Ouch! This chapter in Beautiful Girlhood and The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood really hurts my heart. Not because my sweet daughter Laura was a girl who could not be trusted, because she was. But because I was the one who could not be trusted at this age. I groan when I read this chapter because it reminds me of the pain I most likely caused my mom. I know, dear reader that this feeling of regret, doesn’t affect each one of you, but it will affect some.
Oh, I guess one feeble (very feeble) advantage is that we “bad girls” know every trick in the book when it comes to this topic, and therefore we can be alert to any of our daughter’s potential schemes. But, the burden of this dubious qualification is that we have a dishonest past and can feel like a hypocrite while conveying this need of truthfulness to our daughters!
Take heart, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and have trusted Him, your sins are as far away as the east is from the west. They have indeed been swept away according to Isaiah 44:22. “I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.”
I took some liberties to personalize this quote. It is from one of my favorite authors, C.H. Spurgeon. “Against the justified (wo)man, no sin remains, the great transaction of the cross has eternally removed his (her) transgressions from him (her).”
Yes, our past is part of our testimony, however, we no longer have the ugly, awful weight of our sins to shoulder, but we bear them as a marvelous witness of the merciful, marvelous, powerful work the Lord has done through the death of Jesus Christ in our lives. For the bold, the very bold of us, perhaps the Holy Spirit is calling you to reveal to your daughter what He has done in your life. We might have to correct our thinking here, the called don’t have to be bold, just called.
To those of you, who did not have an issue with this area of trustworthiness, be encouraged! Pass on to your daughter the advantages of being truthful and trustworthy. You can do this in a way that also conveys God’s preserving, merciful, marvelous, powerful work in your life!
Rejoicing that His death redeems my life,
Activity
Before your time with your daughter this week give her two writing assignments. Ask her to:
- Define “trustworthy”
- List actions that make or would show that a person trustworthy.
Memory Verse
Luke 10:16
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”
Ponder and Post
- “A half-truth is a whole lie.” — Yiddish Proverb How are you conveying to your daughter the importance of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
- “Doing right brings freedom to honest people, but those who are not trustworthy will be caught by their own desires.” Proverbs 11:6 Tell me how you have conveyed this concept to your daughters?