Bonding with Your Daughter Over Her Relationship With God
This week, I am participating in the “5 Days of… Summer Series” with the wonderful ladies at the iHomeschool Network.
My topic is “5 Days of Bonding with Your Daughter.” I will share tips and ideas for making your relationship with your daughter a close one, both now and throughout your lifetimes. Read the previous post here.
Marie, October 2007
I tend to get into trouble when I forget that life doesn’t start with me. I get anxious and fretful and controlling when I think that I am the one who makes things work in the world. But I don’t. I’m not the Beginning and the End. God is. I can rely on Him, I can trust Him, I can turn control over to Him.
So, in talking about bonding with our daughters this week, let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start 
. When and where did your mother-daughter relationship start? Not at the birth of your daughter, not at conception, not even when you got married. Your relationship with your daughter began in the heart of God before the beginning of time.
Ephesians 1:4 (New Living Translation (©2007)”
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
So before you were born, God knew you would have a daughter. He has a plan for you. He has a plan for your daughter. He has a plan and purpose for your relationship. Therefore, you want to set the foundation of your relationship with your daughter in your relationship with God.
It’s important for you to introduce your daughter to the Lord. This assumes that you have a relationship with Him yourself and that you are nurturing and developing that relationship through the Bible and prayer.
As your relationship with the Lord grows, you will overcome obstacles, fall and get up, make mistakes and learn so much. Your daughter is a woman-in-the-making, so she’s going to go through exactly the same process in her relationship with God. What a blessing it will be to her to have her mother walking alongside her, mentoring and supporting her through the challenges of the Christian walk!
Your daughter’s relationship with God also goes beyond what you both experience into the next generation. With the spiritual foundation that you give her, she than gets to pass the faith on to her own children, your grandchildren. With a solid foundation, you can feel confident that she can weather anything life throws at her because she knows how to lean on God for everything she needs. She is less likely to adopt a false religion or rely on pop-psychology for answers because she knows how to find answers in the Word of God.
The first step in bonding with your daughter in her relationship with God is to pray for her. Instead of laying all your hopes and expectation for her on her little shoulders, lay them on God’s broad shoulders. Pray for her education, her relationships, her marriage and her future. Pray for her privately and pray for her when you wake up, at the table, and when you tuck her in to bed. As she gets older, you can begin to teach her how to articulate her own needs to God. Remind her constantly that God loves her. I always tell my children that my love, as great as it is for them, is still imperfect. Only God loves perfectly. Teach her to take her insecurities and challenges to God.
Next, let her see you reading and learning the Bible. Naturally, there’ll be a struggle with finding time to do this. Let your daughter see you overcoming schedule challenges to make time for God to come first. It will teach her the importance of spiritual discipline.
With your godly example in place, teach your daughter to read the Bible for herself. I started my daughter reading the Bible as soon as she began reading multi-syllable words. It became a natural progression in her education and God has used that foundation in amazing ways. Now she has her own blog called Bible Talks with Marie.
All of this praying and Bible reading and study will naturally lead to lots of questions and discussions with your daughter about every imaginable topic under the sun. The Bible talks about money, sex, friends, education, hard work, gluttony, depression and anger. I love being able to refer to the Bible when my children ask a question because it shows that I don’t have all the answers and I am learning also. I always let them know that I am subject to God’s Word as well.
Finally, help your daughter apply the Word of God to her life. Just as an alcoholic or drug addict needs a support system to stay
clean, your daughter needs your support to overcome sin. She needs you to help her keep her commitments to God. She needs you keep her accountable and to assure her of God’s grace and forgiveness when she falls.
Does all this sound like a tall order? It is! And this is where I remind you that you need all of the things that I am encouraging you to do for your daughter. You need the Word, you need prayer, you need people to support you, you need God’s grace and forgiveness. And He is faithful to provide!
As you take the time to build a relationship with God and your daughter, you will find your level of intimacy with her growing. You can’t talk about God’s unconditional love without your love for each other growing. When she sees for herself what the Bible says about life’s issues, she will catch a glimpse into your point of view as a parent, reducing your conflicts. As your daughter grows more confident in her relationship with God, you will have a lot less female drama, because she too will realize that she isn’t the Beginning and the End and she doesn’t have to be perfect or in control. She can lay her anxieties and insecurities on God’s broad shoulders.
Blessings!
Sade
Be sure to join all the other ladies at the iHomeschool Network for our 5 Days of…Summer Series!
-
5 Days of Homesteading
from Connie at Smockity Frocks
-
5 Days of Decluttering
from Lisa at Chaos Appreciation
-
5 Days of Homeschooling for the Busy Family
from Jenilee at Our Goodwin Journey
-
5 Days of Homeschooling Pre-K
from Lauren at Mama’s Learning Corner
-
5 Days of Homeschooling in the Military
from Aadel at These Temporary Tents
-
5 Days of Kindle in the Classroom
from Jodi at Granola Mom 4 God
-
5 Days of Return of the Routine
from Tricia at Hodge Podge
-
5 Days of Homeschooling a Special Needs Child
from LaToya at Christian Momma
-
5 Days of Crafts
from Rebecca at Mom’s Mustard Seeds
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5 Days of Oven-Free Dinners
from Tabitha at Meet Penny
-
5 Days of Freezer Cooking
from Stacie at Motherhood on a Dime
-
5 Days of Family Games
from Christine at Fruit in Season
-
5 Days of Camping Tips
from Jenny at Planner Perfect
-
5 Days of Educational Apps
from Kim at Not Consumed
-
5 Days of Real-World Math
from Joan at Our School at Home
-
5 Days of Summer Un-School
from Jamie at Unlikely Homeschool
-
5 Days of Using Your Slow Cooker
from Sarah at Sidetracked Sarah
-
5 Days of Summer Survival
from Susann at Momma Hopper
-
5 Days of Creative Co-op Classes
from Ami at Walking by the Way
I love this article. It has such sweet reminders that I need to take to heart. Can’t wait to hear what else you have to say on the matter.
Thank you, Angela.
Sade,
This is so good and helpful. Thank you for sharing. I will read it again and again.
Sola
Thanks for coming by the blog, Sola