Nancy N. Rue - The Body Book

The Body Book

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The Body Book

2012 Nancy Rue

Cover and interior illustrations 2012 by Jennifer Zivoin

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

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Italics in Scripture indicate the authors emphasis.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE by Eugene H. Peterson. 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rue, Nancy N.

The body book / Nancy Rue.

p. cm. -- (The lily series)

ISBN 978-1-4003-1950-3 (pbk.)

1. Girls--Physiology--Juvenile literature. 2. Menstruation--Juvenile literature. 3. Puberty--Juvenile literature. 4. Girls--Health and hygiene--Juvenile literature. I. Title.

RJ145.R84 2012

618.100835--dc23

2012030005

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Nine : A Final Send-Off

One
Whats Going On in There?

Sixty queens there may be,

and eighty concubines,

and virgins beyond number;

but my dove, my perfect one, is unique.

SONG OF SONGS 6:89

Its either happening already, or youve heard that its going to.

Youre growing breasts.

Hair is appearing in new places.

Youre sweating more.

Youve got the body odor thing going on.

Youre gaining weight or getting taller by the minute.

Your friends are talking about starting their periods.

Youre giggling one minute and crying the next.

And in the middle of it all, youre looking in the mirror and saying, who are you, and what have you done with me?

This time in your lifebetween about eight and about thirteen years oldis when more changes are happening in your body than have ever happened since that first year when you had to triple your weight, grow teeth, and figure out how to walk! This can be a confusing time. At certain moments you may feel like shouting to your body, whats going on in there?

Hopefully this truth will help you: whats going on in there is normal.

All these changes are because of something called pubertyand it happens to every girl, and it has since God first started making females. And probably every girl has had the same questions you might have.

GIRLZ Want to Know

LILY: Everybody talks about When you hit puberty... What is puberty anyway?

Puberty is the time when your body starts producing two new hormones it hasnt produced before.

RENI: Great. So whats a hormone?

A hormone is a chemical thats produced in a certain organ or gland and is then sent to another part of your body to go to work. The two new hormones in puberty are estrogen and progesterone.

ZOOEY: I have chemicals in my body?! Why? What are they doing in there?

Theyre slowly turning you into a woman.

Estrogen causes

the development of your breasts (time for a bra?)

the widening of your hips (think of it as curves)

the growth of all that extra hair in your armpits and pubic area

the production of more oil in your skin and hair (enter pimples and the greasies!)

the thickening of the hair on your legs (break out the razor!)

your new interest in boys (They havent gotten any less silly. You just dont mind as much!)

Progesterone, along with estrogen, causes and controls

your period

How Is This aGod Thing?

You may find yourself wanting to ask God, How come I have to go through all these pimples and all this embarrassing hair and all this crying that comes out of nowhere? Couldnt there have been a better way?

In our minds, it might seem easier to wake up one day with a mature body, clear skin, and perfect coordinationbut would that really be better?

People would then expect you to act like a full-grown womanand where would that knowledge come from?

God made growthall kinds of growtha gradual process that takes time. The slow appearance of hair, the day-by-day way your breasts grow, the trial and error you have to go through with your emotionsthats all part of Gods plan for you to have the time to get used to the idea of becoming a woman. Hopefully, by the time you look in the mirror when youre eighteen or twenty, youre going to pretty much like what you see. The trick is to make it till then, right?

Thats what this book is about: helping you understand whats going on in there and giving you some hints about how to grow with it, physically and spiritually.

As always, there may be some obstacles, so lets try to get those out of the way right up front.