Anne turned 16 recently. She loved driving and would offer to go just about anywhere for her mom. She made up errands just so she could take the car. But there was one problem: Anne had a horrible sense of direction. It was always the same. About ten minutes after Anne would leave the house, her mom would get a phone call. Sure enough, it would be Anne, panicky, frustrated, and lost. “Mom, I need your help. Which way do I go?” Anne wasn’t dumb. She wasn’t trying to get lost. She just needed a guide—her mom on the other end of the phone—to help her find her way.

That’s what we try to be to the girls we counsel—guides. We are helping them find their way through all the confusion of their teenage years. And that’s what we want this book to do for you. We don’t want to tell you which way to go—that would be our way out, not yours. Instead, we want to give you the tools you need to find your own way, a way that is unique to who you are and who God made you to be.

This book will be a journey we’ll take together. We’ll start with where you’ve been, then talk about where you are now. We’ll look at what you want, and why certain things and people have the power to make you really happy—or really hurt. We’ll talk about friends and families and boys, and how you can connect with these important people without losing yourself. We’ll look at why you sometimes feel bad about yourself—and what will make you feel better. We’ll walk through some of the harder issues such as alcohol and drugs, eating disorders, sex, and selfharm. And in the midst of all of these conversations, we think you’ll begin to find your way.

God has made you unlike anyone else. He has given you strengths and talents and qualities and characteristics that will make a difference to the world. You won’t fully understand all of that by the time you finish this book—you will spend a lifetime figuring out who God has made you to be. But our desire is that this book will help you start finding your way out of the confusion—finding yourself. Most of all, we hope this book will help you start feeling a little less lost.