I recently had the privilege of speaking to a group of teen girls at a Christian recovery center for youth coming out of addiction. I say it was a privilege because I may have been ministered to just as much as they, if not more.

I have to admit I was a little intimidated when I first walked into the room. It wasn’t that I hadn’t prepared, but I was thinking, “What can I say as a man to speak into the hearts of these young women?”

One of the young ladies came over and offered me some red Kool-Aid. She surprised me by saying she had heard me speak at her home church about a year ago and remembered I had said my favorite drink is red Kool-Aid. In fact, she and some of the other girls had made an entire pitcher.

After an incredible time of praise and worship, I felt the Lord led me to share with them from the Book of Esther. The main thing I told them repeatedly is, they are “queens.” I told them in the context of being a queen they were valuable, special and created for a special purpose. I wanted them to know how much God loved them and being a queen for Him meant a new way of looking at their lives and the world.

Trying to Feel Special
The more I called them queens and told them how much God loves them and has a plan for their lives, I could see their facial expressions change. When I came to the close of my message, I told them it was a privilege to address a room of royalty, a room full of queens. What happened after that brought tears to my eyes and ministered to me.

One of the adult staff asked if any of the girls would like to say anything in response. One by one the girls began to share how the message impacted them.

Many said they never had been called a queen before. Many shared about how they struggled with body image and relationships with boys. The more stories shared, the more I felt the weight of their hearts. They were looking for relationships with boys to validate them, to make them feel special and wanted. Their addictions were just ways to cope with rejection or deal with the pain of abusive parents.

As I heard their stories, I wondered if some of them would have needed to be at a recovery center at all if they had heard a couple of years earlier they were royal daughters of God.

A Royal Identity
Do not assume the girls around you have a healthy, Christ-centered identity. We can spend so much time talking about sex, relationships and life choices that we can miss the core issue: From where are girls getting their identities? Another way to ask could be, “How are there identities being shaped?” It’s not that we shouldn’t talk about sex, relationships and life choices, but we can’t afford to underestimate the importance of girls finding their identities ultimately in God through intimacy with Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This is so important for girls who are bombarded on a daily basis with images that send messages conveying they are not beautiful unless their hair, faces and bodies look a certain way. Acceptance or rejection by the boys around them begins to carry weight that takes away from biblical truth of how identities really should be shaped. Girls need to know first and foremost their identities must be rooted in Gods’ love for them.

When’s the last time you told the girls around you they are queens?