I Stalked a Boy to a Bible Study

Note: I’m having some technical difficulties, so the last post of Sharing Your Story will come early next week. So sorry! Thanks for grace (or at least pity) for my technically challenged self. Here’s another fun giveaway instead, so don’t stop reading. 🙂

Yep. I stalked a boy to a Bible study.

It all started with attending the concert of a local Christian rock group with some friends. Ever since I fell in love with Shaun Cassidy at the tender age of 10, I’ve had a thing for musicians, so at 16 I scanned the group with my starstruck eyes until my they landed on the piano player.  I thought he had it all–tall, handsome, piano player, singer, and by all accounts pursuing God. He was in a Christian band after all!

And so I did what I always did in my teen years. I started becoming an annoyance.

At the time, I didn’t see it that way. I thought I was just letting him know I liked him. Looking back, I make myself gag. I even justified inviting him to a school dance “as a friend” even though he was dating another girl. Shockingly bad behavior! When he gently turned me down (Oh, swoon! He has integrity too.), I didn’t give up. I just tried to show up anywhere he was.

God will use even your teen-age craziness to get you right where He wants you!

That’s how I came to stalk a boy to a Bible study. He went to a Bible study with a group of teens and early 20s from churches all over our town, so I went too. Slowly, over a period of months, I fell out of “like” with the boy but deeply in love with Jesus.

Although I had given my heart to Him when I was ten, I had never been around a group of people so passionate about bringing their love for Jesus into their every day life. My experience with God had mostly been limited to Sundays, but suddenly I saw that He wanted all of me in every day of the week.

That was the beginning of building my confidence on something more solid than whether a boy liked me or not. All those stalking tendencies were just proof of my insecurity and spiritual immaturity.

When I began to truly know that Jesus accepted me and loved me no matter what…

When I began to love God more than anything…

When my focus shifted to actions pleasing to God rather than a boy…

That’s when I started the journey of growing into a woman content to be pursued instead of intent on pursuing. 🙂

Oh how I wish I had had my friend Lynn Cowell’s book Magnetic when I was 14, 15,16+ years old!! Maybe I could have learned some of those truths without the humiliation of stalking a boy to a Bible study!

Do you have a girl that age or love a girl that age (neighbor, niece, friend’s daughter, etc)? I can’t say it strongly enough… she NEEDS this book! I’ve been reading it, and honestly, I can’t put it down. Girls are going to love everything from the cool quizzes in each chapter to the gorgeous graphics, and the content is understandable, heart piercing and right where they live.

Here’s a description of the book from Lynn:

Packed with honesty, encouragement and perspective-changing truth Magnetic by Lynn Cowell (available at Amazon, B&N, CBD, everywhere books are sold), will empower girls and young woman to reach their fullest potential by focusing on becoming who God made them to be! A girl who reflects God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. A girl who will attract the right type of guy one day: one who loves God with all his heart and who will cherish her!

Doesn’t that sound like what every teen-aged girl needs? Today Waterbrook, Lynn’s publisher, is giving away 2 copies! If you’d like to enter to win, please just leave your girl’s name in the comments. I’ll randomly pick a winner next Thursday and announce it.