Ultimately, God gets to choose how we live out the practice of glorifying him and being faithful to glorify God in our bodies as girls and women requires sacrifice. This is a truth that you need to infuse this truth into your daughter at a young age. It is God who gets to decide how we work, live, give, spend, marry, and worship. Not ourselves. Because what your daughter does now will affect her future, teach her now that sacrifice is critical and she’ll live it out as you and I have learned to do.
Everyone’s career requires sacrifice. Perhaps none more than that of a mom! But your girl probably sees that every day, so let’s get her into the shoes of someone with a different career that would interest her.
Challenge Activity: Career Day
Subject: Your body should be a living sacrifice
Setting Options: The office of someone whose career interests your daughter (A vet’s office, a horse barn, a church children’s department, a fireman’s truck, an athlete’s gym, etc.)
Materials You’ll Need at Your Destination:
•An appointment with a person whose career would be of interest to your daughter
•A notepad with questions written in it (see below)
•It's Great to Be a Girl book by Dannah Gresh and Suzy Weibel.
There are two goals during the challenge. The first, is to introduce your daughter to an exciting career that may interest her in the future. The second (but more important) purpose is to introduce her to the act of sacrificing her body in obedience to God’s calling on her life.
Schedule an appointment for her to interview someone whose career would be of interest to her. After she’s had a nice tour of the work area, helped to sell a car, saddle a horse, or paint a wall—let her sit down to interview the person she’s shadowing. You will have already written these questions into a notebook so she can ask them and take notes.
- 1. What is your favorite thing about your career?
- 2. What is the least favorite thing about your career?
- 3. How do you prepare or care for your body for this field of work?
- 4. What sacrifices have you needed to make in the past for this career?
- 5. What sacrifices do you continue to make for this career?
For the best results use It’s Great To Be A Girl. Do Meditation #8 together.
If you do not have that book, you can discuss these things.
- Discuss the interview focusing on the way the person sacrificed in the past and even now. (Answers will vary, but in my own career/ministry calling sacrifices include deadlines that force me to work on weekends or holidays, getting up as early as 3:00am to catch flights to speak somewhere, and being willing to go away from home for long periods of time to fulfill God’s call. I have to take care of my body by exercising or using a computer strains my neck. I also have to eat right or I don’t have the energy I need to make the sacrifices of getting up early and travelling. Taking care of my body is part of the sacrifice because I don’t like to exercise and control my eating but I know that I must to be healthy.)
- Read Romans 12:1,2. What does it mean to be a “living sacrifice?” (Answer: It means to give things up like sleep, free time, or hobbies so you can be disciplined and obedient.)
- How can you—as a tween girl—practice being a “living sacrifice” today so that you can be obedient to God in the career he calls you to? (Answers will vary but may include: helping you wash the dishes when you ask me, keeping my room clean so I can find things, finishing my homework before I watch TV, and getting up early enough to take care of my body—brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, taking a bath if I need it— before school.)
- MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: Do you know what my career is? (Answer may be “mom” or she may answer referring to a career you have outside the home. Either way, take this time to tell her that your career as a wife and mom is the most important thing that you do. That you love it more than any other career you’ve ever had and you’d happily be “wife” and “mom” at the expense of all the other careers in the world. Explain to her sacrifices you have made for this. Infuse her with passion for the greatest career in the world: mom.)
*This devo was taken directly from It's Great to Be a Girl by Dannah Gresh and Suzy Weibel. Get your copy today!
