In this sermon, Brother Denny discusses the importance of submission in the family. He emphasizes that submission is not just obeying when we agree, but obeying regardless of how we feel. He encourages listeners to show respect and build up their family members, even when they may be taking advantage of them. Brother Denny also highlights the importance of playing games together as a way to build friendships and create a joyful atmosphere in the home.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Well, greetings again for our last session. I have, first of all, a note to answer that I was handed. It says, I'm sorry, but when you spoke of the women who married when they were older, do you imply because they are bold and not keeping themselves a secret? 1 Corinthians 7, 1-26 mentions four times, it is good to be single. And I am so sorry if I brought that point across. My mother said, it did sort of sound that way. Thank you, Mom. I am very sorry for bringing that out. My point is not that. I personally do not feel a married person is happier than a single person and that their life is happier than a single person in lots of ways. Your happiness comes from Christ and you can find fulfillment. There are pros and cons in being single and there are pros and cons in being married. You just find your happiness maybe in some different areas once you have the basic happiness from the Lord. And there is no shame. It is an honor to be single. It is an honor to wholly dedicate your life to Christ. I am not trying to imply that. All I wanted to imply was this. Some girls feel that by being bold, they might have a quicker chance of getting married. And I am trying to just throw that away and show you it is not true. So thank you for mentioning that. I am very glad, whoever it was that did, that you mentioned that because I wanted to be clear on the tapes that it is not how I feel at all. Thank you so much for praying for me. I feel the prayer so much and I felt the need of every last prayer that went up. The last, oh maybe it was about Monday or Tuesday, my mind was so full I felt like my brain was fried. And I could hardly sleep at night. Sometimes my mind just went and went. I could not slow it down to sleep and I told Daniel, I cannot even be doing my duty hardly and studying so hard or just praying. I said, I feel like I need to fast and pray yet and make sure the Holy Spirit is through these meetings. I just felt at the end of my rope almost. And I said, I am just going to have to relax and leave it up to God now and the church and my husband. And he was fasting and praying. I want to bless him for that. And thank you for praying. I feel strength. I cannot believe it. It is just a miracle how much strength I am. I am standing up here for the second time now. And I honestly, after last night, I did not think I could. I thought I would have to sit on a chair for the second session. And I feel pretty good. And I am convinced it is because of your prayers. Thank you for praying that I can keep my thoughts together. I really do struggle with when I am in a conversation with somebody. I lose my train of thought before I am finished. And I have several times since I am up here. But God is helping me. Another thing I wanted to mention about my last message is I do not want to appear judgmental at all. I personally do not struggle, maybe like some people do, if people do not dress exactly like me. And that is my burden. That if we really stress something, sometimes this judgmental spirit gets a hold of us. And we think, you know, well, she is doing it. She has wrong motives. That is not my goal at all. And I do not want you to feel intimidated by me. I have areas I need to grow in. Areas in modesty even that I keep being reminded of and keep growing. And just since we live here, I feel like I have grown in realizing some of those areas. I am not trying to get you to look at each other and say she is immodest or that is why she is wearing this or that. I am trying to get your eyes up to Christ and think, is this the best thing I personally can do? Not look at these others. And often when we look at these others, we can have a concern. But sometimes it is just plain a little bit of ego in us. We don't like if they can have something we can't have. And I am not trying to downplay concerns. Because there is room for concerns and we need to help each other and see each other's point. But make sure that it isn't sometimes because you just can't stand it if somebody doesn't have the exact convictions you have in every area. Let's pray. Father, you are our father. You are our priest. You are our king. We honor you. We glorify you. We want our whole lives, Father, to just be lives that direct and point people towards you and towards your glory. I pray that you would lead this last session. This is a session that hits us hard, Father, again and again as sisters and brothers and with our mothers and with our fathers. I just pray that you would have your will in our heart, in our life. You would prick where you need to prick. And you would cleanse where you need to cleanse. And you would change where you need to change. Thank you that your power is above any fault that we have. And that we can have victory through you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. The princess and her father. Now, in a group this size, I am sure there are lots of different fathers. You might have a father that is good, kind. He fulfills all your dreams of a father and even your dreams of what you would want as a husband. You might have a calloused and indifferent father. You might have a father that is abusive in words or actions. You might even have a hesitant, insecure, unsure father. Maybe a father who can't make up his mind about things or one that makes up his mind regardless of anybody else. Maybe you have a father that has sexually abused you or ignored you altogether. How can we possibly, in one teaching, learn how to relate to all these different kinds of fathers? Let's turn to the most famous verse in the Bible when it comes to honoring your father. Ephesians 6, 1-3. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Does it say in here, honor your honorable father? It never once mentions what kind of father you have here. And that's the only reason I can be addressing all of you at the same time. I don't know if in one place in the Bible, when it teaches you how to relate to your father, that it brings out that you relate to them according to what they have earned in your mind. The Bible never tells us to honor and respect where the honor and respect was earned or wasn't earned. God knew that in this world there would be many unworthy fathers. There are many fathers in the world that are truly, honestly not worthy to be a father. And we know it, and we would be silly to try to persuade ourselves that they are worthy to be a father. But God knows that showing honor and respect towards your father will mold your character as much as it will give honor to him for his station. I have a drawing I want to draw. Can one of you move her to the side? Okay, this is a very crude drawing. I was wishing for some more time to make it on a poster, but I didn't get it done. We're going to call this God's umbrella of protection. As a princess, you have the right to promises and protection that the king gives to you. But you need to meet the requirements and the conditions of that protection. Underneath this umbrella, we will put a ladder with rungs. Okay, let's say this is God, Jesus. As the total on top, they're the highest authority. We'll say the next one is your father. The next one is your mother. And here you are. I think we need to make a mental picture in our mind many times of that ladder just to be able to keep ourselves in place. We don't get anywhere if we don't learn to give honor where honor is due. You think of President Clinton, and I don't want to be disrespectful to him. But many, if not most of you, know what for name he made for himself. If you would have met him on the street, would you have reviled him? Would you have been disrespectful to him? Of course not. It doesn't matter if he earned the respect or not. It is expected, it is required of the citizens of the United States to show highest honor and respect to the president, to their faith. If you meet them, that's how you just give them the respect because of the station they're in, not because they honor them in their hearts. And that is the same way it is for your father. You need to respect him because he is your father and he is above you on that ladder. God has made that ladder. You need to respect him and honor him not because he earned it, but because of where he is. God requires it of us because it plants humility in our hearts. Humility is a very, very needful thing to be in the heart of every princess. It forces us to grow in our spiritual life because it goes against self. What is it that rises up within you when your father, you feel he is unjust and he uses his authority? You just, oh, he doesn't deserve this respect. He doesn't deserve this, you know, honor that I'm giving him. If you honor him and respect him anyways, that is one of God's means of working humility into your heart. Honor means, you think, well, what does honor mean? You're saying I should honor my father. Okay. Honor means to esteem. It means to respect, to exalt, to treat them in a way that scorns meanness. Esteem means to regard with respect, to prize. I have some questions for you. Is it honoring or showing high regard or respect to fathers by correcting his bad grammar? Many of them were not in as good schools as we are in the second generation. Grammar was not considered that important. And we simply go out of our place sometimes by having to correct them, making them feel a little less than ourselves. We have no right to ever make our father feel intimidated by the daughter that he has. Correcting his bad grammar, does that show a high regard for his person? Challenging his decision, does that prize his decision? Does it show high regard to it? Grumbling about his clothes or shoes laying around, does that show high regard to his person as far as it would be an honor to carry away his clothing? Rebelling against his choice of friends for you, that's a big one. Are you showing high honor and regard to your father in that way? Sometimes they see farther than you do. Wearing something that you know he doesn't prefer. There are some fathers that are a little insecure in their leadership. And they will kind of let you know it's not their preference, but they won't put their foot down. They have a fear of you acting up and being rebellious. You are not showing a high regard for his opinion and for his person. If you wear something that you know in the depths of his heart he does not prefer for you to wear. Listening to music that he has not forbidden but doesn't want for you. Proverbs 30.17 says, The eye that mocketh at his father and despises to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it. At first when I saw that verse I was, well, can I really get something out of that? And it was almost like a light bolt of lightning came down from heaven. And God just revealed to me. The eye that mocketh at his father and despises to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it. Okay, first of all let's see what mock means. Mock means to mimic in contempt, to ridicule, to flout, to defy. Like in the ravens, a form of death to Satan. He will pluck out your eyes of discernment and destroy your wisdom. The light of the body is the eyes. And you think about it. If you defy your father, you flout your father. Satan will come and he will take your light of wisdom out of you. That you no longer have wisdom or discernment. Once your wisdom is gone, he has you body and soul. One of the first things a bird will eat on a dead animal. This sounds gross to say. But one of the first things they go for is the eyes. The eyes are a delicacy. They will go for the best thing they can imagine. Satan will aim at the highest, most honorable thing you can own. Which is wisdom. Once you begin to flout or defy your father. To mock your father in that way. Satan has plucked out your eyes of wisdom. And you can no longer see as clearly as you did before in making decisions. Protect your wisdom by never mocking or defying your father or authority figure. Defying is an action word. Of acting against his will. As much as vocally defying him. Many people would not consider vocally defying their father. They say, well I respect him too much to do that. But defying is an action word. You can defy him by not saying anything. But by still doing what you know he does not prefer for you to do. Proverbs 20.20 Whoso curses his father or his mother. Curses means to utter a wish of evil against. We think, well I don't swear, I don't curse. Do you ever in your heart utter a wish of evil against your parents? His lamp shall be put in obscure darkness. Hear ye children the instruction of a father. And attend to no understanding. Proverbs 4.1 You will no understanding once you learn to hear the instruction of your father. As a young girl grows up she starts forming opinions of her own. What she thinks is important looks silly or insignificant to her parents. What they want looks unnecessary and strict to her. And this is where the mistake comes in. Many girls barge their own way through. And they destroy the peace of the home. And they let Satan pluck out their eyes of wisdom. And once they barge through long enough after a bit. They are, you can just see it. They make wrong choices after wrong choices. And their trail is just downward, downward. A blind girl cannot make good decisions as how she sees things. Because she can't see at all. Okay, let's go to giving our father our submission. We recognize that anybody that is above us on that ladder has authority. And authority requires submission many times. All the time actually. Giving our father our submission. And I have some pointers to read to you. I wonder sometimes how many of us really know what submission is. We look at it as something that we will obey if the last option is gone. And you think you are submissive. Submission is not obeying because you agree. It is obeying regardless how you feel. If you obey only when you agree with them, you are not submitting at all. You are just always doing what you feel like doing. These things have been very challenging to me to write this down for girls to even think about it about my husband. Submission is obeying and bowing to your parent's first wish. Without protest, argument, or trying a different tactic or approach. You do not know what submission is if you try to persuade your mom and dad to change their mind. Or you say it a different way to try to bring a different light on. Just the best thing you can do to make them change their mind. And you wait to really submit until you see you have absolutely no choice but to obey. Submission is making their will your will. Not your will, their will. Submission is an action word, not a feeling word. One of the biggest mistakes we as princesses make is by going by our feelings. And we think because I do not feel that way, I cannot do it, I do not have the power. You can feel as unsubmissive as you want to. You choose to submit and it is amazing what a power that has. Once you choose to submit and go against what you want to do. What a power there is and how it changes you inside. And after a bit you really are feeling submissive. Once you act on submission often enough your heart will mold itself into true submissive feelings. Submission is not behaving and carrying out a wish with gritted teeth inside. The dictionary definition is this. It is giving up your will with resignation, obedience and humble behavior without complaint. Submission is not gritting your teeth and obeying but oh I'll let them know it's hard. That is not submission. It is giving up your will with resignation. It's truly giving it up. Not just well I'll go against my grain. And it's releasing your desire to Christ and saying I give this up. With resignation, obedience and humble behavior. Not haughty, without complaint. And one thing I have noticed in as little long as I have lived in this world. I still have noticed something. And that is it seems if you don't know what true submission is. But know how to make your parents change their minds. You as a princess will not naturally be attracted to a godly young man who knows where he stands on issues. You'll be a little scared. You will put him off as being opinionated. You will be attracted to someone who is slightly insecure. And he will be attracted to you because you know where you stand. You get married. And because you can sway your husband's opinion. In short order you will be handling the reins in the family. It might not be noticeable because we know how to hide it. We get our husband to do the talking. Have our grains. Rebellious children. Insecure boys. Domineering girls. And the cycle goes on. You need to break the cycle. If this cycle has been going down in your family you need to break this cycle. And it's a very hard cycle to break many times. Submission is surrendering when you do not feel like it. Let's talk about giving our heart to our father. This does not mean our little heart. And I'm sure you know that. We cannot get our heart out and give it to our father. I looked up heart and it had such an extremely interesting way of defining heart. It was exactly what I wanted. It refers to the heart as the seat of our affection. Seat can be referred to throne. Throne means to place on a royal seat. We girls are not capable of giving our deepest affection to more than one person at a time. There will always be one person that holds the deepest seat of our affection above others. And if you think well I don't really have anyone in my life that I can do that. I mean I can't really say that my father or my mother has the deepest seat of affection. Or a boy or a girl. Check yourself. You might be surprised. Your deepest seat of affection might be yourself. You will always have someone. Whether it's yourself or whether it's somebody else that you will ultimately revere and obey and respect. Many people enthrone their own selves in their heart. As we grow older we find a longing at times to have someone in our life that we can put on our throne. Or pour our affections onto this one person. Many girls start pouring out that affection right and left on any young guy that attracts her interest. Since this longing lasts from when you're 12 to I don't know how old. You have a lot of years when you have a high danger. You're living in a high danger zone of splashing affection here and affection there. Affection to this boy and to this boy and to this man. Many of these girls have lost a great deal of stored affection. And even the knowledge of what true love is. Till the one that God wants for her comes along. And sometimes you can hardly recognize that person when he comes. Because you have spilled your affection right and left. And you don't have much affection left really. Then you think well I don't feel towards this person like I did you know towards these others. And you can hardly recognize it anymore. Disillusionment about life, love and marriage often follows when you do that. And so what I'm trying to show you how to do is how to give that seat of affection to your father. To save yourself from a lot of the heartache that comes from splashing it right and left as you go through life. You need to purpose in your heart. I'm going to guard this seat of affection. This seat of affection is supposed to go to my father. And then only to the man God has for me if he has one for me. And if not it will stay with my father or with my authority figure. And I think I have it in here somewhere. Yes I will approach that later. About those of you that aren't living with your fathers. Okay. Protect this seat of affection by turning and giving it to your father. You will have a whole lot less of temptations if you do that. If you protect it by giving it to your father. Although father daughter relationships do not totally erase the longing for a husband or companion. It fulfills a need in your heart to love and be loved enough that you will not very easily give that affection to someone else. Purpose that your father shall have your heart and its affections until God shows him and you together of someone else that is worthy of all your stored up heart of love. Do not dispense or give your affection to anyone before your gift from God comes along. Lest you have lost the best or the most of your God given affection. You think well how do I give my heart to my father? I think it helps very much if you vocally give your heart to your father. If you go to your father and say father I see the temptation that there is in just splashing my affection to other people. And I would like to tell you I am making a decision from this day on. You're going to have the seat of my affection. I'm going to pour my love out to you until I see and you see someone else that is worthy of taking this love. If you never learn how to relate to your father or to your authority figure as a young girl. You're going to be in bad shape when you get married. Because your marriage partner is not going to be a woman. And that's why it's so important that you learn how to relate with a man. How to submit to a man. How to give your heart and respect to a man before you get married. Not to a bunch of others but to your father. The way you relate to your father is a lot how you will relate to your husband when you're married. Because you will need to learn submission to your husband. So learn what submission is like before you get married. If you have a hard time submitting to your father, don't kid yourself. It's much harder to give your submission to a husband that is your age than someone that you know is 20, 30 years older than you and knows. You know, once you get married you think, well I'm as old as my husband. I mean, I know too. You need to have a heart of submission and you practice that on your father. And if you have learned the art of submission, it is so easy to give it in to a husband that is your age and to trust him. Okay. How do I relate to my father or authority figure? How can I build this relationship that I don't feel this stiltedness or this stiffness around him? Let's talk about how to build a relationship with our father. First of all, you have a mental choice to make. I will love my father despite his actions. My love will not hinge on whether he is worthy of it or not. I choose to love him in my actions and in my words. Once again, choose to do something and the feelings will follow. Let yourself be vulnerable so you can be useful in it. We think, okay, I will try this. And we'll go out and the first time we try to have a conversation with dad, we feel so queer afterwards. We just feel sort of like, I didn't really know what to say and he didn't. It was kind of awkward and then we just clam up. This hurts too much to make myself vulnerable. I'm not going to try this again. You need to make yourself vulnerable. You will never be useful in life until you learn to make yourself vulnerable. I didn't exactly like the thought of standing up here either, but I realized I will never be useful unless I am vulnerable to other people's criticism. If you draw back as soon as he hurts you or doesn't act like you thought he should, you'll never build a relationship. Fathers often feel about as awkward as you do. They don't always know how to relate to this little girl that grew up and here she is a teenager and here she is in her lower twenties. If they have not been cultivating relationship all along, it's really hard and difficult for a father to just suddenly become intimate in conversation with his daughter. Remember their awkwardness. Don't just think of your own. Think of your father's awkwardness. Make yourself responsible and not him to build your relationship. We cannot accuse our father if we hold ourselves aloof. And many times we do. We say we want a relationship with our father, but as soon as he tries a little bit, we hold ourselves aloof. You forget about his side of the deal about a relationship with you. You make yourself totally responsible. Many times they would like a relationship, but they don't know how. Give them opportunities to show their love, but don't demand it and don't expect it. Be grateful for everything that comes, but don't demand it. Make yourself indispensable to him. When I was an early teenager, I really struggled for a while. I felt like my father loved my sister more than he loved me. And I kind of bemoaned it once in a while, and I just felt like my sister was so much like my mom. And I knew that he loves my mom and her temperament. He would talk about how he loves mom, and I just thought, oh, you know, he likes her better than me because I have a temperament more like he does. One time I was kind of bemoaning myself to my sister about it. Of course, I should have never done it. You can imagine how awkward it made her feel. But I was, and she said, you take responsibility for yourself. You go build that relationship. I mean, she just put it right back on my lap, like, this is your fault. You don't accuse him if you're not going to be doing anything to try to build a relationship. And I took the challenge. Until I left home, I had a beautiful relationship with my father. Well, whose fault was it? I'm inclined to believe a lot of it was mine because I didn't take my responsibility. They don't always know when you're wanting to talk. They have other children. They can't keep you undivided. You make yourself indispensable to him, and you do your part. Make yourself indispensable by getting his shoes, making sure you get him drinks when he's sitting down, getting his newspaper for him. Make conversations. Tell him things you think about, even if you feel silly. Keep at it till it becomes easy. Then there is something you should perhaps consider doing every day just to show him, after you give him your heart, that you should show him that he has your heart. Some girls might feel comfortable in giving him a goodnight kiss every night on the cheek before they go. There are others that might not prefer that. And so they think, well, I will make sure every morning when he gets up, his shoes are at a certain place. Or, I will get a drink for him every time as soon as he comes in the door. There are things, there are so many little things, if you just set your imagination to work, that you can think about, that you can do to make yourself indispensable, and to remind him every day, Dad, this is my little ritual to show you that you have my heart. Make him your hero so that he feels like a loved and respected father. Respecting a man in actions often makes a respectable man out of him. Now, to those of you who do not have a father, or to those of you who had to leave your father for Christ's sake, I feel it is very important that you do build a relationship with someone that is an authority figure, that you learn to submit to them, and you learn to give your will and wishes into them. A girl is meant to be under that. She was never meant to be her own boss and master. We need men to give us a good perspective on things, because we're often a little irrational when it comes to going by our feelings and things like that, and we need to learn to do that. With the help of mature Christians, I advise you girls to find an older, mature man and woman to be your authority, and where you can place your confidence in, preferably an older couple. Older couples do have more wisdom than younger couples. A caution in that is this. I feel you need to give your hearts to them, but do not confide in the man alone. Never ever do that. Avoid all appearances of evil. We are humans. We are never above temptation. Avoid all room for evil imaginations in situations. If you are not his child by birth or adoption as a young child, it is highly advisable, and I would say it is a must, to always be accompanied by the woman also when you are counseling. It avoids so much, and it builds relationships. I know you might think, that's not fair, but I just want a father. Life isn't fair. You might as well accept it. If you've had to leave your father for Christ's sake, you are blessed among princesses. God is blessing you. He holds you in high honor for that, if you did not put them before Christ. But do listen to the advice and counsel of people, and avoid temptations, and submit to authority. But preferably, if you are not adopted as a young child or as a blood daughter, always be accompanied by the woman. To those of you who have had fathers that might have abused you physically, this is a very hard subject. It's a hurtful subject. And I don't want to get into detail here, so I would advise you to go to a mature Christian woman, and to get counsel to know just how you should relate to your father. And what is appropriate and what isn't. You know, we need to know some of those things. How to build a relationship, but it does not give you leeway not to honor them in actions. Okay, let's talk about our mothers. What kind of mothers do we have? We might have domineering mothers. We might have selfish mothers. We might have a workaholic for a mom. Or we might have a lazy mom. We might have an unsubmissive mom, an unhappy one. Or we might have a mom that is a model of grace, happiness, and beauty. Once again, when it says honoring your father and your mother, it is not contingent on the fact of whether she deserves that honor or not. We are required to honor her as queen over me, despite her actions. Whether she deserves it or not. And here I want to bring out the thing of releasing our mother. And I'm bringing it in on your mother because often there's more of a hurt or friction if there's a little bit between mom and daughter than there is even between dad and daughter. But I would like to tell you how much farther you can go in your Christian life if you learn to release your mother and your father. You can apply this to your father too, if you have struggle in your relationship with your father. Our attitudes and bitterness often stem from feeling like our parents owe us an apology or more respectful actions. We think they need to answer for their actions to us. You look at that ladder. Anybody above yourself on the ladder, you have no right to question them or should I... No, that's not worded correctly. Anyway, anyone in the ladder above you is not responsible to answer to you. You are to release them and not make them responsible in your heart to answer to you for their decisions or their actions. Once we learn to release them, we release a lot of bitterness and hurt feelings because we feel they didn't do like I feel like they should. And once you release them, there is such a freedom. You think, who said they have to to me? I release them. I don't put any responsibility on them whatsoever as to what they need to do or how they need to relate to me. I release them. I'm just going to look at my part of the deal. We have gained a tremendous victory in our life once we have learned to release everyone above us on the ladder of authority and no longer make them feel like they need to answer to us for their actions. Learn to focus only on your responsibilities, not on your parents. Let them make mistakes or no mistakes to the God they serve. You're not their God. You choose to love them in word and deed because God requires it. Release them from having to earn your admiration and respect and choose to love them in spite of their actions. That is such a mysterious arrangement of actions first and then feelings. I don't know if John D. Martin ever made a statement that stuck with me more over the years than that statement that if you choose to do something, you put your actions first, your feelings often follow. You choose to love someone, the feelings come. It seems whenever God has instructions or commandments to his people, they were action words, not adjectives or feeling words. It seems like he knew once a person purposes to obey and follow through, eventually the feelings will catch up. And he knows our feelings are up and down, up and down, and you don't go by your feelings. You choose to do things. If you consistently act respectful to your mom, you will feel a respect within you rising. If not for her life, at least for her position, how do we honor our mothers in actions? Once again, honoring means to exalt. Never make your mother feel foolish by mimicking her. Never laugh at her mistakes unless she laughs with you or laughs first. Honoring her is to remember her age and the amount of children she has had, especially so if she is pregnant at the time being. Sometimes that's kind of hard for us to imagine, but if you really have a hard time imagining something, I think it might be good for you to try tying a 20 to 40 pound sack on your stomach for one whole day and see if your legs and lower back aren't aching and giving out to the end of the day. Treat her feet with lotion and rub them and pretend that they are Jesus' feet. As ye have done unto the least of these my brethren, and we are not saying our mothers are the least by all means, but if you feel in your heart like she's the least person I can love, what you do to her you are doing to Christ himself. And they do get weary. I never realized how much child having children would take out of me until I had several and I have by all means not had 9 or 10 or 11. You just need to remember those parts. Honoring her is to prefer her above yourself. How do I prefer her above myself? Try to always do the harder physical labors at home to give her more energy. Do not expect her to do the dishes or other work when she is counseling or entertaining company. Always work your projects around hers. You honor her. Assault her. Make her feel her things are before yours. You don't work her things around yours. You work your things around her. Number four. Never undermine her feelings about things to your father. That's a very serious one if we do that. Do we realize that we are, when we do that, we are helping the devil with a sledgehammer into one of the most important things in life. God has created marriage to be one of the strongest speaking forces of his love for his people. And he honors marriage. Marriage is a beautiful, wonderful thing. If you undermine your mom's feelings to your dad and try to make your dad disrespect your mom just in order to get your point across, you are helping Satan, taking hold of the same sledgehammer he is. Honoring her is to scorn any temptation or opportunity to lower her in others' opinion or even her husband's opinion. Honoring her is to, with humble resignation, give up my plans. Honoring her is to obey Philippians 2.14. Do all things without murmurings and disputings. Sometimes we think, well, I'm not being outwardly rebellious, so we kind of jokingly, oh, mom, you know, this is hard, and you kind of do it in a joking manner. That's not really, really honoring her. You try to imagine if Christ would be there, would you say a jokingly to Christ? As you do to her, you're doing to Christ. These commandments, remember, are for your spiritual growth as much as it is to give her respect and honor in her station. Honoring someone else and giving in to someone else crucifies our own fleshly exaltation and starts Christ's humility in our hearts. We pray, Lord, won't you draw me closer? But the very things he's bringing into our life and heart, we turn away from. And those are the things that would make us more like Christ. They would put humility in our heart, and we go away from it. We think that's not important, that's just a little thing. How do I make my mom my friend? Mother-daughter relationships are one of the most beautiful on earth. Your mother should be your closest friend and counselor. But you don't understand. Maybe I do. You draw back. You're afraid of being rebuked. You feel hurt because of calloused words. You feel she doesn't understand. You feel like your interests aren't what her interests are. And you have bitterness in your heart towards her from maybe incidents that happened over the past. Never blame her for anything until you know that every time without fail you are perfectly the model of a daughter. Do not go for help and say, my mom just does not understand me. She does not. We just cannot relate until you know that you are doing everything that is required of you as a daughter. You are honoring her. You are respecting her. You are putting her wishes above your wishes. There are so many times of friction between mothers and daughters. And the daughter just thinks she doesn't understand. We just don't knit together. Our hearts don't. And probably most of the reason is because the daughter is not in her place. I'm not talking about the mother's responsibility here. I hope you mothers are godly enough not to throw this at your daughters. And that you will take your own responsibility. But I'm speaking to your daughters. You do not look at your mom's side of the coin. You always look at your own. And you think, well, if I'm not hitting it off with my mom, it is a good reason probably because I'm not being as respectful of her. I'm not exalting her. I'm not preferring her plans above mine. Most, if not all, mother-daughter relationships are solved once the daughter lets Christ's humility reign within her. Arguments and bad feelings usually take two to accomplish. The more you share with her, the less she will take every opportunity to lecture or advise you. Every time I try to share with her, she comes up with this lecture. Maybe it's because you have such a hard exterior. The only time she ever has any hope of planting a seed in you is when you try to open up a little bit. You need to share with her often enough that she does not feel that responsibility to plant seeds in you every time you open yourself up with her a little bit. Sometimes she longs to share with you in areas you need wisdom. And the only time she sees a chance is when you try to open up to her. Then you get hurt and you think, I always get a lecture. Share with her more and it will get solved. The road to communication is not easy. It involves choosing. I don't know how many times as I was growing up, even though I did it, each time it was kind of a new thing. If I had something really heavy on my heart and mom and I would be traveling together down the road and I could get hot and cold by turns. And I just about speak and I think, no, I won't. I just can't. But all of a sudden you just force yourself to speak. And you just tell her what's on her heart. And there is so much joy afterwards. There's such an openness between you. You are so glad you did it many times. It involves happiness afterwards. And so just as far as that's concerned, I know it's hard, but it is worth it. And that's the way you build relationships. Treasure her advice. Ask for it. She is a woman also and she was a girl your age at one time. It will make her love and appreciate you more. You think, I want my mom's love and appreciation. Well, treasure her advice. Ask her for advice. She can't help but love you. Don't you love people that come to you? That respect you and honor you enough to ask you for your opinion? Well, she'll respect you and she'll honor you and she'll love you if you come to her. Go to her about the facts of life. We've missed many golden opportunities to be close to our mothers by bypassing them. And we go to other young ladies with our questions and our hopes and our fears about it. And the problem is those of you that are not married do not really know the facts of life for what they are. And a lot of misrepresentation, facts that are not true, feelings and fears get built up because you're getting things that are not true from girls that do not have experience. And it's a lot of hearsay. And they say, well, so-and-so said so-and-so. Get the facts of life from your mother. It is a real opportunity. If you just make yourself brave and go and ask her about it, it's a real opportunity for closeness and for sharing. And it's much more accurate than young ladies. Once again, release her from responsibilities in your relationship building. Just release her. Forget about her part of the deal. Just remember your part of the deal. Allow yourself to be in a vulnerable position just like your father. Pursue it with all your heart. Remembering that honoring her in word and in deed is the fastest way to break down walls that might be between you two. There are some of us that might have deep-rooted bitterness in our heart that we absolutely cannot get over. And I know that comes right into our circles. We do struggle. If you have that stronghold and you feel like it is almost impossible to get over it and just swallow all this stuff and just grit my teeth and go do this. Number one, you might want to write this down. Ask God for true repentance for bitterness. No longer focus on her actions, but you ask God for true repentance in your heart. And keep earnestly asking until you feel very weighed by guilt about it. Fast and pray until you feel like you're ready to burst. Your second step, get your mom and dad together. Communicate your whole heart with dad and mom at the same time. Strongholds in our life are often not broken down until we just simply release them. And sometimes if they're strong enough, if we cannot get release from just releasing them mentally, we need to release them in sharing with them. Number three, if you say it repentantly and entirely honest to your parents, and you just tell them how they have hurt you, but that you are really desiring to start anew and to honor them after this, but you need to release your heart to them. The hurt and the pain that you see that they experience as you are telling them this, often is the last thing that you need to bring that last bit of repentance in your heart that will break it and the floodgates will open. And it will break your bitterness. You cry and you repent to them for it and say, I take it on myself. I needed to share this with you, but I take it on myself. Let them know that you needed to get it off of your chest so that you can put it in the past. Totally release them and honor them from this day forward unconditionally. Once again, a mother-daughter relationship is one of the sweetest on earth when cultivated with mutual respect. How do I pray for my mother or for my father or for those that are in authority over me? One thing Denny said the other Sunday really stuck with me. He said, we mortals cannot handle perfect love and yet judgment at the same time. So God never requires us as princesses to pray about our parents' faults. Did you know that? You are totally released from responsibility about praying for your parents' faults or their mistakes. Praying for their faults is very hard for you to do without feeling your own hurts and bitterness rising up inside again. You need to pray for God's favor, His blessing and His presence to always surround them. Go through the Bible and use the Apostle Paul's prayers for your parents like, Father, let your grace be unto them and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with them. And every verse that is blessing somebody else, you get that and you pray for your parents in a blessing way. You are not responsible to pray for their faults. Now if they are unsaved, you can pray for their salvation, but never pray for their mistakes or their faults. You pray for their salvation and you pray God's blessing down on them. And it's the same way for me, helpful for me to think of that in my husband. I don't pray about his mistakes, I pray God's blessings down on him. Okay, how do we relate to our siblings? Well, quite frankly, the Golden Rule is all that is needed. That's the only verse we need when it comes to relating with our siblings. It quite simply ends fighting and bickering. That's as easy as that. This of course is to be used in discretion on little children that are selfish and don't know what's good for them. One thing you need to remember is release your siblings to your parents for correction. You cause a tremendous amount of pressure on your parents when you assume authority that you do not possess. Don't assume any authority unless your parents give it to you. They go away to the store or something, don't assume any authority unless they give it to you. More anger and frustration are built through your interference than help by a long shot. There are more parents that are put into the wrong spirit over the time of disciplining because of older siblings trying to help but really they're interfering. Release your parents to correct them as they choose. Your parents are responsible for the souls of their family. Many times all you're thinking about is the pain that child is feeling right now and they're looking through the eyes of eternity. Never defend yourself when accused of bad character traits. And that is a hard one. But that is one I personally learned at home. I was just amazed. You know how defensive we get when another sibling says, oh, she really has a problem with this or that. And of all places of course it has to be around the family table. And you just feel so vulnerable and defensive. No, I don't. Or you know what you do. And we bring out the other side. And I remember one time I never forgot it because it was like just a window opened to me at what happens when you don't defend yourself. I forget what it was that I was accused about. I can't even remember if it was true or not. And it was accused and I could just sense it. This was just the opportunity when if I would defend myself, here and there it would just be two or three of them just all attacking me at once. I don't know if I said one word. I just let it go. And if I did say anything, I believe maybe I said thank you or something. I didn't say anything. And it was absolutely incredible to me the making of a pure argument that was ready to rise was absolutely distinguished just like that. And they didn't run me down half as much as they would have as soon as I started defending myself. And that really opened a new door for me to think on. If you accept rebuke or chastening from other brothers and sisters, the fastest way to get them to shut up is by being shut up yourself. The more you try to defend themselves, the more they think you need it. Another thing to remember, we often just think of, well, he's just my brother, he's just my sister. He is a soul encased in a body. She is a soul encased in a body. You need to look at your brothers and sisters as souls with bodies, not bodies with souls. There is a difference. You look at them as just a brother or sister and you're tempted to do things that when you stop and think about it, that this soul is going to spend eternity, it puts a different light on the subject and suddenly you realize, whatever I'm going to do right now or today with this person might be helping them or might be hindering them towards the kingdom of God. And we have absolutely no more right to discourage our brother and sister than we do anybody else in the world from gaining ground spiritually. You wonder how much they love you, how much they appreciate you, you feel a little insecure in your family. The fastest cure to that is remembering that there is no one more loved, more admired, more wanted than an unselfish person with a servant heart. It's very possibly your own fault if you don't feel loved or appreciated. How do I build a relationship with them? Okay, for one thing, you address with respect each brother and each sister, remembering they have feelings that are as acute as yours. They feel just as fast as you do. They get hurt, they feel insecure, they feel like maybe you don't love them. Sometimes we tend to just look at ourselves and think, well, I feel this way, but you know, he can handle it or she can handle it. You need to address them with respect as an individual with feelings. And when you see that somebody else in your family hurt them, pipe up immediately with a word that fills them up and just watch if you don't see that droop of the shoulders go away and this thank you countenance coming on their face. When you are too tired, if you have a servant heart, it is a good possible chance if you have some selfish people in your home that you're going to get very weary and taken advantage of. But instead of snapping back when they ask you to do something, I'm too tired, please just go do it yourself. Ask them respectfully like this, would you mind if I wait till tomorrow morning? I am really tired tonight. Just addressing them with respect as not somebody to be disrespected, but someone with feelings too, even if they're taking advantage of you. Playing games together builds friendships. That's simple. We had so much fun, I was hardly ever bored at home. We had enough of children, we had our own games, and that builds your friendship. Teasing also does, believe it or not. Teasing does build relationships, fun relationships. If that teasing, let me see where this is, is done within the limits of the other's patience. Once you start overriding the other person's patience, it will not build relationships. But fun teasing, it can build friendships. Writing notes of appreciation on character traits or things that were done by the other is also a very good way of building each other up. Make a game out of trying to say something nice or upbuilding to every person in your family every day. If everybody does that, if there's two girls in here or three girls in one family and you start doing that, in a month from now you get out a piece of paper and you start seeing if there was anything improved in sibling rivalry and teasing at the other's expense and just not taking care as far as respect with each other. Okay, cautions in sharing together. Sometimes we think, because they're my brother or my sister, I can tell them anything. You have no right to ever say something about another person to your brother and your sister, even if they live in your same family, that is going to deeply wound or blacken somebody else's character in your brother or your sister's mind. Gossip that hurts others and makes your sibling struggle against that individual. Never talk about the facts of life freely with your brothers. It often leads, even though you can be close with brothers, that is one area you need to just be quiet about and you go to your mother. It leads to experimentation. It leads to shame and guilt and things you wish would have never occurred. It just is not very safe or decent to share a lot of facts of life with your brothers. It is true our homes are to be a place where we can let our hair down, but we don't let it down so far that we let go of respect and unselfishness. Because once we do that, our home is no longer the haven. You think, well, I want a haven where we can come home to, and like I said, let your hair down, quote. But it will not be that haven you desire once you no longer respect your brother and sister and once you no longer are unselfish. Let's talk about our girlfriends. There's something beautiful about having a girlfriend. There's something sweet about having one person or several people that you know truly love you unconditionally, despite your faults. It's relaxing. It's just wonderful to have friends, and I am not condemning friendships. They are absolutely wonderful. They are important because we can learn from others and we can see through other people's eyes. They often see things that we don't see, and that's important. Friendships are tremendous boosters when we face dark times. But one thing to remember that young girls often do not remember, we need to release our close friends to other people. Sometimes we get so protective about our friendships that we literally smother them. Once our friend feels bound or forced to like me or be with me, love starts to die. Love never grows when it's forced. Jealousy shown when the third party becomes close to my friend will very fast kill the affection that she does have for me. Also, being overly sensitive at things she tells me or things I say is building the coffin for our friendship. We tend to be so conscientious sometimes that we get absolutely annoying. We are constantly asking if we offended them or if we hurt them. And all that needs to be to bring about that question is if we don't talk to them one or two Sundays, and we start getting scared and we think, did I offend them? We go up to them and say, did I offend you? Did I hurt you? Did I do something wrong? That gets very irksome. I do not advise you to go up and ask your friend if you offended her or if you hurt them unless you have very secure or very definite proof that something went amiss. As soon as our friends start feeling duty-bound to talk to us, it just kills something. Friendships flourish when there is not a smothering of it. And what smothers it is once we try to protect it so hard that we can't even release them to other people. When cuddled, protected, and guarded by our oversensitivity, we make ourselves a burden to our friends. Girls do tend to be overly suspicious about tiny things. That is a known fact. And that especially arises in your friendships. You soon get scared that I did something wrong. And just remember that when you're tempted to go to one of your friends and say, did I do something wrong or did I offend you? Often we are overly sensitive and suspicious. And like I said, unless you have proof that something went amiss, it's better off just releasing your friend and not letting them feel like they are forced to love you. What should we talk about with our friends? You may talk about anything and everything in this whole big wide wonderful world except things about others that will lower your friend's opinion about them. Gossip is nothing but devilish, demoralizing, exalting oneself, and hellish in the wrecking of good faith in others. Never talk about people degrading them to your friends. It is not right, especially if you are not counseling them or you're old enough to be a counselor. You just avoid bad gossip altogether. Most of the world's sorrow is found in money or in the careless tongue. Our speech gives us a name. Being critical of others only lowers you in your friend's opinion many times because they see that you are in a roundabout way trying to exalt yourself or assure them, I'm not like that. Never repeat something you would not repeat in front of that person yourself. That's a challenge. That's one thing I keep trying to think. If someone asks me about something, I think, well, would I be willing to give this answer if that person would be standing here? And that avoids quite a lot of gossip because we are pretty scared to say what we think sometimes right in front of the person. Gossip is the lowest form of exalting yourself that you can stoop to. It's just like as if you're taking a walk and you have no idea anything is around you until a dog comes back and just ruff on the back of your leg. That's how you're doing to your friends if you gossip about them. If you have to confide about something that is happening, that is hurting somebody else and you know it needs to be solved, don't confide in your friends. Go to a mature Christian that you know can handle this information and would take an unbiased view and tell you where you are wrong in this. Do not talk about boyfriends, sex life that neither of you know about. You think, well, what in the world can I talk about? If your talk has centered around boyfriends, around the facts of life, around what other people do wrong, you are a very narrow-minded princess and I think you need to broaden your horizons. And you need to read books or start listening to older people's conversations and broaden your mind beyond these little things that girls tend to get wrapped up in. And you will soon find very interesting things to talk about if you broaden your horizons. Be sincere in your friendships. Avoid insincere flattery. Be entirely honest. That is a big one in girls. Often they tend to have a lot of insincere flattery to make the other person feel better. Avoid it. You read in Proverbs all the times that it talks about flattery and the bad connotation flattery has and how little good it is for you. And it might do something for you in that area. Build her spiritual life up, not her self-life. If she struggles with something, don't always say, Yeah, I just know what you mean. Sometimes there's room for understanding. But you need to build her up, encourage her, not just say, I'm always in the same boat. Sometimes we try so hard to be understanding, we're absolutely no help at all. Never do something that will pressure your friend to go against her parents' wishes or her own conscience. The truest sign of a friend is one that truly honors the other person's feelings about something, her convictions about something, or honors your friend's parents. Don't do something that is going to pressure her to doing something that she cannot conscientiously do or rightfully do. Friendship is accepting your friend at face or heart value, not trying to change her so that she will appear cool enough for you. Who is the most loved among us? Is it not she who accepts and befriends herself to popular and unpopular ones, to noticed and unnoticed ones? When I was at the youth group, with a youth group in the Mennonite circles I was acquainted with, there was one girl that was so loved. We sort of had little cliques here and there, but this girl, you could hardly figure out where she belonged. And it seemed like every group really wanted her. She was so friendly, so accepting. It didn't seem to matter where you came from or who you were associating yourself with. She was just a gem. And she was loved. She was wanted. It didn't seem, I don't know, there was another girl in the youth group that was more wanted to be around with than her. Now relating to those that we clash with, because that's inevitable. We cannot go through this life without meeting people that we really clash with at times. Is there someone that comes to your mind when I ask you if there's someone you kind of dislike or you have a struggle in accepting? Do you realize that that is the very one that God placed in your life to make you a better person? Do you realize that is who God is referring to when He says, What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me. Because in your mind, you are considering her the least of these. If you dislike someone, there's no getting around it. You consider them a least of these. And that is what God is referring to when He says, As you treat that person, that is how you are treating me. Sometimes we need to use our imagination and look past that person and pretend it's Jesus Christ and relate to that person accordingly. It is only through rubbing shoulders with difficult people that we can become like Christ with His gentle, humble attitude. Take courage. Rise to the challenge. It's when other people offend us that we suddenly realize the capabilities of hatred and bitterness that we have in our own hearts. If everybody would love us, we would never realize how much in need of Christ we are. And it's when other people offend us that we suddenly, we're just amazed at the amount of anger that surges up in us. Take courage. Rise to the challenge. This is what Christ is bringing into your life to get you to totally overcome those. And if you don't have situations like that, it's no way possible to overcome them. We will never learn humility unless we look to Christ. Our heart does not naturally watch Christ 100% of the time. God lets difficult people be the means of seeing ourselves what we really are outside of Christ. People you don't like is a direct attack on God because He made that person. He loves that person as much as He loves you, believe it or not. He's not a prejudiced God. You're not approving of someone else's actions or their clothing. This is an important one to remember. We will never ever draw that person to us by having a self-righteous, judgmental attitude. We will never draw that person towards wanting to be or dress like we do. Because what they see is distasteful in you. A self-righteous attitude is absolutely distasteful to anyone. You need to have the attitude. What is that to thee follow thou me? Make sure your struggle with her isn't deep inside jealousy or envy because you cannot be like her. Let your radiancy and your contentment win her over and be attracted to what you have. But if you do have a concern and you feel like you need to rebuke or exhort someone, don't go until you are totally free from attitudes. Attitude of jealousy or attitudes of looking down on someone. And once you are rid of those attitudes, that would be the hardest thing you could do is go to her. And it is only when it is that hard for you that you can say it with a humble attitude that she can receive it. I want to read a little bit about our egos. One of our biggest problems in life is our egos with our friends. I have a book here, The Gentle Ways of the Beautiful Woman. This lady has a chapter in here, Breaking the Back of Your Own Ego. I just want to read a little bit to you from it. Jesus said, Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Blessed, happy to be congratulated are those who understand exactly what they are and don't try by pretense or posing to deny it or cover it up. Jesus said, Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden. Do you know what your burden is that Jesus is saying to come to me about? It is a burden that is all between this ear and that ear. Most people carry it, are heavy laden by it, are dragged down and depressed and discouraged and exhausted by it all their lives. It is the burden of ego. How much emotional energy do you spend protecting yourself from every possible slight, challenging every word spoken by either friend or enemy which demeans you, cringing under every cool look, tossing at night because someone else seems preferred over you? How much emotional energy do you spend trying to doctor up your image and look good to your friends, trying to say what's cool, trying to do only what's accepted, trying to appear only in a way that will make you admired, trying to sustain a subtle publicity campaign that says you are more, do more, have more? It's very exhausting, isn't it? Quit pretending, quit striving, my dear child, quit trying to be some cocky little god competing with me. This is Christ saying it. Maybe, worst of all, some cocky little religious god. Come down off your silly, riggidy throne. Only my Father is worthy of a throne. Bow to Him only and give Him all the glory and let Him be all and do all in you and for me. As I was reading that chapter, I was so burdened about my own life and I was just thinking, oh, my ego, my ego of wanting to appear spiritual to my husband, my ego of not wanting people to think I'm a complainer, my ego of just, there's just so many things I struggle with personally in my ego and I wrote a prayer I thought I would read to you. My desire is to be willing to be in the background of my family, my friends, my relatives and my church, but also willing to be in the forefront. Sometimes I do desire forefront attention, but often I struggle with wanting to be way in the background where no criticism can find me and rake away my pride by accusations. Oh, ego, what a burdened lot is thine! How thou canst wreak havoc in the mind! You cause tossing bodies during the night watches. You cause furrowed brows by day and minds that snap and ulcers that burn, troubled stormy thoughts, angry billows, bowed heads, haughty eyes, crushing blows. Oh, ego, thy burden is too heavy. I fly to one who is meek and lowly and tosses thy burden aside. Oh, Christ, what a freedom in thee! Lightness, airy feet, conscience clear, untroubled honesty, sound sleep, clear countenances, well of water ever springing. Oh, Christ, who is like thee in all the earth? None but thee, oh Christ, none but thee. Okay, now I have something else to share. Sometimes we really desire a closeness with the Lord and we say, Lord, please somehow make me closer with you, that I know you and I know your presence more and I experience it more. And then God brings pressure into our life, maybe by someone else that is really putting pressure on our life and we are realizing our feelings of bitterness and hatred inside. And instead of finding Christ as our sufficiency, that is what God is bringing into our life, that we can know Christ better. But we feel a little pressure inside and we go and we share with someone. First of all, we might pray. We pray to God, God, I'm having a struggle with this, would you please help me? And just help me not to have bitterness and forgiveness and that I could forgive her. And then we get up and we still have that pressure. We didn't really feel released just saying that to God. So we call our best friend up or we talk to, you know, someone that is close to us. And we tell them the whole story. And do you know what you just did? You rejected and replaced Christ by your friend. The very thing that Christ knew that is going to draw you closer to Him than anything else. You went and you let the pressure inside of you spill out by saying it to somebody else. And that pressure was supposed to be the very thing that draws you close to Christ. I want to share something with you. Some time ago I was feeling a tremendous amount of pressure in my life by someone. And I struggled so deeply. I don't know if anything I yearn to do more than call up my mom and just tell her what I'm going through. I long to tell mom what I was going through and just have her comfort me and encourage me. But just to let it out to somebody else so that they know that I'm really struggling. I felt guilty calling my mom because I knew that if I share this with my mom, this other person is going to be lowered in her opinion. And I could not conscientiously bring myself to do that. I just felt like, is it really right to put that on my mom? And this pressure grew so great inside of me. It was just about crushing. One night I went to bed and I couldn't even sleep. And it was when it got so great I couldn't carry it anymore. And I knew I couldn't spill it out to other people. I started praying. And I prayed like I don't very often pray. And I said, God, I choose to forgive. You have got to help me in this. And I started really, really going to Christ. Not just superficially praying to Him and then taking my burden off by giving it to someone else. It was amazing. Within minutes, that burden was gone. And I, for days, and even now yet, I feel like I'm living in the light of a closeness with Christ and going through a crisis that I would not known had I shared this with my mother and taken the burden off of my heart. And my encouragement to you is this. We often think, well, friends are to share. And they are. And we encourage each other. But there are things that are not to be shared to your friends because they are human beings. And nobody is capable of taking that burden except God Himself. And the very things God brings into your life to draw you closer to Him, let it draw you closer to Him. Let the pressure become so great to you know you do not have the ability to handle it anymore. And when that happens, that's when you go to Christ and you find His fulfillment. I found that out after we moved here. I struggled so tremendously at times at the thought of not having more children. And it was because of the aloneness that I felt in the struggle that made me go to Christ because suddenly it dawned on me that nobody can really take this burden from me. And I shared with my husband. And my husband could comfort me, but it didn't take the pain away from me. And I started realizing just what for God God is. One evening it was so crushing. I was in bed and I just prayed and prayed. And I said, God, I cannot take this anymore. And that's the thing. We humans cannot handle a lot of pressure. Just don't let it spill out to other people. Sometimes you might need to, but not nearly as often as you think. Let it go to Christ. Because I took that burden to Christ. And I'll tell you this. I feel sometimes like I'm surely one of the happiest women in the world. He so completely answered my prayer. Because I said, I cannot be happy, God. You have to do this for me. And He took that burden. He did. It is rarely overwhelming for me, if at all, anymore. And it is through those things. If you just discover how real and how powerful He is. Dare not to tell your friend the next time. Go to Him. Okay. Our boyfriends. I talked about the keeping of our heart. As we get 12 years old, we wake up to the love nature. Or a little younger. Our heart is like an enclosed bubble of liquid affection. Guard that affection jealously. Keep it for only one man. I will have to go faster with this, so I'm going to be reading a lot. Please bear with me. Many girls spill and splash it on this one and that one, till their hearts are empty and disillusioned. They can hardly, if at all, recognize the right man when he comes. And then they need to try and try to work up affectionate feelings to go with their commitment. There is a wonder and miracle of deep happiness that occurs when for the first time you know that you love a man, and a man loves you. There's no denying that. Many girls are impatient and they try to make this happen. They use their imagination full tilt all the time. And because of age or circumstances, the tiny romance fails after a bit. And then they switch to another and another, until they feel wearied, old, and disillusioned long before their time. They cannot resurrect those wondering, odd feelings for the right one when he comes. It is totally unfair to your future husband. Many times you just think of yourself and you think, well, I can handle it, I can work up these affectionate feelings when the time comes. You are being unfair to your future husband by spilling your affection right and left to different boys. Would you like to know that you are the 12th girl in line when your husband comes along that he's spilling his affection out on and he truly felt very affectionate towards 12 girls before you? Wouldn't you fear that you wouldn't meet up to his requirements or quite what some of those others 12 were? Be fair to your husbands. I want to warn you. If you spill your affections before the right one comes, you are setting yourself up for marriage problems. You will compare how you feel towards him with how you felt towards the others. It is unfair to you and to him. You will be puzzled. You won't know if you love him or if you don't love him. You are setting yourself up for heartbreaks. Another thing to remember is girls do tend to take flirtations much more seriously than boys do. And many times boys don't mean a lot and girls just take it to their heart and it's just, ooh, that's the one I will pour my affection onto when there's nothing to it in the boy's mind. You need to guard your heart, like I was saying, until the right one comes along. You say, well, how do I guard my heart? One way to guard your heart is to be very careful in how you relate to a boy in your conversations. It is not advisable for a girl to share her deepest feelings to a boy. Don't share your struggles and your victories and the things that really affect the depth of your heart. Do not share those things with a boy. There is something about open communication and sharing that draws one heart to another and you need to guard your heart against that. Another thing, you guard your eyes. There is power in eyes. If you laugh with a boy, looking in his eyes all the time, there is something that just, a knot is tied, just that easily. And that is one way you need to guard your heart. If a man or a boy looks at you long, or if you start laughing or something, just drop your eyes, guard your heart, and don't let those love knots be tied by mutual eye-gazing. 1 Timothy 2.9 says, Adorn yourself with shamefacedness. Shamefacedness comes in that with eyes. Don't have bold eyes that gaze, that tie these knots of love. Number three, how to guard your heart is never imagining something that didn't happen, and I brought that out before. Number four, do not put yourself in the way of temptation. Dark cars, riding alone, maybe horseback riding, romantic situations that you think are kind of romantic, avoid them. You do not know your own heart sometimes, and sometimes you're infatuated before you realize it. Do not read romance novels or watch videos that awaken that desire in your heart to have something before it's time, or before God gives it to you. It is good, though, to learn how to relate to men and boys because it stimulates our thinking. Our world isn't quite as narrow. When we relate to them, we get their perspective on things and just keep the conversation not on silly things, but more on maybe, should I call it global events, or things that neither touch the heart very deeply, but not stuff that is just light and frivolous either. Stuff that's more like global events. It helps us in knowing and appreciating our strengths and our weaknesses as women. We need men, and we need to learn how to relate to them. They see things differently than we do, and we need their wisdom. How do I relate to a flirt? That is often a girl's question. First of all, if a boy has no reserve around you, or very little reserve around you, the fault lies with you. It's that simple. Girls bemoan the fact that this boy acts so daring with me. All they're doing is telling on themselves. The fault lies with you if a boy goes way out of boundaries with you. He would not dare go out of boundaries with you if you would be in your place. A truly respectable, reserved girl naturally brings the highest respect and actions out of both godly and ungodly men. I mean, you can walk the streets, and the longest-haired hippie will graciously open your door for you if you are a respectable woman. A reserved girl makes boys act like gentlemen. If you flirt, you might get their flirtations back. But they won't feel a deep respect for you. They just won't. It doesn't work that way. In the world, flirts do get married. You think, well, you know, what are you trying to say? I see a lot of people that are flirting, and they get married. And it's true, they do get married. But you look at the world's marriages, often once a flirt has married a flirt, the attraction is gone because he's got you now, and he doesn't have respect for you that would hold you together. Flirting is not respect. You think someone's flirting with you, that does not say he admires you or respects you. How do I act respectable and reserved? Number one, hold yourself aloof from body contact with any man before you get married. Do not slap, hug, flop carelessly against any boy. And I'm saying this to all of you. If you're old enough to be in this room today, you're old enough to do this. You do not slap, hug, or flop carelessly against any boy. Allow yourself to go no further than a simple handshake. Dress in an unassuming way that totally prohibits lustful glances. You want respect? Dress in a way that you are not giving someone a chance to have lustful glances towards you, and you will have respect. Never allow yourself to get involved in a fishy situation where gossip could arise. Nip any flirtation by a man by avoiding him a while after. If he wants to be around you, he'll learn very fast not to flirt with you. But in that, be respectful. You have a full right as a girl to be frosty. You have a full right, and you need to be frosty at times. You do not be totally yourself around a boy. You need to hold back your inside emotions. You need to keep them in check. And if he overrides that, you have a perfect right to be a little frosty if he tries to flirt. But do it in a respectful way. Some girls get this haughty way. That just kind of tickles their amusement, and they'll try it again, and you just get haughty. It's actually a roundabout way of flirting. Be respectful. But just nip it at the bud by going away. Not letting him be around you if he's going to act that way. If smiling at a fella, let it be a free, impartial smile, not a coy one. Avoid sauciness. Sometimes we want to be cute, and we're saucy, and all we do is appear a little vulgar. Okay, our strangers. Before I go on to that, I surely, with all these hours of being up here, can honor my husband a little bit. Some girls feel like if I don't do anything to bring somebody my way, I will never have a chance. That is totally false. If you give yourself in God's hands who arranges all people and all circumstances by however he wants to, you have the biggest chance of getting married. If he wants you married. Did you know that? Because he is moving the chess pieces. I so much had to give up my dreams when we left the Mennonite church. And some of the things I say to you might seem kind of ridiculous. Well, how could you be this type of person and this type of person all in your short lifetime? Well, I had a lot of growing up to do. A lot of the stuff that I was relating to you that I went through as a girl was through some of the Mennonite churches. And leaving them was what brought growth out in my life and where I learned the other side of it. And I had to give up this thought of having anything to do with getting a husband. Thank you. I totally gave it up. Within mere months, maybe three months after we left the church and I had put absolutely everything on the altar, God sent Daniel my way. I did not know him. Not very well. What I saw in him I appreciated. He lived in another church hundreds of miles away, another state. I can honestly look back and I can see I had absolutely nothing to do with getting him. I never once tried to attract him to me. And God knew who I needed. He brought a man. I told him recently, I said, Sometimes my body might feel like 80 years old, but I said, And that is what God will do. If you break your heart and you let him do the choosing for you, he will bring someone that is much more perfect than you can ever imagine for you. So take courage. Don't try to win a person. Leave it up to God. Okay, how do we relate to our strangers? In church, one friendly soul can bring another seeking, groping soul to church again and again and finally to Christ. Once again, remember the golden rule when you go to another church. How do we relate to strangers at home with our visitors? One of the greatest witnesses in the world is a family where children are friendly and reach out to others. Remember, your countenance and your friendliness is often your way of winning souls for Christ. You don't have the opportunity all the young men do all the time. But this is your weapon. Learn the art of a genuine smile that lights up your entire face. And that comes more naturally if you're a radiant Christian. So maybe you need to learn how to be a radiant, happy Christian. You might bring hundreds of people into the kingdom without ever realizing it and never knowing it until eternity. How many people were affected by your smiling, radiant face at the store and thought, That girl has something. We need to be mindful of this. Sometimes we're so self-satisfied with our own life and we go to the store and we never think about it. You know, we don't really care about the other people. That's the whole problem. And we just have our own glum expression. We need to have an open, receptive, friendly expression on our face that other people know this person is receptive to come to if I have questions. This is your mission field. A glad countenance does more than a lot of talking. Another thing to remember, be polite with your thank yous. Every time a man opens the door for you, if you know him or not, be polite in your thank yous. Say thank you. And say it like you mean it, not just thanks, as you go past. Be a polite daughter of the king. Remember, you are God's ambassador. You will be like a breath of fresh air to others. Are you overwhelmed? I'm sorry if you are. There's just so many subjects I could try to squeeze in. The praying princess and so many things that I'm excited about to share with my daughters. But I have to quit somewhere. And if you're overwhelmed, draw to Christ. The main thing is, you fill your puzzle piece with happiness, with Christ. And he will teach you all things. You will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk ye in it. I love you and I am praying for you. I feel privileged to be a part of a church with so many radiant princesses. Thank you. If you need to leave, don't hesitate. If you have a time frame here where you're needing to leave, we won't be at all offended. I had a thought that stood out to me, Dora. Something I've often wondered about when we speak about flirting and our relationships with young men, with young girls. Sometimes I, as an older woman, look at young ladies and I say, I think, don't you realize that this young man has a mother and a father who is observing you? If a young lady thinks by her over-persuasive manner and her over-friendliness and her little coyness and these little things that she's doing to attract attention toward my son or toward one of these other older sister's sons, don't you realize, young lady, that you are the very kind of young lady that we warn our sons about? And that we will take our son aside and say, oh, we have a caution about this particular type of young lady. And they are not making that choice on their own to be appreciative of a young lady. We had an experience in our home when Daniel was, I'll pick on Daniel because he's married, when he was 16, a young lady came from another circle for Bible school. A very attractive, vivacious, friendly girl. At first sight you just liked her because she was just very, very friendly. Well, it didn't take many hours in our home of her sitting on the floor playing with the little boys and her drawing on Daniel for Papa to take Daniel aside and say, I want you to know I'm not happy with this young lady's behavior. And Daniel, at age 16, may have been following her a bit. He let her sweep him along in a few conversations and he was being flattered. There's no doubt that, my, she's so appreciative of me and she thinks I'm wonderful. And just in, you know, this short first evening there, but after that first night, Papa had a talk with Daniel and told him he needs to put a reserve. He needs to set a reserve that will discourage her behavior. But I have to think about it. I don't want to mention names because I don't want to put your mind on that, but you all know. You all know young men that are godly. And we as older women, you as younger women, you look and say, oh, what a godly young man. I appreciate him and his zeal for God and this and this and this. And you may even wonder what sort of young man God's going to bring your way. But in that, you must set a carefulness over your heart and realize that that godly young man has a mother and a father. And your little ways are probably exactly opposite of how that mother and father are going to lead him. So when you think about enjoying small pleasures for a season, as Dora has so carefully brought out many times, realize that you are building a reputation. And all of the mothers and fathers in our group, they are watching your life. And when it comes time to recommend a young lady to their son, that's not what they're going to recommend. So I say that with love and carefulness. And if you have some repenting to do in your heart in those areas, then we see that too because we've all made mistakes. It's not that someone who has had failure will never be considered, but that's something good to be aware of. Do we have questions on this last session or ones that have come up from previous sessions that you feel we should discuss? Or are you ready to go home? In looking back over these teachings several weeks later and just seeing some of the responses that came in, I just wanted to add a few notes because there is such varied responses to meetings like this. Some are overwhelmed. To those, I would like to say this. We are born again in such varied situations and times in life, and many of us did not hear teachings on true heart purity for a long time after we were born again. It is impossible to acquire mature convictions overnight. This is not sin. Sin becomes sin for you once you have heard truth, been convinced of it through God's Spirit, and then reject it. God only asks you to respond to truth one day and one thought at a time as he reminds you. Other girls are plagued with guilt and regrets over their past. Once you have asked Jesus to forgive you, you are justified. Justified means just as if it had never happened. You now have a totally clean sheet in front of you. Your past is forgotten and your future is to be lived joyfully in the new knowledge that you have. Then there are others who feel judgmental towards others who do not measure up to these standards. I plead with you to remember that we come from so many different places, situations, and parents or home life. We have been saved at different places and times and are in different levels of growth in our walk with Christ. Remember that Christ wants modesty for you, his princes. But also remember that in his prayer for the future church, he never taught that the world would be won by it. He said that the world would be won by our love and understanding with each other. It is true, once we have lost the spirit and clothing of modesty, we have lost something very precious. But if we lose our love, we have lost something much, much more precious. The answer is not in laying down our convictions in order to be able to love, but to let Christ purify your heart and give you his spirit of love. Thank you.