pdf of Issacharian Daughters – ID052 – click on link below for correct layout and photos
Dear Girls,
I have a few neat things to share with you today: there are two letters and one introduction:
From Alison in New Zealand
I really appreciate all you do through Issacharian Daughters. May God bless you abundantly as you do this work He has given you.
The testimony from the anonymous girl was really encouraging. What a blessing it was to read of where she has been and how she has honoured her parents. My heart can relate to much of what she was saying. I wish I could thank her, I know God will bless her for her choices for Him.
I know God is travelling beside me, each day, as I go along the way. It’s a daily thing, deciding that today is the day that I’m laying it all down, giving things up for the One I love. It can be quite discouraging seeing the way the world is going down, so quickly, and the devil is swallowing up so many people- especially young ones. On the other hand, it is tremendously exciting, because each day is a day closer to Jesus’ return! Isn’t it so worth living for Him!! I still have so much to learn when it comes to giving up all my desires. What I find helpful is looking at things in perspective by remembering that when life is over, what is it that really matters. What am I doing with my time now that is most beneficial for the future.”
From Alison in New Zealand
From Mrs Nickels
Hello Genevieve,
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your newsletter for girls. It is very well done — a true source of inspiration.
I amthe mother of five children from ages 14 down to 1, three of whom are girls. Your newsletter will be a great springboard for discussion with my oldest daughters, ages 12 and 14, and I (at 41!) am learning a lot as well!
Please keep of the good work–it is of great value to parents who have this vision for their daughters, but little time to search out suitable reading materials to enhance their training.
May God bless you and your family,
Beth Nickels
An Introduction
I found your Issacharian Daughters newsletter through LAF, though I’ve known of you before that – I’ve appreciated your interview on the Visionary Daughters website, and the contributions you made to “So Much More.” I relate to your situation of “coming home again” because I went away to college, and rejected my Christian faith during that time, before being reconciled to God and later, making the decision to stay at home. I’m 23 years old now (I’ll be 24 in June) and I’ve been purposefully staying at home for about nine months now. It’s been very different than I thought it would be, and much more difficult! As you’ve said before, it’s really a pioneering position. I don’t know any other young ladies in real life who are stay-at-home daughters, though since I’ve been at home a friend of mine has also moved back home once she finished college. She lives four hours away, though, so it’s harder to provide moral support for each other! That’s why I appreciate your efforts to create a network of stay-at-home daughters through the Issacharian Daughters newsletter.
I’ve enjoyed the last few issues with your interview with Sarah Clarkson, especially the last part in #3 where you talked about beauty being an outpouring of Christ in us. I love beautiful things — the thought has crossed my mind that maybe I love them TOO much 🙂 but our God is the God of beauty and of everything that is good and lovely, so I think it is natural that we are drawn to beautiful things (books, art, home decor, nature, clothing, whatever!). One of my favorite hobbies is sewing so creating beautiful garments is a source of joy to me. Some days I “overdress” by our culture’s standards but I like being in neat, beautiful, feminine clothes and I think it affects people around me. I get compliments from other people but most importantly from my parents, which tells me it’s a blessing to them when I dress nicely. It’s also a reminder to me to be more feminine and ladylike, and it’s a good reflection of what’s going on inside of us (i.e. during a spiritual and emotional lowpoint of my college years I pretty much rejected doing anything to improve my appearance and wore androgynous T-shirts and baggy jeans a lot). Laura Demick, USA
The newsletter is attached as a pdf and the text follows this note for those of you who have difficulties opening the pdf.
Regards,GenevieveMonday, 14 May 2007
Dear Girls,
Interview with Lindsay Schultz ??Part 2
Lindsay Schultz is 25 and is thoroughly enjoying??Homemaker Bootcamp! ?? She has three younger brothers and helps to homeschool the youngest who was adopted from Kazakhstan. She is currently in charge of her oldest brother’s bookkeeping for his lawn maintenance business as well as assisting her mom in caring for her grandmother who has Alzheimers. She thoroughly enjoys cooking, making wedding cakes and playing music with her brothers, but most of all, seeking God’s will!
What are some of the messages on your heart? If you had an opportunity to share with a group of people some things that are really important to you, what would you say?
I would love to sit down with a group of girls and encourage them to have the vision of serving at home and all that serving encompasses (Titus 2:3-5; Proverbs 31). It’s having a vision of learning to serve your father and mother so that you can be equipped to be a helpmeet, submit to your husband and serve him. I believe that if you practice submitting to your father, you will find it much easier to submit to your future husband. This is one of the highest, most important things that a wife could possibly do (1 Peter 3:4). It requires training. You have to be trained to be a homemaker and to be content at home. You have to learn to be submissive and also to have faith that if God wants you to get married, He can bring you a husband (Proverbs 18:22). God is to direct the man to??find a wife. ?? You and I are to be submissive to God and let Him work the way He desires (1 Peter 3:1). We are to rest in the Lord (Psalms 37:3-7). God created the whole universe. You could live in a cave or out in the middle of nowhere. It does not matter to God. He is able to bring a husband to you. He can do anything, and it is important to have faith and trust in Him. What a gift it is to just be content to scrub toilets if that is God’s calling for you right now (Phillippians 4:1). It’s not easy. I struggle daily. I have to constantly meditate on verses about faith, having a happy heart, joy in hardship and being content in my circumstances now (Phillippians 2:14-16). Because these are the things that I need to hear the most, these are the things I would want to tell other girls.
Now you were talking about vision, and I was thinking that there are a lot of girls who, perhaps they’ve come home but don’t have a real passion or a real enthusiasm for what they’re doing at home and their role as a daughter. How do you suppose we can give them this vision and give them a passion so that they really are excited day by day in what they are doing to serve their fathers and their Heavenly Father?
As to vision, at first I was complacent about staying at home. I was at home. I knew why I was doing it. I knew God wanted me to, and I had studied Scriptures about it (Titus 2:3-5; Proverbs 31). Yet, in the beginning I still didn’t have a vision in the sense of looking past now, beyond getting married, and seeing what I could do for my future family, children and grandchildren. I didn’t really understand how the time that I spent and the direction that I was growing could affect my future family. When I first decided to stay home, I really thought that it was a time for me to just play around until prince charming walked into my life, married me, and we rode off into the sunset. Not only was that wrong, but it was also very immature. The Lord soon showed me there were many things in my life that needed to change, and He was going to change me at home.
The first thing that my dad did when I decided to stay at home was ask me to make a list of the skills I wanted to learn. I made a list of about thirteen different skills I had always wanted to accomplish but never had time to learn. So I was very excited to finally have the opportunity. A few of the things on the list included: calligraphy, cake decorating and learning to play the guitar. The Lord was very gracious and allowed me to learn every item on the list within two years. I began to understand that I am doing much more than just staying at home and doing things around the house. I learned that my life is about glorifying God in every single thing I do, including scrubbing toilets. God showed me that if I was doing His will, then I need to do it with all my heart, soul and might and with joy! (Phillippians 2:14-16)
After I read So Much More by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, it enlarged my vision and challenged me to learn, through serving my dad, what his likes and dislikes are. Once I started really trying to tap into Dad’s heart and asking myself,??Alright, what would Dad want me to do? ?? I began to discover what it was that God wanted me to do. It all went hand in hand. If Dad wants me to do something, then I know it is also something that God wants me to do (Ephesians 5:10).
Another key element is my mom. She has taught me, through her own daily example what it truly means to be a Godly, submissive wife and loving mother (Titus 2:3). She is my biggest supporter, confidant, mentor and best friend. Serving at home is part of training and provides a perfect harmony for God’s vision. This training is not just for one season. I am involved in a whole life of training. God is working through my parents, who are playing a key role in preparing me for my future (Proverbs 22:6).
How have you been able to encourage younger girls in these areas?
Many girls look at me the same way I viewed Tiffiny many years ago. They say,??That’s really nice ??. But I know they think I’m crazy! By the way, Tiffiny and I are really close friends now. The Lord has used her as great encouragement to me because we have so much in common now. I have also had girls tell me they would like to be at home, but their dads don’t support them. They are told to get an education, get a job and get out of the house. In a lot of girls’ circumstances it is hard because their dads do not understand, but I feel like it’s just like a wife who needs to learn to submit to her husband. If the husband is doing something the wife doesn’t agree with, the wife simply needs to pray ??and that’s it (1 Peter 3:1,2). The wife needs to learn to be respectful, honouring and do all that she can to serve her husband with a willing servant’s heart, and I think daughters should do the same thing (Ephesians 5:22-24). Mothers have the opportunity to be great examples to their daughters in this area. But what if the daughters are in a situation where their fathers don’t understand the importance of them staying at home? If their dad wants them to go to school, they need to continue going to school. If he wants them to work, they need to work with a joyful heart and pray that God changes their father’s heart (Ephesians 6:1; Proverbs 21:1). We can’t go and tell our dads what to do, although we can make an appeal to them. But as daughters, we can make a difference just by praying.
(…to be continued ??) Next week, will be the final part of my interview with Lindsay. In it I talk to her about the peace, confidence and contentment which radiates from her and we discuss how she made the transition from reading teen magazines and having posters of singers on her wall to removing those influences from her life.
For the Greater Glory of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
Genevieve SmithIssacharian Daughter