One day, a while back, Heather and I were jogging together.
We were huffing and puffing through our neighborhood, looking our awesomest. (not really.)
We happen to pass two younger girls on the same side of the street.
They were deep in coversation as we were, and as I put my hand up in the obligatory we-live-in-the-same-neighborhood wave, they didn't seem to notice us at all.
I burst out laughing, and Heather seem to catch it at the same time.
Here they were, younger versions of ourselves.
Jogging along, huffing a little less, wearing much less, bodies unmarked by the ten...okay fifteen years we probably had on them, and the brew of children we'd collected.
We were both deep in conversation, but I couldn't help but wonder what they were talking about, and even MORE, what we would have been talking about fifteen years ago! We laughed when we wondered that aloud.
Now, Heather and I could have been, in that moment, in a deep discussion about who we were on LOST, Claire or Kate? Or something super immature. But we happen to be discussing grace, and something about teaching our kids about God. (Not every conversation we have glimmers with that much maturity.)
But fifteen years earlier? The topic easily could have been boys, boys, or gossip about girls. Those were popular ones during that era.
I think we both had the overwhelming urge, in fact, Heather did turn around and mock-yell "It's fleeting! It's so fleeting!" While they may have smoother faces, and look good in sports bras only right now, we know exactly how fleeting that is. (The Bible warns us of that of course.) And what we know about life and God in fifteen years of hard learning, we wish we could shout it to every passing college age girl. In fact, we do shout it. Every spring we have Her Hands. We basically shout out every hard lesson, every real truth, every biblical principle we wish we'd known when we sat where they sit now. Even though our bangs are not as big and we have houses packed with kids now, we remember it well. We remember our intense foolishness and pridefulness. We remember relying on our peers for "wisdom" who were in the exact same boat as us, struggling and failing with the exact same sins. We remember proof texting the Word to make it say what we wanted it to say so we could justify sin. We remember the fear of never getting married, and never having babies. We remember the utter distraction that boys were in our lives and the disastrous effects of dating relationships, dealing with the wreckage of break-ups constantly.
We remember.
And while those cute little girls who passed us in my neighborhood will never have to hear us shout it all at them, about 60 new girls this semester will.
(We really don't shout, though sometimes we'd like to.)
We're desperate for girls to walk in intimacy with the Lord, without distraction, throwing off foolishness. We're desperate for them to love God's Word before we did. We're desperate for them to say no to foolish dating relationships, heartbreak, and sexual sin.
So desperate, that Heather has written this amazing material called Her Hands.
About a cajillion hours have gone into this. Heather is a brilliant writer. The end-result is amazing!
We love college girls! They make our lives great! We love seeing them learn things before we did. It blesses us.
So we embark on a new semester. A new pack of 60 precious girls. New hope for them and their futures.
We hold nothing back.
If you are a woman, married or single, I highly suggest reading this material online.
It's free! And God has been using it as a tool to change women and make them look more like Him. It will be nothing short of challenging.
So here we go, Her Hands girlies. Let's get started!
