If my life would allow it, I would spend every day of summer with a book.  On a blanket in the shade.  While soaking up some Vitamin D by the water.  With coffee every morning and in bed every night.

Alas, as a busy Mom of 5 boys, I don’t get to read as often as I’d like, but I still read often.  And I’m always on the hunt for a good book that will teach me something, expand my horizons, change my perspective…leave me a little changed.

When asked to read and review the debut book for our former FLT author, Kate Conner, I was thrilled.  Mainly because I love Kate’s humor and honesty.  Enough: 10 Things We Need to Be Telling Teenage Girls.  Not exactly the title of a book that I thought would change me so much.

I have a house full of boys, but I have a life full of girls.  My four beautiful teenage nieces.  My trusted babysitter.  My friend’s daughters.  And that is just the teenaged ones.

Here is what surprised me about Kate’s book,  Enough wasn’t a book written for teenage girls as much as it is a book of 10 things we need to be telling ALL women because we all seem to struggle with the same insecurity, with the same question of doubt introduced to us nearly as soon as God created women.  We all need to hear, absorb and then begin to live “You are enough.”

I needed to hear it.  And I needed to hear it in the way that Kate presents it in view of teenage girls because it made me realize I am telling every teenage girl (and every young wife, every new mother, etc.) that they are “enough” by HOW I am living it myself.

Many times I have told my teenage nieces that someone could not pay me $10 million to return to those teenage years.  I tell them this because I want them to understand that I know how hard this time in their life truly is.  Everything seems big.  Every fight with a friend.  Every break up.  Every pimple.  Because in the reality of a decade-and-a-half of life, these things are big.

Those events only become smaller when the span of our lives become larger.  Those pimples I still get at 34-years old are just as big, but they don’t make me want to hide in my bedroom for days on end.  I’ve gotten crafty with concealer and even more importantly, more comfortable in my own skin, be it oily and acne-prone.

I know I must carry the torch that has been passed to me by the women who’ve gone before.  The women who did hard things, who perhaps didn’t achieve what they could have by flirting, and in so achieved so much more.  

I am calling for mothers and grandmothers and teachers and mentors to carry their torches too.

I am calling for strong women.  Not androgynous women.  Not harsh, shrill, or prudish women.  I’m calling for beautiful, gentle, compassionate, women – with spines and wills of steel.  I’m calling for women who know their value, their intelligence, and their skill, and behave accordingly.

{{Enough by Kate Conner}}

Kate’s words called me up, and then her sound advice and reliance on truth, gave me the arsenal of tools to take on the issues that muck up a teenage girl’s experience (and will follow her into womanhood if allowed).  And it is more than just saying to our girls, “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

The reason “You’re perfect just the way you are” isn’t reassuring to women (and isn’t connecting with teenage girls) is because it’s not true – and we know it.  The reason it doesn’t make us feel better is because we know better.  We know too much of our own flaws and broken places to be persuaded that we’re perfect just the way we are, no matter how enthusiastically anyone insists.  Platitudes don’t heal hearts; truth does.

{{Enough by Kate Conner}}

The book lands on truth.  “We are all enough, because God tells us so.”

I’m not a teenage girl.  I’m not raising a teenage girl or leading a youth group of teenage girls.  I didn’t think this book would impact me personally quite as much as it did.

Truth is, I am a girl still.  I may be a girl of 34-years, but I still struggle to believe that I am enough.

This book has helped me see that none of the girls around me, the ones who look up to me without me even realizing it, will believe they are enough unless I show them what living it looks like.

Which makes this book for every women and is why my Amazon cart will be full of many copies this year as birthday and Christmas and “just because” gifts to the women in my life.  Here’s where to get it into your cart too.

There is also a version written to teenage girls, which I didn’t read, but I know will also be a hot gift on my list this year to the girls I love.  You can grab one for the teenage girl that you love here.

So, kudos to FLT’s own Kate Conner and a great book that was a worthy read this summer!

 

See Kate’s original blog post that inspired her book here for a glimpse of her topics and her keepin’ it real flair.

 

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