This Valentine’s Day, I would like to share eight thoughts on protecting the purity of our daughters. To my daughters, these are my prayers and aims for you!
1. Gain and Keep Her Heart – Does she know and trust you, her parents? Do you know her heart? Have you taken time to listen? Is she finding her identity in Christ and not in a relationship with someone else?
2. Protect Her Purity – As a child, the parents are the door to the sheepfold, protecting her from the wolves. As she grows older it becomes a shared responsibility.
3. Show the Beauty of Purity and the Dazzling Disgust of Impurity – Does she recognize that the greatest gift she can give her future husband is her purity? Will that be the greatest gift I can offer my future son-in-law (2 Corinthians 11:2)?
4. Give Her a Roadmap to Marriage – If it is the Lord’s plan, neither you nor the Lord want her single forever. How can parents and our daughter work together to seek God’s best?
5. Stay Connected with Her Heart Even as She Leaves Home – Even when she is not under my roof, I want to stay connected with her until another valentine takes my place.
6. Ask for Commitments at Transition Points – Does she know the responsibility I feel? Does she love and believe the beauty of pure life? I want to communicate this to her at regular points.
7. Cast a Vision for the Benefits of Singleness – Our Savior was single. Paul was single. In fact, great kingdom work has been accomplished by singles. Singles have more time than we who are married. Let them hear from us, “Don’t waste your singleness!”
8. Pray Like Crazy – Nothing, nothing, nothing will happen without prayer. I will commit to regularly praying for my daughters’ purity.
So to my two daughters on this Valentine’s Day, I pray God’s best for you!
