Girls Night...

I was super girly as a kid.  I hated to get dirty.  I would make other people put my bike chain on my bike because it was gross.  I did my hair for fun.  I wanted to shave my legs when I was 9.  I begged to get my ears pierced for a year!  I wore fake finger nails that I would bite off and then put in my desk at school (so gross and weird).  I planned out my outfits a month at a time and read incredibly girly books.  I liked boys and always had a "camp boyfriend" each summer.  One day...I guess sometime in Junior High when all things go a little cooky, I stopped.  I never wanted to shower.  I wore my hair in a wet pony tail to school every day.  I organized sporting events in the mud.  I broke up with my junior high boyfriend because I didn't want to "settle down."  I was allowed to shave my legs but decided it was all of a sudden "unnecessary."  Early high school was a great time of building confidence in who I was in Jesus and how God has made me.  Then, late high school hit and I got a boyfriend.  I let this become a huge part of my identity.  I lost so much of who I was and lost site of the things that I valued about myself.  Through a lot of prayer, this relationship ended by early college.  By mid college I was back to normal Ashlee but with a new passion to talk to girls about being free to be who they are!  When I was pregnant with Ava and we found out she was going to be a girl, I started to pray that she would know God and also have confidence in who she is as a beautiful creation of Him.  If any of you know Ava, at this point, my prayer was answered.  As a parent though, I pray that we can shape her confidence into a humble knowledge that she is made by God and that He has a great plan for her life.  This then leads me into girls night.  Like I said in the beginning...I do love girly things.  I was talking to several of the girls from our neighborhood about having a girls night.  We decided we would watch High School Musical, eat snacks, paint nails, talk about girl stuff, and play games.  I want to celebrate with them the things that make them unique as women.  The beautiful things about being a little girl that obviously go far beyond watching girl movies and doing hair/nails.  About 17 girls showed up.  We had a question box where they could write down questions.  I was not expecting the heaviness of the questions being asked.  Many we didn't read out loud because it wasn't the setting.  It was a reminder to me about how much women need each other.  How much we want to know that other people are thinking and feeling something similar to what we are thinking.  We want to know that we aren't alone.  I love girls nights.  I love the talking and sharing that comes from them.  I pray for the girls in my neighborhood.  I pray for their innocence.  I pray that we get to keep having these beautiful times together to know each other more.