a young woman’s guide to tackle her unique battles
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To every girl who picks up this book
I pray that your light shines brightly in this world.
I write to you not as someone looking down on your situation, whatever that might be, but as the growing woman I am now and the girl I was. I write to you as someone who has been in the trenches, whether that meant mourning a lost friendship or being home with my parents on a Friday night because my group left me out. If you are currently messing up, feeling ashamed, or dealing with a heartbreak that hit you harder than you thought it would, I get it. I’ve experienced every bit of this. As I sit here and type this out, I am a twenty-one-year-old college student who is going into her spring semester with zero clue where her life will go. All I can do is trust God and be his humble servant. I might not know your exact situation, but I know the fear, hurt, anger, and doubt you might be feeling. I have lived out those emotions before, and I’m living them out now. I want to write to you not from a distant pedestal of “do this” or “don’t do that” but from the spot beside you in the trenches.
Whether it’s lonely evenings, the days where you have a good cry in the bathroom stall at school, or the times you think that your head might explode if one more person tells you to “kill them with kindness”—we are all in the middle of a journey. We will face the lions and bears that God sends our way to prepare us for the giants we will face later on. We are the salt and the light of this world, but in order to make a difference, sometimes we have to face the hard conversations, the tough truths, and the battles that we just can’t fight alone. But in these times, we are never alone. We have a God who loves us more than we can imagine and has plans for our lives that are beyond our wildest dreams.
~ Caroline
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God sent a lion and a bear to David to prepare him for battle before he fought Goliath. In the same way, each challenge you face in life is preparation for the next one–even if you’d much rather avoid conflict altogether, thank you very much.
Whether it’s mean girl culture, peer pressure, a difficult home life, physical or emotional challenges, or the constant barrage of social media slights, you have your share of lions and bears to contend with! This 100-day devotional from Caroline Shankle is your compassionate guidebook for how to defeat those giants by trusting God one step at a time.
Through Scripture, reflection, and prayer, you’ll learn how to advocate for yourself, lead rather than follow, and develop the strength to never compromise on who God created you to be.
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I am an author and speaker who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Agriculture at Texas A&M University. I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Animal Science in May 2025. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and currently live in College Station, Texas, where I still enjoy SEC football games, hanging out with friends, and drinking enough caffeine to kill a small Victorian child.
I’m an avid reader of fiction and I enjoy a good workout. On fall weekends, you’ll either find me overly invested in a football game or hunting in South Texas at the ranch. Most of all, I’m a girl in her twenties, still figuring out where life is going by taking one small step of faith at a time. I’ve had my highs and lows, and my hope is that God uses me to encourage those around me as they go through the good and the bad moments of life.
I’d like to tell you that I have it all figured out, but that would be a lie. I’m a girl just like you who has to be reminded I don’t have all of the answers, but Jesus does. Also, there are times I have no idea what to wear.
10 Things I would
tell my younger self
& 10 things to know when you are raising a teen girl
All of us are going to face different challenges and the lions and bears will look different in each of our lives. I can’t give you the perfect guide to figure everything out, but I can tell you a few things that I would tell my younger self to help her out
along the way. ~ Caroline
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