Stephanie Smith - Crossroads. The Teenage Girls Guide to Emotional Wounds

INVERT YOUTH SPECIALTIES

CROSSROADS: THE TEENAGE GIRLS GUIDE TO EMOTIONAL WOUNDS

Copyright 2008 by Stephanie Smith and Suzy Weibel

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition June 2009 ISBN: 0-310-86155-1

Youth Specialties products, 300 S. Pierce St., El Cajon, CA 92020 are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49530.

ISBN 978-0-310-28550-2

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, Todays New International Version. TNIV. Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design by David Conn

08 09 10 11 12 13 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgments

To our families: Karen and Matt; Jonathan, Rachael, and Marie
Thank you for walking together with us through
our collective dysfunction. Once again God showed us
the perfection of his intentional design when he chose us
one for another.

To my fatherI love you. Stephanie

Contents

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
When Life Hands You a Loss

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
Putting Lifes Plans on Hold

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
On Parents Splitting Up: Take 1

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
On Parents Splitting Up: Take 2

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
When Dad Never Says I Love You

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
Beating Depression

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
Life after a Major Injury

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
When God Gives You a Do-Over

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
Forgiving a Husbands Betrayal

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
Forgiving Your Abuser

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
Seventeen Years Old and on My Own

So You Want to Be a Rock Star?
What If God Asks Me to Move?

First we want to say thank you for picking up our book. Both of us have had write a book on our to-do lists for years, so were happy to know that read a book was on your to-do list today.

There is, of course, a story behind this book and a reason these thoughts were put to paper. For a long time, we have both been involved with a national ministry to teens called Pure Freedom. In fact Stephanie began her affiliation with Pure Freedom as a 13-year-old retreat attendee, but her first Pure Freedom event as a featured artist took place seven years later. Thats when this book really began.

During lunch with ministry founder and author Dannah Gresh, Stephanie shared the story of how she had met her father only twice and had recently penned a song about her journey toward loving and forgiving him. Dannah was moved by Stephanies story and asked, Do you think you could share that story and song after lunch?

Four hundred girls got a close-up view of Stephanies deepest pain as she performed the song First Words for them. Nearly one quarter of the audiencealmost 100 girlsadmitted that day that they had similar wounds from their fathers. As Steph came down from the stage, she saw her former youth pastor standing there. Welcome to your ministry, Stephanie Smith, he whispered.

In the following two years, hundreds of other girls have had the opportunity to let the message of First Words pour hope into their hurting hearts. Two responses have been consistent: The stage fills with young women desperately seeking a way to rise above the pain First Words describes so poignantly. Or girls ask, Where can I get a copy of that song? Thats where this book comes in.

Heres how the book works. While putting together Stephanies story, we realized her debut album more or less lyrically follows the course of the very story we wanted to tell. Each chapter is therefore titled after a track on the record and begins with a sample of Stephanies lyrics. From there each chapter delves into a bit of Stephanies story. In the process of writing about Stephanies life, we stumbled upon the truth that forgiveness is not the only choice we have to make in the course of our lives. We make incredibly difficult decisions every day about who we want to be and how we want to live.

Following our album theme, each chapter has a section called Choose Your Playlist. In this section we ask a question of you. The questions are all different, but behind each is the same decision: Are you willing to believe that God is who he says he is and that his promises of care and love and presence are true? Or are you going to believe youre stuck in a life that will never work out and that you have no choice but to be unhappy, bitter, and disconnected? That might sound a little harsh, but those really are the choices many of us have to make. Life is hard. So what are you going to do about that?

Your Song is a section in each chapter that asks you to take an action step. Some of these are simple and quick; some will need to be completed over time. Some are for the individual; others invite people close to you to walk alongside you. Some are fun; some may be painful. In each case we have prayerfully chosen steps we think will bring you closer to living the life God desires for you.

Finally, in So You Want to Be a Rock Star? we visit the stories of ordinary people who have found themselves at all kinds of crossroads. Something in their lives forced them to look long and hard into the grace of God and decide if they believed in it. We dont think were giving away too much of the plot to tell you this: Each storyteller will offer the same truthsGod is who he says he is. He is faithful. He can be trusted.

So are you ready for a hard, honest, healing journey? If so, you arent alone. Though the pieces of this story unfold through the life of one person, it is not the Stephanie Smith extravaganza. This is your story; its our story; its the story of life.

Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

(Matthew 28:18-20, emphasis added)

Life is hard. This book could end right now because, frankly, thats one of lifes great secrets, and now that you know it, there might not be a whole lot left to say. It is seriously tough out there in the world. I dont want to depress anybody right off the bat, but if you pay any attention at all, you know what Im talking about. I guess we have to consider the very real possibility that these are simply the last days referred to by the apostle Paul in one of his letters to his friend Timothyyou can read his words for yourself in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. But I have to warn you, its not encouraging news.