The Talk

Over the last few days I have spent a lot of time with my seven-year-old Emery. We decided to take her and her cousin Emma out for a photo shoot. Emma and her family are moving on Thursday to Nebraska so I thought it would be nice to have some pictures of the girls together before they go.

It was a really great day even though Lilah refused to cooperate for many pictures.

Later that day I was loading the pictures and looking at them and realized something; God as given us some really beautiful girls. Now I know that all parents think their children are beautiful so I write with that filter in mind. I just began to realize that raising these girls in a world were girls are encouraged to dress for attention, taught that skinny is perfect and having a boyfriend makes them important and complete is going to be a very big job.

Even as these thoughts are racing through my head on the way home last night with Emery and she begins to giggle. Not a haha funny giggle but more of a nervous giggle, so of course like any good mom I asked her what was going on. I wasn’t expecting the question that came out of her little seven-year-old mouth. She turned very serious and asked me “ how do I know who the right man is?” She said, “I am so worried I am not going to find the right man.”

It took me a minute of don’t be silly and you have so long before you have to think about that to realize that she was genuinely concerned about making a mistake. This became an opportunity. These are the kind of opportunities that we have to notice and take advantage of because they don’t come along very often. This may not have been THE talk, but it is an important talk to have as a precursor to THE talk that is just around the corner. 

I began to tell Emery about hearing the voice of God, I was able to encourage her to first before looking for a man to learn to hear and obey the voice of God. I feel that it is so important as a mother to encourage my children to hear God’s voice on their own. If Emery can learn to listen and obey God I won’t have to worry about whether or not she is going to make a bad decision. Yes, of course she is going to make bad decisions, but what she does when she makes those decisions is what really matters.

God has given us little blonde haired, blue eyed, crazy funny girls to raise, and teach to become confident and unique, to train to be strong and independent and most importantly to teach them to love Jesus more than any man.

I encouraged Emery with something that she thought was a little silly. I told her to begin to pray for the man God has for her. I shared with my daughter that I pray for the young men that her and Lilah Jane will marry. I pray that they are safe and making good decisions most importantly I pray that they are growing closer to Jesus.

Emery walked away from our conversation with two questions for any boy who tries to date her 1. Do you love Jesus? 2. Do you go to church? I tried to add a 3rd, do you love your mother but she wasn’t very impressed with that one. I told Emery that before too long boys were going to ask her out and want to take her on dates and she needed to know before hand what her standards were. I told her that having high standards and holding to them would be difficult but so important.

I don’t want my little girls hearts to be broken or tainted in this world. I want their hearts to be pure and wholly in love with Jesus. I pray today that their innocence would be protected, that angels would guard their hearts and their minds. Raising daughters must be one of the hardest most wonderful jobs we have I am so grateful that we don’t have to do it alone, but that they are daughters of someone greater who can protect them when I can’t and can watch over them when my eyes aren’t able to.