the honesty of 8th graders

I had a surreal experience today … we have started an 8th grade girls small group. Today I had a cup full of about 20 questions that you would pass around pull a question read it and then answer it. The questions were every thing from; what’s your favorite movie to what happens when you die. We had been asking questions for about 20 min or so and some good discussion had come from it, when the question “ where do you see your self in 10 years” came up. This would roughly put these girls at 24 years old (one year younger than I am, which they informed was 7 years past the best years of your life…) anyways as the girls started answering the question there answer were what I expected “be out of college, have a job, don’t be living with my parents” and then the last girl looked at me and said “well I expect I will have a kid by then” I figured married with a kid, so I asked her if that’s what she meant. No she replied just a kid, I don’t really see my self ever settling down but I want a kid. It made me really sad for her. Here is a teenage girl who can look at me and tell me honestly that she thinks she will be a mom right out of high school. She says that love or being in love is the best thing about life and but she doesn’t want to get married… how sad it is that the society that she has grown up in tells her that its not only ok to have kids out of wedlock but almost the standard. That her family (dad, mom, brother) is out of the norm. She wants to be loved and included, she wants freedom and yet I think she is trying to figure out who she really wants to be. The other thing that makes me sad is that her dad is being sent downrange for 10 months. These 10 months when she is transitioning into high school, where she will be in a new school, new surroundings with the world telling her that her value is found only when she is with someone or can be seen as being hot allow her to find value in life really makes me sad. It will be my goal in the coming months to love her, and more importantly show her Gods love, the only love that truly matter and will be consistent no matter what.