Teenagers much?

I had a great weekend with my 13 year old cousin and her little friends. Picked up a cute new teen phrase. I really love being around silly giggly little (<-- definitley relative) girls. Nail polish, face masks, detrimental life ending problems...I just love it all. I hope I still love all that nonsense when my girl gets big. I hope I am as involved and can enjoy it as whole heartedly as I do now. I feel like I am doing something so worth while when I'm spending time being goofy with them. They are the future (I know, it's so cliche, but still true), and where will our future be if no one comes around to take interest in it or guide it? blah blah blah IT'S SO MUCH FUN!! 13 year old girls know a lot more than I thought they did. Their problems and concerns are very real...and valid. It is hard to make a girl feel like her concerns are valid to you. It's hard to communicate how much you care and why you care. It's really hard to make them understand that big people (adults) really do know more than them and they really do care about them. It is hard but I think it is worth the effort. Adults really aren't trying to ruin all teenage forms of fun and be cruel and evil as often as possible. I remember thinking that adults must get some kind of twisted pleasure out of making me miserable. I don't remember when I decided I was wrong. I also discovered this weekend that there is an extremely fine line between giving a girl a good healthy self-esteem and making her completely self-centered. Talk about a balancing act. I decided that it is important to know deep down in your heart that "It's not all about me," but that it is really fun to pretend that it is sometimes. It's fun for me and so I fall into pretending that it's all about YaYeigh but I don't want her to become a selfish brat. I want her to know that she is special, loved and valuable, priceless even. I also want her to know that every other girl is priceless as well and that it is our job to show people love, even girls that don't have cute shoes and perfect hair. There is so much to teach the future generation of women, how am I going to get it all in? Ahhh. And what about the stuff that I don't even know about yet? AAAHHHHH. Maybe I'm biting off more than I can chew. Maybe I need help. I think there is help out there, I just have a hard time seeing it. How can I have such a passion for molding the hearts of teenage girls and still feel totally helpless? I want so badly to save them all from ever having to go through any pain or having to regret anything they've done. I guess we have to go through some of that stuff though, or we would never mature and never come to realize our need for a Savior. I really do come to these realizations while I'm typing. We have to go through making mistakes and sinning and messing up our plans so that we know we have to rely on Someone bigger. We can rest in knowing that He will take care of the mess for us when we're ready to admit that we made the mess and can't pick it up alone. I have so many young girls in my life that I care about so much. Some of them are making huge life altering mistakes. It breaks my heart and I want to reach in and take them out of their situations and fix everything. I can't do it, but I know that my Savior can. He is my help and theirs.