<\/p>\n
Extracurricular Activities are Stressful<\/strong><\/p>\n When I was younger, much younger, I had BIG dreams.\u00a0 I felt that God had BIG PLANS for my life\u2026but I was stuck.\u00a0 At least I felt stuck.\u00a0 I began seeking God and His plans for me when I was about 12 years old and continued to watch for Him through my teens.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t always easy to stay on the straight path and sometimes I strayed.\u00a0 Having too many extracurricular activities was not a problem where I grew up.\u00a0 There was nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to do.\u00a0 Boredom can steal your focus from God just as much as being too busy can.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 As I began parenting my girls, I wanted them to experience all that God\u2019s world had to offer.\u00a0 I wanted them to be able to try things and see where their passions would lie.\u00a0 I wanted them to grow up with few regrets of things that might have been.<\/p>\n We tried various sports, dance, clubs, groups, camps and mission trips.\u00a0 We went on field trips, read books and traveled.\u00a0 Hopefully the girls were able to experience things in their lives that would point them to their God-given passions and abilities.\u00a0 I\u00a0encouraged the girls to try everything at least once and the things they liked<\/em>\u2026DO IT AGAIN<\/strong>.<\/p>\n When middle school came I asked the girls to do everything they had any interest in, but by high school they had to pick one interest.\u00a0 My daughter Michele tried basketball, clubs, band and peer tutoring.\u00a0 Lindsay didn\u2019t really have any interests in and around school, she wanted to dance ballet.\u00a0 Robin is sports-gifted so she tried tennis, basketball, cross-country, soccer, a little bit of golf and\u00a0band.\u00a0 By the time high school came around, Michele had dropped band and sports, but kept her grades high and found that she loved to help kids learn.\u00a0 Lindsay still didn\u2019t like the organization of school much, but loved her ballet classes.\u00a0 Now she is enjoying being able to choose her college classes on her schedule much better than high school.\u00a0 Robin chose to play soccer, keep her grades high and volunteer her time at church.<\/p>\n These are only three daughters from the same family with the same values seeking to find their place in God\u2019s family.\u00a0 It gets crazy at our house trying to balance everyone\u2019s schedule, but the most important thing is to keep God FIRST and all the other STUFF falls into place.\u00a0 Our family MOTTO is \u201cYou have time for what you make time for\u201d.\u00a0<\/strong> <\/em>If God says, \u201cWhere\u2019s MY time?\u201d<\/span> the answer better not be \u201cI didn\u2019t have time\u201d.\u00a0 He gave up something pretty important for you, so you should be willing to give up a little something for HIM.<\/p>\n There is a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw: \u201cYouth is Wasted On the Young\u201d.\u00a0 I think it is famous because all of us old people wish we had YOUR<\/span><\/strong> energy and potential with OUR<\/span><\/strong> wisdom and we would have made better choices when we had the chance.\u00a0 In the Bible\u2026in Ecclesiates, King Solomon says that it is good to be young and enjoy life.\u00a0 Solomon lived life to the fullest.\u00a0 He tried everything under the sun and you know what he found out???\u00a0 It\u2019s all meaningless unless GOD is there<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Take every opportunity to try new things and meet new people.\u00a0 Put God first and let him light the way to those new things.\u00a0 You will NEVER<\/span> regret one minute following God.\u00a0 You WILL<\/span> regret leaving him out.\u00a0 I promise.\u00a0 Don\u2019t waste your youth being stupid.\u00a0 Your life is a GIFT<\/span><\/strong>, give it back to God and see what He wants to make of it.<\/p>\n What you\u00a0ARE<\/span> <\/strong><\/em>is God\u2019s gift to you<\/span>.\u00a0 What you make<\/span> <\/strong><\/em>of it is your gift to God<\/span>.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s PRAY<\/span>:<\/p>\n Dear Father, Thank you for the gift<\/span> of this life and the opportunities in it.\u00a0 Thank you for giving us individual passions and desires that aren\u2019t like anyone else\u2019s.\u00a0 Help us to find our place in your BIG family.\u00a0 Help us find balance when life seems overwhelming, stressful\u00a0and gets us down.\u00a0 We know you love us and forgive us when we fail.\u00a0 Help us to forgive ourselves and move even closer to you.\u00a0 We love you.\u00a0\u00a0Be patient with us as we learn to show you how much we love you with our actions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AMEN<\/p>\n Be Blessed,<\/p>\n \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n For the A Daughter\u2019s Worth Bible Study, you will need the book, your Bible, pen or pencil, a highlighter and a quiet place. You can order the book right through our website from clicking the sign-up form button at the top of our webpage.<\/p>\n If you are interested in joining us in our GCH:decaf Teen Girls Ministry, please click the sign-up form button at the top of our webpage. Just follow the instructions on the form and hit submit. We\u2019ll be happy to add you to one of our Online Bible Study Groups! Our new study is A Daughter\u2019s Worth! Please email megan@girlfriendscoffeehour.com for more information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Extracurricular Activities are Stressful When I was younger, much younger, I had BIG dreams.\u00a0 I felt that God had BIG PLANS for my life\u2026but I was stuck.\u00a0 At least I felt stuck.\u00a0 I began seeking God and His plans for me when I was about 12 years old and continued to watch for Him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[68,109,144,147,218,365,370,393,411,415,425,436,554,620,723,724,863,1039,1043,1052,1135,1156],"class_list":["post-4476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teens","tag-a-daughters-worth","tag-ava-sturgeon","tag-bible","tag-bible-study","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-friends","tag-gch-decaf","tag-gchdecaf","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-god","tag-jesus","tag-love","tag-online-bible-studies","tag-online-bible-study","tag-rainbow","tag-teen-girls","tag-teens-2","tag-teresa-bolme","tag-womens-bible-studies","tag-youth","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-1ac","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8372,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions\/8372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mama T<\/span>\u00a0 <3<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n