pdf of Issacharian Daughters – ID053 – click on link below for correct layout and photos
Monday, 30 April 2007
Dear Girls,
Interview with Sarah Clarkson ??part 3
Genevieve: Can you talk some on marriage? How you are preparing for it? What are your thoughts on dating/courtship/relationships and how you get from maidenhood to Mrs-hood?
Sarah: I’ve been in a Bible study that studied womanhood and marriage from a Biblical perspective, and the more I look at it, the more I see it as God’s design to bring His Kingdom to bear upon the earth. So I would very much like to get married apart from just the romantic girl-heart in me. I am so excited by the picture that God made of the family, of the husband and the wife together picturing the relationship of Christ and the Church. Just the way that righteousness is passed on from generation to generation. I feel like marriage needs to be protected in our time. It is amazing to me that anybody can question the institution of marriage. It is something that needs to be protected and understood from the point of view that there is a lot being lost and there needs to be real examples of Godly, beautiful, submissive womanhood and strong manhood. So I am praying that God will allow me to marry just because I feel like it is just such an important picture of His grace in our time. I think it is the way that righteousness is passed on from generation to generation.
As to how I’m preparing ??there is a very??Me! Me! Me! ?? mentality in our culture, and I feel that just by being part of my family, I am preparing for marriage in many ways because I’m constantly needing to self-give. Right now I’m trying to cultivate attitudes that I feel will be the same ones I will need as a wife and mother. So being ready to serve. A passion of mine is to bring beauty and happiness into places around me and to really let my words bless others. And so spiritually I just feel like the everyday life with the family is going to be the exact same spiritual preparation and environment I will need for being a wife and mother.
As to the whole dating and courtship thing ??I don’t really know. I wouldn’t say that I have a formula or that there is one way to do courtship or dating or whatever. I have very Godly friends who have dated, and I have very Godly friends who have courted. I will say that I don’t think our culture’s model of dating is at all Biblical. It is not usually blessed, and the relationships that come out of it are not usually based on deeper spiritual issues. My dad always said that he was best friends with my mom before they were married. He always said that it was very important that you become best friends and that that usually happens in a much more natural setting than the very unnatural situation of modern one-on-one dating. So I suppose I’m more for best-friend type of relationships very guided by my parents and in a protected environment.
How does your ministry to girls fit in with your family ministry?
To me it is like what I have to say to girls is like a natural outpouring of my parent’s ministry. I am the example of what my parents teach, and so whatever I am is however much integrity they have because I picture what they have taught about discipleship and child training. So as I grow up, I am really desiring to stay close to God, and my ministry is very tied up with theirs because I’m the fruit of their labour. As I minister to girls, a lot of what I’m saying is what my parents have taught me. It is the discipleship which was poured into me that I’m pouring into them. I do speak at some of my parent’s conferences, and I speak to the women. A lot of the ministry that I do happens side by side with my parents’ ministry. I’ve been very discipled by my mom. As she has ministered to and discipled other women, I feel like she is my model for discipling other girls. To me it is all tied in together. It is the heritage of righteousness in my family. It is not that it is that separate, just that it is a continuance of God’s calling on our lives. Now He is calling through my parents on my life. I’ll probably end up teaching the same things my mom is teaching me when I’m married.
Lets end with a discussion on beauty. You have talked about beauty a little during our discussion. Doesn’t beauty just minister to your heart? But when you go out into society, you see women wearing such drab clothing.
Yes and you go into drab homes which have no sense of celebration or tradition or richness.
It is like emanating out from them is a sense of duty but also of a lost joy. I’m exploring this whole area of femininity and womanhood and beauty.
Oh! See this is one of those whole areas that I would love to write about! There are so many women who want to be good. They want to be Godly but our whole culture is so poverty stricken in some areas. But Godliness doesn’t mean no colour or no music. I just want to tell people that if God is in your life, if the spirit of Christ who created the world is in you then your very life should be more colourful and more beautiful and more full of music and joy than everybody else’s because God is in your heart. Beauty is so spiritually nourishing and encouraging. It does something to you when you walk into a beautiful room, go into a beautiful place or you see a beautiful picture or someone has put on some beautiful music or you see someone who has dressed beautifully. The way Christians express beauty outwardly in their bearing and manner, smiles, dress and homes says something about the spirit of God in them!
I did a study once with a very, very wise old woman on womanhood. The study covered five aspects of womanhood and the last aspect was on the glory of man which is basically that woman was made to picture responsiveness to God. Man pictures the initiating love of Christ towards the Church and the woman pictures the Church’s very responding love. When you talk about femininity and beauty, the very softness, even the way you dress ??it is the qualities of the bride. What we should be picturing is Christ’s bride?? all the time!?? in the feminine ways we dress, in the way we speak, in our beauty and our love and our softness
Being a very intuitive type I love the idea of living out a picture. I’m not just doing this because this is something someone told me to do. I’m picturing what it looks like to be lovely and responsive to an initiating and powerful and wonderful God.
Wow. When you were saying that we are the picture of responsiveness I was thinking that when God initiates we respond with joy and thankfulness and, you know, I just think colour!
Yes and music! Laughter! Beauty! Dancing!
This is wonderful! So we can learn how to radiate and how to put out on the outside how we are feeling on the inside. We can match those things together.
Yes there is no reason to look drab.
When I look at the Proverbs 31 woman it always strikes me so forcefully that she wore scarlet and purple and rich fabrics.
Yes. Every time I hear it I think,??That is the picture right there of beauty. ?? She is bringing this richness to her life.
And we can strive towards that sort of beauty. Not that we necessarily have to be beautiful. That is not what it is about. It is about making things beautiful.
It is that our lives are beautiful. Our lives picture beauty. Many of the Godliest women I know, if you walk into their homes, you are surrounded by this sense of beauty. There is this intangible loveliness and grace to their lives.
When I think of getting married I think of making my home into a bastion of Christian culture.
Yes. I really hope I do get married because I so want to picture that in my home. I want the opportunity to have a Christian home that is a refuge, that is the place in the midst of a very cold world which pictures God’s grace, which is a haven of righteousness, where people are being raised who will take His light out into the darkness. I can still have that as a single woman but I would love to have that with my husband and children because it is such a complete picture.
Yes. Because right now you can help in your father’s house. But one day you can be the queen of your own domain! How exciting!
I just wish our interview could go on forever and ever, but I’ll end it there. This has been so exciting to talk with you. Thank you so much for your time and for all you have shared.
For the Greater Glory of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
Genevieve SmithIssacharian Daughter
Notes: I have sent this email to girls who have embraced a vision of victorious daughterhood as well as those who may be thinking about doing so (and even to some girls who may just like some encouragement regarding different areas of home life). Some of the girls are in the USA. Most are in New Zealand. You are welcome to forward this email on to others so long as you do so in its entirety. If you do not want to receive these emails please just send a return email to me stating that fact. If you know of other girls who would be encouraged by receiving these emails, feel free to forward the email to them or send me their email address.