Patti Burris

According to http://www.Dr.Phil.com:

• Teen pregnancy is the number one reason why teen girls drop out of school.
• Only one-third of adolescent mothers will graduate high school, and only slightly over 1 percent of those will earn a college degree before they turn 30.
• Eight out of ten fathers in cases of teen pregnancy don’t marry the mother of their child, and these absent fathers pay less than $800 annually for child support. Children who live apart from their fathers are also five times more likely to be poverty-stricken than children with both parents at home.

According to http://www.teenmotherchoices.org:

• The United States has more teen mothers than any other country in the world!
• 51% of all teen mothers will never finish high school!

Around 700,000 teen girls between the ages of 17 and 19 become pregnant each year! Of those, around 50% choose to keep their babies. Around 45% choose to have abortions. This statistic does not count the teen pregnancies of girls under 17.

This statistic makes me very sad for these girls. I chose to write this blog post because of the high rate of teen pregnancy in my own city. I watch these beautiful girls walk a path that will forever change their lives and it breaks my heart. They are lost girls. They have no idea what they want. Many believe that having a baby will make everything right with the boyfriend. This rarely happens.

These girls deal with identity issues. They deal with lack of self-esteem. They are looking everywhere for someone to love them. They are looking in the wrong places.

We, as the Church, are not doing enough to reach out to these girls. They need God. They need a support system. They need a loving family of Christians to guide them. We become isolated and hide behind our church walls, when there are girls in our communities needing what we have to offer: JESUS.

Why do we hide? Why do we expect these girls to come to us? Why do we sit back and say, “if they really wanted Jesus, they would find a church?”

They may not know what they need! They are running around trying to fill that empty hole in their hearts. If they do know that they need Jesus, they maybe afraid of walking in a church. They are afraid of being judged. They are afraid of being hurt.

WE need to step out of our comfort zones and meet these girls where they are. WE need to go to them. WE need to be that example of Jesus in their lives! The next time you see a teen mom or a pregnant teen, offer encouragement, offer to pick her up and take her to church, offer to mentor her, just love on her.

Reach out to these lost girls. They need God. We are NOT doing enough to make sure they find Him.