What Do You See?

How do we engage all students? Why does that one student not want to join in? How come, no matter how much they connect with that group of friends, or that volunteer will they not come to camp? Or come to that event? Or jump in on that game? Or help lead in worship?

This question will forever be asked by youth workers both in and out of ministry. Most conversations on this topic circle around answers like, “they don’t like what you are playing,” “they don’t like the topic you are teaching,” or “they don’t like YOU!”

But.

I want to paint a different perspective really quick.

There is a girl who is 14. She has just entered her freshman year of high school; on the cheerleading squad, speech team, theatre productions, solid group of friends, and goes to church. Well rounded, on the cusp of life! On her first day of her freshman year of high school, a senior in the school mistakes her for their teacher because not only does the 14 year old happen to be wearing the same outfit as the teacher, but happens to be taller than the teacher and has developed the body of a woman…So, rather than resembling a young teenager, she resembles a young twenty-something. She sees her friends, significantly smaller than the boys in their class, being sought after, wearing their oversized hoodies and jerseys, knowing they wouldn’t fit over her chest.

At church events, she notices none of her friend’s skin has the same deep red-purple marks that paint her legs, stomach, chest, and back, and envies they can wear two-piece bathing suites. She thinks that maybe if she silences her thoughts and personality then that will compensate for her giantess appearance. This girl has known the differences for a long time, but they weigh more now. She doesn’t want to be on the squad anymore. There are a lot of reasons, like, a lot, but the primary one is that do they really want a giant freak like that on the squad. She feels like her time of being the token fat girl on the squad has come to an end. She’s over it.

She keeps at her other activities and let them consume her. They are more solo focused, and she can work as hard as she can…doesn’t have to worry about letting anyone else down. Not to mention, it’s performing…it isn’t really her. She is whoever she is playing, not herself…literally transforming into another person; someone else’s skin, someone else’s story. She’s too wrapped up in that to think about if her stomach or legs jiggle when she is walking across stage. She has had one too many people point that out to her that they do, which is why there is no way she will be helping out in front of the church on a Wednesday night or playing that stupid kickball game, no matter how fun everyone says it is. If her stomach fat is noticeable when she’s walking, what does it look like when she’s running?

A weird thing did happen, though. Her friends older brother asked her out to dinner on a random Friday night. Like as a date. He asked her on a date in person in the hallway after math. She said no. Not because she didn’t like Matt. She actually really did like him. She said no because the idea of eating in front of Matt was so mortifying that she would rather have no date at all than the potential of having to eat in front of another person. At this point she had given up eating in front of anyone at school…she looked around at everyone else and just rolled her eyes in a mixture of anger and frustration and confusion. How were they doing it? How were they just going through life like it was no big deal? Eating lunch normally. Going on dates. Doing whatever they wanted to do and not freaking out. “Because,” she thought to herself, “they are small, and I got stuck with this.”

I wish more than anything this was a figurative story I made up, but this was a little glimpse into the life of yours truly. I started my freshman year of high school at 5’9” and 165lbs where the average girl was probably around 5’1-5’4? Maybe around 110lbs? I somehow end up with very short friends, so my closest friend in high school prided herself on the fact that she was only 3/4 away from being legally considered a little person-standing at 5’10 ¾”. That’s right, I was about a whole foot taller than her and my posture suffered from it because I constantly was trying to make myself smaller. In college, my closest friend was 5’1”? 5’2”? So, not much better, haha. However, the nickname Amazon Princess given to me by her is much more preferable to Giant Freak I gave to myself. The truth is there is way more to my story than what is painted here and the same goes for others as well. What I see in the mirror isn’t always true to what others see and frankly, that is terrifying. My hope, is that as leaders we can start painting a picture to help these students start seeing themselves in a truer light.

The reason I share this, friends, is that there are many things I want you to notice:

• There is much more behind why each individual isn’t engaging
  • Yeah, it might be as simple as they don’t want people to see their tummy jiggle on stage (if anyone is actually looking for that, they need to be kicked #hottake)
• This is a very self-centered and anxiety driven issue
  • This has nothing to do with others other than projected assumptions which, as mentors, pastors, leaders, etc. we need to help them sort truth from false thoughts and assumptions
• My body became a woman’s body in a blink of an eye! I was a child and then an adult! I think my body just didn’t want to bother with adolescence and let my brain deal with all of that. A lot of girl’s bodies do that and we need to be open with our students about that. Shoot, I know a lot of woman that would kill to be 5’9”/5’10” and 165lbs today. For a 14 year old girl, however, it’s overwhelming and not what she wants, or, at least not what this 14 year old girl wanted.
• Now as a 29 year old woman I am having to deal with the consequences of my actions. I didn’t think that my disorder would follow me and I didn’t think it would be something I would struggle with my whole life, but alas, here we are and it needs to be talked about.
• THIS DOESN’T JUST PERTAIN TO GIRLS. EATING DISORDERS AND OTHER THINGS RELATED CAN AFFECT ANY SEX AND/OR GENDER.

These are just some bullet points to start a conversation. Jump in. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear your questions. Let’s start talking about this and make sure we are keeping an eye out on our students. PLEASE, leave some comments or send me an email at samantha@samanthamjones.com . This is BIGGER than getting students engaged. This is about showing them and helping them realize they are perfectly and wonderfully made in the image of God.

Until next time,

Sam Jo.