One Little Big Encouragement for Dads

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, culture, everyday, family, gratitude2 Comments on One Little Big Encouragement for Dads

Being a dad is tough. I’m not one, but I’ve seen it up close. Most dads have to step into a primary role (fatherhood), even though their primary time is spent elsewhere. They have to be good at something (something really important!) that they don’t do all day everyday. Which means they have to take a lot of advice and pointers from the mom or caretakers who do do the parenting all day everyday.

When I help Tom with his business, I have a disorienting sense when I start out, because his work isn’t my primary work. It takes me a while to get oriented to it, to feel competent to actually help him. I think that’s what parenting in the little years is like for a lot of dads. Thankfully, it doesn’t stay that way, and competence grows as the needs demand.

So, my little big encouragement to dads is something I’ve observed in my husband, Tom, and it’s this: the little things are the big things. Here are three little things Tom does that amount to more than I can calculate:

1. He initiates family devotions.

Actually, he doesn’t anymore. He used to initiate family devotions when all the kids were little. Now, the kids initiate family devotions at the tail end of dinner. Every once in a while, we’re both really tired and would likely skip devos, but the kids are in the habit and someone always grabs the Bible off the shelf and hands it to Dad.

2. He initiates family prayer in the car.

Have you noticed how crazy it can be sometimes just to get everyone in the car and going? How sometimes a couple kids are mid-conflict? Or the parents and the kids have gotten out of fellowship with one another in the push to get out the door? The little habit of praying as the seatbelts are being buckled and the car is about to take off can make a world of difference in how we send ourselves and our kids out into the world.

3. He initiates family work.

On Saturdays, it’s most often Tom who gets everyone going on their list of “Saturday jobs.” He tends to expect more out of the kids than I do. His simple routines do a lot to disciple our kids into the faithfulness of God. Because discipleship isn’t just reading the Bible and praying. It’s obeying, it’s contributing to the needs of the people you’re apart of, it’s letting your yes be yes and your no be no. It’s doing our work “as to the Lord.”

So, for any dads out there reading, be encouraged. You don’t have to do exactly what Tom does, but you can do little things that make a big difference in the lives of your kids and wife. Your little initiatives can be like the countless drops of water that make up the ocean of grace and goodness and faithfulness your kids swim in day after day. They likely won’t realize all the goodness they’ve been flooded with, but keep at it.

We appreciate you, Dads. You are doing the Lord’s work. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

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My dad and the dad of my kids.

 

Downpour of the Feline and Canine Variety: On Being Clobbered and Getting Back Up

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, family9 Comments on Downpour of the Feline and Canine Variety: On Being Clobbered and Getting Back Up

Yes, it’s been raining cats and dogs in our neck of the woods. I’m trying to think of another cliche I can throw in there, just to pull out all the stops and show my writing prowess.  Oh, look, a couple more. Didn’t even have to try.

Well, anyway, our little guy had another seizure episode. I call it an “episode” to try and give some kind of sense of the gravity. But it’s one of those things that just is what it is–it’s scary and sad.  His seizure lasted over twenty minutes and wouldn’t stop even after I gave him his rescue meds. So, middle of the night paramedics and an ambulance ride to the ER made for the wee hours of Monday morning spent somewhere other than our warm beds.

Those warm beds were instead filled with vomit. Vomit from T’s seizure and vomit from our poor daughter who came down with a tummy bug at the same time.

And the following days of follow up, trying to understand why the episode happened again and how we can prevent it, how we navigate life with something so serious hanging about, always unpredictable, always potentiality. It’s like strolling through the fire swamp–will we fall in the sand pit? When will the R.O.U.S.’s attack?

Hence the cats and dogs in a downpour. After other emergency situations I have visualized myself responding to them with calmness and faith. Acceptance and a rational head. I have asked God to help me stay present, to lean in, to be someone whom our kids can count on, even in that moment when the visceral takes over.

And, somehow, that happened on Sunday night. I was calm, I was present, I was thinking rationally, I was praying. I think much of that was because Titus was breathing and his color was mostly good, unlike other times, even though he wasn’t doing well and clearly not “with us.”

But, even with all my sane thoughts, my perfectly following the emergency plan, my soothing voice, I still couldn’t keep control of my own body. About 10 or so minutes into it, I started blacking out. I calmly asked Tom to stay with Titus and tried to get myself to the bathroom and ended up falling on the floor once there. I stayed conscious; I just blacked out with lightheadedness. I prayed, on the cold tile, begging God to make me functional so I could be with my boy during HIS hardship–his real trial.

And thankfully, that happened. I was able to get up enough to put my head between my legs and  my sweat-drenched self was upright and working again in fairly short order.

Friends, I know this ordeal is a weird and personal thing to share–needlessly blacking out and the uselessness that ensued–but I’m doing it because I’ve had a lot of misconceptions about what it looks like to walk with God through a trial and maybe you do, too. If you’re like me, you think that the goal is never to hit the bathroom floor.

But, I’m learning I often don’t have control over that. I’ve got to rethink my goals. Instead of trying hard to keep control of things that I don’t have control over, I can ask God to help me lay on the floor in faith, not fear and doubt. Instead of worrying that Titus won’t be OK without me, I can choose to trust that he will be well cared for, even if I’m out of commission for what seems like a completely ridiculous physiological response that I haven’t figured out how to prevent. Instead of being angry with myself or God that I’m flattened, I can, in faith, get back up when it’s over.

Sometimes the cats and dogs are coming down so thick they clobber you. Or maybe they aren’t even all that thick, you just get nailed by one stray pup flying toward you. That’s OK. There’s still faith to be had, there are still promises that God is keeping, even as we’re deep breathing with head shoved below our knees. He’s still faithful and strong while we’re helplessly cold and clammy.

As a mom, I want to be there to rescue my boy. I want my hands to be supporting him, to monitor and protect him. I want my arms to carry him and my body to shield him from all harm. If only I were never weak, never parted from him, but even that wouldn’t be enough. Even if I was physically present every moment, in perfect condition, I still couldn’t make seizures stop or sustain life.

Only God’s hands are strong like that. Only he can be present at all times, never sleeping, never out of commission, never caught off guard.

And so, I offer the familiar refrain–it’s been the same my whole life: trust God. Trust him. Now really trust him. More. Trust him to get through each night. Trust him with the scary flashbacks. Trust that the fire is more than painful first degree burns, but metal made pure. Trust him that he’s got steps of obedience for you once you’ve been scraped off the floor. Trust that obedience is never meaningless, it’s union with Jesus. Trust God’s words and ways.

Facing trials with faith doesn’t mean never getting knocked down, it means trusting God when we’re horizontal. It means getting up when he gives us the legs to do it.

Those are my new goals.

Christ’s Ornaments: Learning Our Place on Jesus from Isaiah

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, family, gratitude1 Comment on Christ’s Ornaments: Learning Our Place on Jesus from Isaiah

This Advent I’ve been reading Isaiah, seeing Jesus at every turn.

I found one passage that was particularly apt for the season ornaments and Christmas trees:

“Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the LORD, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does” (Isaiah 49:18).

God is speaking to his chosen one–to Zion and to the singular man, Jesus Christ.

Christians commonly glory in having been clothed with Christ. We wear his garments of holiness. It’s worth glorying in. But have you gloried in the fact that Jesus wears you? That you are put on him as an ornament? Bound on him the way a bride puts on something old, new, borrowed and blue? How much must he love us, to display us for all to see?

When I look at the tree this Christmas, I’m remembering that Christ has put me on, not just the other way around. Lord, grant me to be a beautiful ornament adorning Christ this Christmas, whether at home or away, at rest or at work, whether sick or well, tired or alert, “so that in everything I may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10).

Milliennial Moms

By: Abigail Dodds
blogging, culture, family, 2 Comments on Milliennial Moms

Here’s an excerpt from my latest from Desiring God called Millennial Motherhood:

“Our children need more than a mom who empathizes and feels with them. They need more than a mom who gets down to their level to convey solidarity and trust — which we tend to be good at. They need to know they have a mom who, because she knows the whole story of God’s word, sees through them, beyond them, above them, and answers to someone other than them.

Our children need moms whose minds direct their feelings, not the other way around. Moms should be a safe place for their kids. Our empathy is a gift that helps us to be that, but empathy with no connection to the solid truth of God’s word is the opposite of safe. It’s crippling to ourselves and our children.

Encourage your children to feel deeply, but not at the expense of thinking deeply — rather, as a result of it. Encourage them to feel strongly, but with the reins of truth in hand, ready to pull back when an emotion has taken the bit in the mouth. Encourage them to feel passionately, but to do so about the things that are fitting to feel passionately about and with an unflappable trust in the God who is over all feelings.

Guilt and confidence are the strange bedfellows of the millennial mom. Pew records that 57 percent of millennial moms say that they are doing a “very good job” at parenting, compared with 48 percent of Gen X moms (born 1965–1979) and 41 percent of baby boomers (born 1946–1965).

Yet it takes only the most cursory glance at any social-media platform to see that millennial moms are awash with guilt. Guilt and the millennial mom are like peanut butter and jelly. They just seem to go together. You know it’s true because if you’re a millennial mom who just read “peanut butter and jelly,” you likely just felt a stab of guilt that you fed that to your kid this week.

Millennial moms are constantly wondering whether they are doing the right thing. It’s like we’ve lost our compass and can’t find north, so we get on social media or Google to try and figure out if other people are feeding their kids PB&J three times a week and if there are any studies that tell us what damage it causes.

In a world where information about everything is at our fingertips, it seems everything has been elevated to the status of “this matters.” So, from laundry to food to sunscreen to screen time to simplified home decor, nothing is no big deal to millennial moms. And because we also are finite women who cannot ride every hobbyhorse at the same time, we are exhausted, burnt out, and often very guilty.

Yet, because we reinvent the wheel on every possible facet of life, researching (or rather Googling) each topic for ourselves and reaching our own conclusions, we tend to be very confident — even haughty — about the conclusions we’ve reached and the job we’re doing, whether it’s about vaccines or vacuums.

The benefit to our guilty confidence is that we do have, in Christ, a constant, never-ending absolution for it. Jesus met all the righteous requirements of the law for us and then died in our place. We also are a part of Christ’s body, with spiritual mothers and fathers who can guide and help us to think Christianly about every part of our lives. Remember, millennial mom, that our guiltiness and haughtiness was nailed to the cross. We are free to live according to Jesus’s ways.

According to a study called Digital Women Influencers, millennial moms spend four more hours per week on social media than other moms. They also have 3.4 social media accounts as compared to the 2.6 accounts of other moms. We are connected, yet dissatisfied. We portray something we don’t have and long for the very thing we project. Every Facebook like and Instagram heart scratches an itch on the soul that is gratified for a moment, only to feel itchier and itchier as the days wear on.

Our motto could easily be “The grass is always greener on the other side of the Clarendon filter.” We make our grass as green as possible via those perfect Instagram filters — it’s our way of quieting the inner suspicion that our lives fall horribly short of everyone else’s. Our generation’s badges of achievement aren’t the new car or boat or vacation home, but the new experience and the new destination — all of which are fully documented — so we long and ache for the next best thing.

Often, the next best thing is whatever we can come up with to share in our social-media feeds. Nothing is sacred, nothing private. Could it be that our sharing isn’t so much an overflow of the fullness of life, but a scraping and grasping to connect and appeal to our viewers? Getting others to sympathize or idolize us with an online picture, a status, or a joke seems to be good enough for us.

But it isn’t enough. All the satisfaction of online approval is really just bloat — it looks and feels like we’re full, but the fullness is actually nothingness, and it’s preventing us from consuming what really would nourish us: God’s word, Jesus Christ, and his blood-bought body, the local church.

We must repent of the sin of trying to be virtuous apart from Christ. We must repent of online pretending and online oversharing. Our longing, our aches for more have a direction; they aren’t pointless. They’re pointing us to someone. Jesus Christ is the person we need. He is the place, the final and best destination that lays a lasting balm on the ache in our heart for something better.”

Read the rest.

A Podcast Interview: Risen Motherhood

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, family, gratitude, sorrow1 Comment on A Podcast Interview: Risen Motherhood

Last week I was interviewed by Laura Wiffler and Emily Jensen of the Risen Motherhood podcast about having a child with special needs. It was a neat experience and I really loved getting to share Gospel hope with moms.

Emily and Laura both have little kiddos and are applying the Gospel to motherhood as they walk through it. Their podcast hits about every topic you could hope for as a mom–from food choices to fear to guilt to comparison. You can subscribe to Risen Motherhood podcast on iTunes or listen on their website, which includes many helpful resources and links.

Listen to my interview here or here.

 

Soul Keeping in the Dark

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, family, sorrow10 Comments on Soul Keeping in the Dark

It’s no secret that our special needs son has sleep problems. It’s been true since the first days of his life. I still remember his never-more-than-twenty-minute naps. And his rarely-more-than-2-hour stretches of sleep during his first year (and often only 30 minutes or an hour). Then his first year ended, but the sleep problems sallied forth.

His feeding tube and anti-seizure meds gave some reprieve, but not enough to make anything close to normal. Three and a half years in and he’s still up every night, usually multiple times or for sessions of writhing/crying. I don’t share this as a pity play, but a fact.

Lately I was reading The Life We Never Expected by Andrew and Rachel Wilson. It’s a book about hard realities and Gospel hope raising two autistic children. I haven’t ventured into much reading of this sort on disability because when you’re living a hard reality, the last thing I feel like doing is reading about how hard it is. The real thing is enough. But I read it so that I could see if it was a good book to recommend to others. And it is. It’s really good. These excerpts from the chapter Quest For Rest wrecked me:

…”it’s no coincidence that the Scriptures talk about fasting from various physical joys at times–food, drink, sex–but never from sleep.”

“In our case, this has meant reconfiguring our entire lives to get more rest.”

“…we’re learning how to pray and process our disappointment with God. It might sound ridiculous to say this, in light of all that has happened over the past few years, but I think the greatest single challenge to my prayer life has been the fact that so many prayers for sleep have gone unanswered. For night after night, I have put Zeke in bed, knelt down next to him, and said, ‘Father, we pray that you would give Zeke a good night’s sleep. Please give him peace and rest, and may he wake up after 5 o’clock, or even after six. It would be so much better for him and so much better for us, and it would cost you nothing. Please, Father. Amen.”

“Then the next morning, as the familiar patter of feet comes down the corridor toward our bedroom, I have rolled over to look at the alarm clock and seen in despair that it says 4:27, or 3:52, or 4:41. And immediately the thought comes: No, God hasn’t answered my prayer. Again.”

The words are painful. They resonate. Tom and I have prayed every night since Titus was born for good rest for him and us. We have changed the rhythms of our lives to keep sane. We’ve let things go. Even so, sometimes I find myself pushed under water.

Titus has learned to pray. It’s one of the first constructive behaviors he picked up on and regularly started imitating. We’d fold our hands and bow our heads to pray and he would too. He still does. At night, I’ve never been able to get him to stop the cycle of writhing/crying once it starts up. It just has to play out. But probably 6 or more months ago, I started saying to him, in the dead middle of the night, very loudly and forcefully, “Titus, let’s pray!” And amazingly, the writhing and crying stopped and he grabbed my hand, closed his eyes and waited for me to pray. Which I did. It felt a bit like a miracle.

Now he asks me to pray anywhere from 2 to 10 times per night, depending on how much he’s up. He wakes up and says, “Mommy! Pray! Pray! Mommy!” There have been nights when I’ve wanted not to pray. The seeming futility of it overwhelms me, and I think, What good is it to pray, when I ask night after night for rest and the answer is no, and Titus will be asking me to pray again in 10 minutes or an hour or 2 hours. 

Titus still writhes and cries at night, he’s still up just as much as he ever was before he started asking me to pray through the night. But, in my despair over the sleep, I could easily miss something huge. My son asks to pray. My son asks to pray. 

Think of all the kindness of God and answered prayer in him asking to pray. It’s worth pausing over and giving thanks for.

Even as I give thanks for that amazing thing, it doesn’t erase the difficulty of sleep problems. It is grueling and lonely. Yet, prayer keeps me from being isolated from the One person I can’t live without. In the darkness, we turn to God and pray, because he’s there with us. The rest of the house may be asleep, but God isn’t. In bleariness and bone-weariness, I talk to the One who keeps our souls through the night.

If you find yourself in the dark and seemingly alone, my hope for you is that you would know God’s nearness. Sometimes the darkness remains, sometimes the circumstances won’t change, but always, always, always, he’s there. He’s keeping you and that’s what counts.

Psalm 121

[1] I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
[2] My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

[3] He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
[4] Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

[5] The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
[6] The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

[7] The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
[8] The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore. (ESV)

Warding Off Darkness By Laughing At What’s To Come

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, culture, everyday, family, gratitude3 Comments on Warding Off Darkness By Laughing At What’s To Come

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As I vote today, I’m remembering that the act of voting was secured for me by sacrifices I didn’t make. I’m giving thanks for those sacrifices as I vote. I’m also remembering that every single act of my life as a Christian was secured for me at an infinitely higher cost by my Savior Jesus. Every act of our life in Christ is of significance beyond our telling or voting. From eating and drinking to giving my kids a hug in the morning to making dinner. Every thing we do by faith as his children, we do in Christ and for Christ. It’s all blood bought and costly, because *we ourselves* are blood bought. We are redeemed, new people. 

So I vote and give thanks that this act of voting is an act I do belonging to Christ and for him. I vote by faith—faith in Jesus, not a party or a candidate. Then I hug my husband and teach my kids about the real cost of freedom in Christ—a freedom that can never be quenched. I stoke the flames of *that* fire—one whose light will never go out.

My worth as a woman doesn’t come from my ability to vote, although I’m thankful for it. We were made by him and for him; our names are written on his palms. Our influence is deeper and broader and realer than anything we find inside the ballot box. When I laugh at what’s to come with my kids in the Gospel-soaked air of our home by faith, I do as much to ward off the darkness as any vote.

So I vote, then I exercise the real guts of my freedom, a freedom bestowed by God through Jesus. The freedom to pass this faith on to others, which is unable to be contained by laws; the freedom to know YAHWEH, that is Christ the Lord; the freedom to be loved by God and to love others. We are free to be his, friends. Today is a day for thankfulness.

On Being a Good Mom

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, culture, family, gratitude, Uncategorized1 Comment on On Being a Good Mom

New (ish) DG article that I forgot to post on being a good mom. Good thing this is such an easy topic! Ha. 😉

One of a mother’s most difficult tasks — nay impossible, apart from God’s help — is weaning her children and transferring their source of life, comfort, and home to Another. In all her loving and comforting and making home, she is simply a pointer to a better one, a lasting one — a home where she already has one foot in the door, a home she testifies to by her own goodness.

But are we good mothers? Does even the question cause some chafing?

Christian mothers are supposed to be good mothers — happy in God, while loving and disciplining our children — because of Jesus. Yet often we’d rather celebrate our failures as a need for more grace than to rehearse, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3).

That goodness is a fruit of the Spirit seems forgotten among jokes about our mom fails and laments about how impossible it all is (Galatians 5:22). The pursuit of goodness is often quickly rebuffed as works-righteousness. But is it? Not if our goodness is the result of Another’s goodness. This imputed goodness is Christ’s, and through faith he increasingly imparts it to us, where it grows to decontaminate and purify our mothering hearts. His grace makes mothers good.

When God gives us children, he answers a lot of questions in our lives — even ones we may not have thought to ask. Questions like:

  • What should I do with my life?
  • What’s it like to give my body up for someone?
  • How attached am I to privacy?
  • How selfish am I when giving feels forced upon me?
  • Does my faith hold on during the third night or third week or third year of sleep deprivation, or is it a product of my ability to string together rational thoughts?
  • Do I trust my husband as a father?
  • How weird am I about food?
  • What strong opinions do I have about clothing? Sleepovers? Education? Extracurricular activities?

Being a mom brings it all to the surface. It reveals a more truthful version of ourselves, not because we were previously being untruthful, but because we now are shaping a life for someone else, not simply ourselves.

Mothers are making decisions every day that can and often will impact another person’s entire existence. This pressure to make sure we don’t mess up our child’s life is pretty intense. It creates some heat that tends to wear us down to the core of what we really believe about God, ourselves, and the world.

Read the rest.

Special (Needs) Vacations

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, family, gratitude2 Comments on Special (Needs) Vacations

Upon returning from vacation, I thought I’d write down some thoughts.

First, if you have a special needs child, vacations are different. Sometimes you may wonder if they should be called vacation, since they’re often more work than staying home. But they should be called vacation, even with the added work and disruption to normal life. Even if you’re packing up an IV pole everywhere you go. Even if you have 6 crates of enteral formula in your trunk and tubes and syringes galore. Even if you have a throw up bowl in the car that’s not even for carsickness or a stomach bug. Even if you and your husband have to take turns eating and sleeping. Because what makes them a vacation is not the lack of work, but the intentional time together doing special things that you can’t do in your normal life. What makes it worthwhile is the intensity of time together, the experience of newness and beauty together. The appreciation of all God’s made and done, seen together.

If we’re going to define a vacation by how easy it is or how little work there is or how much we’re able to do exactly what we want every moment, then just forget it. You’ll never have a good vacation, special needs or not, because all people, all relationships, all of everything worthwhile, requires effort. Better to just go be by yourself with nobody around at all, because people everywhere have needs, including us, special ones or not. You can’t escape that on vacation. The “special needs” part is simply a reference to the scope and quantity of the needs. We’re all on the “needs” scale somewhere.

So, my encouragement to special needs parents and all parents really, is to get out there and try it. It’s going to be work. It may be harder than normal life. But get those expectations in line and start seeing things. I think the reason why I’m passionate about this is because I’m a recovering vacation failure. I thought they were supposed to be a break for me. I thought they were about closing my eyes, rather than opening them wider. I mainly just wanted to stay home because I like being home and it keeps things simpler. I like predictability. But if there’s hope for me, there’s hope for you. Let go of cynicism about how much it will cost you. Stop seeing how impossible it will all be before it happens.

“You can’t go on “seeing through” things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To “see through” all things is the same as not to see.” -C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Vacations give us an opportunity to see through TO something, not just looking at something, but seeing it. And even more, seeing together. You may wonder what how that’s supposed to work, since your special child (or your very young child) can’t grasp what they’re seeing. That may be true. But they can have a parent who sees, who knows how important it is to see the beauty all around, who sees through it to the God who made it. Let’s give them that at least. Then let’s put aside our doubts about what they can and can’t see.

And the seeing is of more than creational beauty. See Narnia together in the car, see Middle Earth and Hogsmeade as you fly down the road. Then go outside and really see it. See an earth that is stranger and darker than Mordor and more beautiful and safe than the Shire; a world with more magic than Hogwarts and more children of secret royalty than in the Wingfeather Saga.

And see your kids as well, special needs or not. See what delights them, what they dislike, who they’re drawn to. See what it’s like to be them, what it’s like to sit in the back of the van, how their character is coming along in new settings and with different people. See them and see through them to what drives them, what motivates them, what inspires them. See your people and see if they like being your people and why. Then do what you must to right the ship. That’s what vacations are for. For seeing and loving. For laying down the pettiness and sin, again.

Vacations are for making life special, special needs and all.

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For Our Daughters

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, culture, family, gratitude, kiddos2 Comments on For Our Daughters

CBMW published an article I wrote today. Here’s an excerpt and a link to the rest.

“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.”

Read the rest.