Friday, October 8, 2010

October 2010

Hello there cute.

It is Friday night. Long work week. Tired.

You had fun with pumpkins today ... and baby chicks.

One of your favorite movies is Fly Away Home where the main character learns to fly, and saves two or three gaggles (when walking) of Geese by training them on routes that lead from North Carolina to Quebec .. I think.

You long to fly. I am working on designing you wings.

In this picture you look to be saying in your eyes "I could be Amy". These could be my geese. I love the fierce adventure that you have here

They are baby chicks.. but I don't think that makes much of a difference to you. I think you would walk around saying "hey hey hey" and they would .. maybe follow you. You would like it if they did follow you. I hope that when you are fully grown, the passion, intelligence, and life that I see in you now - that you inherit from your mommy so amazingly well .. I hope it you are every bit the parent you can be. I love you mini-girl. You are growing up so big and aren't the tiny little creature that I held in my hands and your feet didn't even come to my elbows. You are so very big.

So your friends Daughters of Mike L. are having a "Gateway to Godly womanhood" tea party. They asked for "written advice" but i don't know what to say. I have been asking around.

It is such a blessing to have been able to ask for and get such wonderful answers. Thank you Luci for the question to ask. It gives me good hope about my daughter. I am still compiling answers, but here are some of them. The following is my current take on the matter:

My mom says about Godly womanhood:
  • it is the best gift you can give the world, and the best gift you can give yourself.
  • It must be done daily - isn't an event, its a process
  • It must be done wholly. This is a place where there is no shades of gray - only black and white.
My sister Veronica says about Godly womanhood:
  • The kind of person you are makes the world you live in. If you are a liar - you think everyone is a liar, and act from the belief that everyone is a liar. If you are honest then you look at people honestly and can evaluate them by their actions. People who look up to you - those you mentor, your siblings, when you are an adult - those that you take under your wing, your friends, your spouse, and even your children and transformed for the better or worse by it. Your perceptions drive your actions and your actions impact the world. So being a godly woman defines .. the color of glasses that you see the world through ... and because you see the world that way .. those glasses become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • The kind of person you are makes can constrain or liberate who you are able to see God as being. If you are a liar .. then everyone is a liar .. and you falsely perceive God to be a liar. If you are honest, and honestly and fairly appraise others, then you can honestly and fairly appraise God. When my daughter is scared she runs to me because she knows I am strong, and she knows that I am trustworthy - I will protect her. Because she runs to me she gives me opportunity to work for her good that I would not otherwise have. If she thought I was horrible, or untrustworthy .. she could not avail herself of my strength, of my love for her, and my fierce passionate desire to bless her. Exact same thing goes for God.
  • This is true not only for lying vs. honesty ... but for every component of Godliness. If you are a miser - then God is. If you are generous by nature and live to serve others to the maximum of their ability to receive healthy blessing (some people have a max good after which your generosity becomes a curse to them) .. then God is that to you. If you ever get into game theory ... there is a whole open field of science here relating to tit-for-tat or tit-for-two-tats ... beautiful but nerdly stuff.
  • Teenage boys are driven by hormonal pressures that you cannot possibly understand - and can not trust. Do not trust teenage boys, or boys who are motivated by hormones ... they will break your hearts .. and other parts of your self. (Personally I say their brains do not congeal/biochemically exit puberty until after they are 24-ish, some their person stops being as much in transition around then. If they are good you can trust them to stay good, if bad then you can trust them to stay bad.. before that .. notsomuch can you trust who they are.)

A coworker named Alia had these insights into godly womanhood.
  • Character is more important than ability.
  • Avoid situations where you will be tempted to do things you do not want to do. It is easier to avoid the temptation than to reject it when it is in front of you. Avoiding it is just as godly as saying no to the temptation.
  • All beauty fades. Spend your energy on things that will last: character, love, friendship, and godliness.
  • What the world sells as love - is not love - it is selfishness. Love is not a feeling, or passion - it is action, doing what is best for the other person. You will know that a man loves you when he treats you with respect.
  • God made you to be you. Don't try to be someone else. Embrace the person that God made you.
  • Yes, you can change the world - do it with God.
My friend, and one of the coolest materials engineering guys I have ever met, Lynn gave me this:

Something I told my own daughter. Eve is defined in the Eden account as being Adam’s “Yetzer Knegdo”, translated by the old English word “Helpmeet” some 500 years ago. I have no idea what helpmeet meant back then, but only one other being is called a Yetzer Knegdo – the Holy Spirit of Jehovah. It is best translated from the Hebrew as “Strong Helper”.


It is the nature of men to engage in the fight. It is the nature of women not to. Unless. Unless their own are threatened. When this happens, the fight is not a game. No quarter may be expected from the mama bear. In the fight against evil in a family, the man is the forward troops, but the woman is the reserve troops. She is to be jealously guarded, and not put in jeopardy trivially. She is to be provisioned generously, and trained meticulously. This is not because she is weak or ineffective, it is because if she is ever called on, the situation is dire, and should she fail, all will be lost.


My friend Gloria W. said this:
  • I would tell her to guard her heart, eyes, mind, and tongue against anything that would rob her of her purity…and I don’t mean only virginity.
  • I would tell her to meditate on Philippians 4:8-9 daily. I would encourage her to strive always to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-26).
My friend Nancy J. said this:
  • If you think you are beautiful, then you are. If you think your spouse is wonderful, then they are. If you think life is terrible, then it is. If you think you are highly blessed, then you are.
  • Guard your thoughts. God wants us to think positive thoughts, of the wonderful blessings he has provided us. Even when things aren't going so well, God wants us to think about how wonderful our life is. Do not wallow in a pity party.
  • You are where you are because of you choices in your life. God does a lot of orchestrating, but he gives us the ability to chose certain paths. So choose carefully and with wisdom.
My friend Jeremy L. said this:
  • I’d say that there’s a road/trap that many women fall into or travel down intentionally that looks for love/purpose in the arms of men—mainly because they have not felt godly secure love from their father, who doesn’t talk about their beauty and appreciate it. If you go that route, many men may try to use you to their advantage. When you are truly Christ-centered, seeing your beauty only in Him, then you may be in a position to share your beauty with just one man that He will bring in His time. And you may need to be prepared to wait a bit.
My friend Elizabeth N. said this:
  • The only time that you need to make a decision immediately is in a life or death emergency.. these are few and far between (and hormonal issues are never life or death emergencies). Take time to think about decisions, and the consequences of those decisions before you act. Some decisions have far reaching consequences that can change your life- for the better or worse. Also.. any young man that tells you "don't think.. just feel" is not a young man who you should be trusting with your decision making.
  • God is always available for conversation. He is an excellent listener- and he is comfortable listening to anything and everything. He also forgives anything and everything and will always love you.. and even though you may not think it at the time- so will your parents.
  • Middle school and high school are some of the most difficult years in a young woman's life. No matter how it might seem- they do end and life gets much better. Popularity in school does not in any way predict success later in life- in fact most people who I have met who are both successful and fulfilled by their adult lives remember those years with a small cringe. Just remember that true strength is listening to your conscience and acting in a way that is true to yourself even when others make that difficult. The times in my life that I reflect on with the most shame are those in which I failed to do what I knew was right and instead did what I felt would help me be "accepted".
My friend Tema said:
  • I think more of what to say to parents. I think of children just like I think of making sculpture. Each stone has something beautiful inside I take away the stone that is covering the beautiful figure. God has something beautiful in each person and our job as parents is to help bring out what gifts God has inside without damaging the rest of the person.

Neat stuff.
Stuff worth pondering. It gives me a vision now for .. staging, and how to approach things. I feel like it is very (very) valuable.

It is early October so hopefully we can get two blog posts in this month.