Wonder of a Woman

Who You Are, Really When being the "It" girl just isn't enough. Heather was an extremely shy and soft-spoken freshman.One of her teachers introduced her to me when I spoke at her school. It only took a few minutes for me to see Heather was lonely and very insecure. As we were talking, several girls walked by and made a crude comment about her. My heart broke for her. She told me she didn't have many friends. She even asked me what I thought she should do to make more friends. I was hurting for Heather, but as I watched her walk back to class, I knew there was no way I could understand how hard life really was for her... Renee was a popular, smart, funny senior in high school, and she had a singing voice that made Britney Spears sound like Miss Piggy. (Actually Britney Spears does that all on her own.) Renee and her boyfriend, Reed, stopped me backstage at a conference where I spoke. They were both in the band that led worship that night. Renee was a preacher's kid. Ask her a question about the Bible, and she had all the right answers. "When your daddy is the one in the pulpit, you kind of have to act like you've got it all together," she said. But I could tell Renee was far from having it "all together." The more we talked, the more the facade began to fade. She said, "I can't remember the last time I had a real conversation with my dad. He's so busy doing church that he hardly ever has time for me." And then, as I continued to listen, she confirmed what I had already suspected: "Reed and I are sleeping together. I know it's wrong. But we are." Obviously, her lack of attention from her father left a void in her heart she was trying to fill with a cute guy and sexual intimacy. Itwaswrong. And I could tell that, deep down, she knew it... Sarah was sixteen when I met her at a camp in Texas. She introduced herself by saying, "Hi, I'm Sarah, and I'm dying." Talk about an introduction. It was one of those awkward slo-mo moments where you really don't know what to say. Wanting to keep the conversation positive, I responded and said somethingreallysmart: "Hi, Sarah. I'm Jeffrey, and I don't like cheese." Yes, it sounds as stupid now as it did then. I'm still learning that if you don't have anything smart to say, sometimes you should just say nothing. Sarah told me about the day she heard the news that she had leukemia. She talked about chemo, pain, losing her hair, and a fear of dying. She was mad at God, mad at the world, and basically mad at everything and everyone. (Who wouldn't be, right?) "I haven't lived a perfect life or anything," she said. "But I don't deserve this. It's just not fair!" Sarah's reality was difficult for her to understand. It was difficult for me to understand. I might have told her that a lot of things in life seem unfair and they aren't always easy to explain, but that wouldn't be what she wantedor neededto hear. So, rather than once again saying something I might regret, I just listened as she talked. That's what she really needed... Then there's Lisa. She's a cheerleader. She told me how difficult it was to live the life of a Christian while also being a cheerleader on her high-school campus. She talked about post-high-school plans of college and eventually Bible school. She wanted to be a missionary. "My friends respect me, but they also think I'm a little crazy to believe in all this Jesus stuff," she said. "I want to honor God with mDean, Jeffrey is the author of 'Wonder of a Woman ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781590529850 and ISBN 1590529855.