Raising Little Girls

3 Things To Do When Raising Little Girls:

1) Prepare you mind before the day begins. (1 Peter 1:13)

The best way I know how to do this is by spending time with the Lord, letting Him show me where I need my heart cleaned, talking with Him, and spending intimate time in His word. Without this “renewing of my mind” Romans 12:2 my day just doesn’t go the same. I am not filled up with Him in order to give to my children. Also, it helps set my priorities for the day.

If you are not a morning person, no big deal, the best solution I have heard for this is to simply make a note or two of what the Lord teaches you at night and then make sure you wake up the next morning and give your day to Him and refresh your memory on what He taught you and wants you to do by looking at your notes from the afternoon or night before.


2) Exercise Self Control (1 Peter 1:13)

At my house, emotions run high. I have two girls 14 months apart, and both have very strong personalities. There is no passive child at our house. Therefore, it’s easy when the girls emotions take off with them, for mine to as well. For example, one girl steals another toy, one screams, the other screams, they hit each other, I walk over and they start hitting me. What I really want to do is to get mad because let’s be honest, no one likes to get hit, but the Word says I must exercise self control. I must as the original language suggests of this text, be calm, collected and temperate. It is not an option, it is a command. My girls are looking to see how I react and in essence I am teaching them how to respond by my example.


3) Practice Being Grateful (1 Thes 5:18)

Being ungrateful is a vicious cycle that begins when we are children. The only way we begin to express gratitude is when we are taught to be grateful and thankful. Whenever the girls start whining about wanting something they don’t have (in other words being covetous and ungrateful) I redirect their thoughts to how many things they have to be grateful for and then if it continues I tell them that if they cannot be grateful for what they have, they will simply not get to have or play with anything at all. Even if gratitude is not their heart felt emotion, sometimes we have to practice until we do “feel” what we are disciplining ourselves to do. In other words, if I continually remind our children to be thankful, most likely, they will take this action on themselves and even if they don’t, they will remember that they should, in their hearts.


The Lord has laid it on my heart to continue to write out areas of my life that I need to give to Him in order to show an example to my girls of how to love Him. All three of these areas I have struggled with or am struggling with currently, I, by no means do all of these things perfectly, but by searching His word for how I am to raise my children and live a life for Him, He does teach me. I am thankful that through my kids,  I see myself before the Lord as His child whom He disciplines because He loves. There is nothing that has taught me more about myself than my marriage and children, and although some of the things revealed are hard to swallow, I love how much it challenges me to grow in the strength of the Lord. Without Him, I really can do nothing. (John 15)