Pssst … can I let you in on some news? The “Beautiful Unique Girls Pajama Party” at Parksville Baptist Church on October 1st was a complete success!

My name is Kathy (see photo below), a twenty-eight years old mother of two who went into the night as a leader and come out of it transformed! After what happened in my own life, I can just imagine the impact the night made to the 30 or so teenaged girls that also attended this great event. It just goes to show that the message of the night was for everyone, no matter what age and what stage in life: All of us need to know that we - as women and girls alike - are beautifully and wonderfully made by God!!

So, back to the beginning … what brought me out to this event? I’ll be honest, the chocolate fondue was the biggest temptation. What girl can resist that! I was completely amazed at how the room we used was transformed into a Pajama Oasis, all decked out with a shag carpet, lava lamps, and fluffy pillows galore. We were welcomed by 5 wonderful young ladies, full of life and love for God when we entered, but what caught my attention was their self confidence and their beauty. They were all comfortable in their own skin and but it was a confidence that was much more than just skin deep and had nothing to do with their looks.

The event started with games and was followed by a small musical performance by Charmaine Champion, who has been blessed with a wonderful gift of song writing that gave me goose bumps and a beautiful voice to match. Then the pizza was offered and a discussion started about what defines “beauty” and what the perception of beauty in pop-culture is. We came to realize that we’ve really bought into these lies about ourselves and that we are not realizing our full potential because we’ve been putting these limitations on ourselves based on a false message.

Charmaine even took time to share her own story and it was amazing because my own story, as a teenager, was not that different from hers. All of us want to be beautiful. All of us have tried to acquire this beauty. However, if we simply stopped believing the definition of beauty that pop-culture throws on us long enough, we might realize that beauty has been in us all along. Then we switched gears and had some fun with a nail polish session and then the chocolate fondue - YUMMMMY!

At the conclusion of the event, the girls were challenged to write all the lies they have believed about themselves on a sheet of paper. Then each was invited to come up front and throw this paper in the garbage, finally putting an end to the lies and making a stand to believe the truth about who we really are.

It was amazing to see this exercise with the sheets of paper from the sidelines. As you can imagine, most of these girls had really come to a realization that the world has duped them into believing a lie and many of them wanted prayer or just to talk afterwards. There was healing- and A LOT of it - going on that night. Truly God’s love and His Grace were there with everyone.

I hope that the future generation of girls will stand firm in their faith knowing that they are precious in God’s sight and that they are truly BEAUTIFUL UNIQUE GIRLS.

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Kathy is a part of the High School PYM leadership team.  When she's not being a super-mom, she's writing articles for www.pym.ca and saving the world!!  Find here on facebook HERE