Excellence is becoming a lost art. Think about it. Grammar has gone by the wayside with the laidback aura of texting and social media. Fashion has become more about personal expression and ease than dignity and respect for others. Students are getting nabbed for using AI (most decidedly NOT an… Read More »Mediocrity is NOT a Virtue: Do Your Best Whatever You Do
If you read my post Author vs. Protagonist: Trust God To Write Your Love Story, you know how my love story started. An unromantic “meet-cute,” a parting of ways with immature fantasies, a coming-of-age in love and romance. Sweet and somewhat unconventional. But that’s not all that happened between point… Read More »Girl Talk: How to Handle a Guy Who’s Coming on Too Strong
Q: “I really like this guy from church. We’ve been friends for a few years but recently he told me he’d like to date me. We both want the blessing of our parents but my parents won’t allow me to date until I’m 18. How can I talk to them… Read More »How to Talk to Your Parents About Dating: Advice For Teens
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find low-violence YA books without swinging wide into romance territory? I discovered this intriguing phenomenon early in my search for clean YA fiction recommendations: You either have kissing or blood. As I said in Violence in Clean YA Fiction: How Much… Read More »9+ Low-Violence YA Books (That Aren’t Just Romance)
This post originally began as a list of myths about sex that teens believe, serving as an extension to my earlier post 7 Common Lies About Sex That Christian Girls Believe. But after compiling the fallacies and composing responses to each, I wasn’t satisfied. Not just because it was too… Read More »How Teens Who Know God Respond to Myths About Sex
A recent question from a reader: “My best friend recently confessed his love to me but I don’t know how I feel about him! I was confused before and now I still don’t know. What should I do? How do you know if you like someone more than just as… Read More »How to Know if You Like Someone Who’s In Love With You
Performance anxiety is the bane of many young musicians. Often, it’s not lack of skill or know-how that keeps a person off stage. It’s fear. I know what it’s like to have the enjoyment of an art form stolen by stage fright. Worse is when it stays stolen and the… Read More »Break the Cycle of Performance Anxiety: Inside the Minds of Pros
Not long ago, I was contacted by a high school senior looking for specific relationship advice. He ended his query with, “How young is too young to be dating to marry? Is there a limit?” I’m not sure if this is a common question for teens. For some, marriage is… Read More »Is it Ever Too Young to Be Thinking About Marriage?