As the mother of three daughters, I’ve had lots of opportunities to think about what I want them to know as they grow into women. I want the truth of the Bible to be reality for them, not some foreign and unusual concept. The spirit of our age rejects the Bible as bizarre, backwards, and harmful to women. I want my girls to know that it’s none of those things—it is their life, the place they go to know their Savior. When they aren’t sure who to trust, I want them to trust the message and Person in the Pages.
Here are five things I want my daughters to know. All of them have been distorted by the world and must be recast for them—both as they see these truths lived out in the godly women around them and as they see them wisely drawn from the Scriptures.
ONE: Beauty is part of womanhood in a way that it isn’t part of manhood. It need not be your enemy nor should it be counted on as a friend. Accept the external beauty God’s given you as part of his particular design for you. Give thanks and move on, realizing that it is not the substance of your personhood, but simply a gift. Do not waste your time wishing you were other than you are and dishonoring your Maker. God made you and he made you beautifully so that he could give us a picture of what he wants our souls to be like. He wants you to cultivate a beautiful spirit. Spend your time on this, not looking in the mirror. There is only one mirror that will show you yourself: it’s the Word of God. Find yourself there—find yourself hidden in Christ.
TWO: Marriage and motherhood are wonderful gifts and if God blesses you with them, know that they’re worth your full investment. Don’t believe the world when it tells you that you’re wasting your education or your talents by making home a priority. The amount of influence you wield at home can’t be calculated. Families are the footings of humanity and families live in homes—which is the place where children learn, not mere academic subjects, but every subject that matters in the whole universe.
G.K. Chesterton says in regard to child rearing, “I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.” If God gives you children, give them your all. You can’t save them, but your faithfulness may be his means to saving for a thousand generations.
THREE: Getting married and having children do not make you more of a woman than if you don’t. God has made you fully a woman, whether you marry or become a mother or not. Womanhood is connected to mothering, however. And if you’re single or childless, God has still made you to nurture and mother the people he’s put around you. Don’t shy away from it. You may have more spiritual children than you could ask or imagine. And your influence may span the globe.
FOUR: Be content—God loves you. Whatever path God places you on, single or married, with children or without, don’t waste your life fantasizing about the path you’re not on. Godliness with contentment is great gain because it is freedom from covetousness and envy. You have no one to envy and nothing to covet because God has given you his own Son—and along with him all things! No one’s life turns out completely as hoped or expected. Don’t buck that, it is one of the kindest things God does for us— he gives us what’s truly for our good, rather than what we want, to make us reliant and refined, children of God.
FIVE: There is virtue in a godly woman’s laughter. Be a woman who can laugh at whatever comes. Let there be a sparkle in your eye that does not fear anything. I have no idea what the world will be like when you’re grown, but it’s likely that it won’t get less frightening. So imitate true godliness by refusing to be frightened by frightening things. Our God is big and strong and absolutely in control. Trust him and laugh.
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