I grew up somewhat as you did. I couldn't wait to turn 21 and be fully free to party and do all the things my friends older siblings did on weekends and such.
The thing about that is, when we're a Christian we're to remember our body is like unto a holy temple wherein God's spirit dwells. Because it does. And as such we should respect that and not defile the sacred with the worldly or the profane. And that is what all those worldly activities you describe is.
Alcohol & the TEEN Brain
If your friends are under 21 they're breaking the law if they drink alcohol. Also, alcohol doesn't do anything for your body. In fact, what it does do is slowly destroy your body. When you consume alcohol it enters you stomach and then the alcohol enters your bloodstream. This starts when you're drinking it, when it enters your mouth.
The blood stream feeds everything in your body including your brain. The reason people get drunk is because the alcohol alters brain activity. This is not good. And it leads to really poor decisions. Like drinking and altering your brain activity.
We're not meant to consume alcoholic beverages. It damages the liver from the first drink. It damages the kidneys that have to process the alcohol to let it leave your body. And when you go to sleep drunk you don't actually rest the body because it is busy burning off the alcoholic effects in your system.
Hangover is actually alcohol poisoning.
Do you know what one of the leading causes of death for chronic alcoholics is? No, not liver cancer. Stomach hemorrhage. The stomach lining thins after years of alcohol abuse.
The chronic alcoholic with such a condition could be sitting on a gurney in a surgical suite at the local hospital and while drinking their favorite beverage when the stomach hemorrhage occurs. They'll die. Because there is nothing that can save their life at that point.
Not glamorous. Not cool. And definitely not the way to go out.
And it is possible even as a young person to overdose on alcohol and die.
Nothing glamorous or grown up about that. But it does shorten your life if you continue to drink for years on end. And it ages you and can cause weight gain and even diabetes. If someone has diabetes it causes complications to ones diabetes because all alcohol contains sugar.
Drugs should go without saying.
Premarital sex also. It is better to be pure than a mom at 18. Or, dying of HIV/AIDS at 20.
There are a lot of things we can do that don't involve debasing ourselves for fun.
Think about that phrase. Debasing myself is fun.
Debasing myself is fun?
When I was a teen I was like you, and maybe all teens are. I thought I knew more than my folks did. What an idiot!
If I could go back with the knowledge I have now having survived idiocy for all these years I'd return to being 11 years old again.
I'd never drink. I'd never do drugs. I'd never have sex before marriage. And I sure wouldn't have picked the guys I dated if it was to do all over again.
But regret serves us nothing but self-condemnation for making choices in history that the present cannot alter. What the past, even the bad parts, are meant to do in the present moment is to prepare us to take the next step forward in wisdom for having learned from past acts and mistakes.
If your friends want you to party as they do in all ways maybe consider making new friends.
Treasure yourself as a temple wherein God lives and speaks to you his divine wisdom in guidance of your life. He's the ultimate parent. And your parents, as with mine, lived a long time so as to know the pitfalls and hurdles of life and how to survive them. That's why they may be strict now. They know the road.
They love you enough to warn you of the pitfalls and dangerous off ramps that lead away from a positive journey and that can harm you. This can be because they encountered them first. And they don't want you to go down the same road learning the hard way as they did.
When your parents seem to not understand you, or are too strict in your opinion, repeat this if you will. They love me and want only the best for me.
Because that's the truth.
Some of us, like me, seem to need to learn what I've just shared for ourselves. Yeah, it happened to me, but could it happen to you? You being relative to your side of life.
That's true. You won't experience what I have. But you will have experiences in your life that arrive sometimes because of bad choices. That's how we learn.
Cherish you first and foremost.
You're truly all you have. Our parents were old when we were born even if they were 20. They were 20 years living before we breathed our first breath. And as such they'll always be 20 years older than we are as we grow up. Because they're growing old. And one day they'll die. That's life.
While we will have to live on without them and we'll have to look ourselves in the mirror too.
We can do things that make us ashamed of ourselves. We can also grow past that too and turn the shame into empowerment and resolve not to do that again. Whatever that was.
Love you. Want only the best for you. Love who you see in the mirror. Honor who you are in this life. Love yourself as much as you can because God loves you more than you can imagine. And if you want help in navigating those pitfalls, dangerous off ramps, and hurdles in life maybe consider bringing this to mind as you journey through your life. God sees everything. Ask yourself as you consider doing things that you think you want to do to liven up your life; would God be proud of me now?
If yes, full steam ahead.
If no, don't do it.
We all live with our choices. Even the bad ones. If you can be on your deathbed and look back on your life and have more positive memories than bad ones you did pretty good for yourself. And God knows you had help.
Peace.
So....its been kinda hard....
