Preparing a Bride -

It's never too early to plan a child's training. At six weeks old, Alyssa would be considered by most to be too young to appreciate any kind of teaching on any subject. But the training of children in the Lord is a joyful and serious task, and it is profitable to our family for Shona and I to begin now, preparing Alyssa to live a God-honoring life.

First and foremost, Shona and I plan to continually and thoroughly indoctrinate Alyssa with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we have also recently pondered the Scriptural way of preparing Alyssa to be a faithful helpmeet to a godly husband. Because we believe that being a faithful wife and mother is the normative calling of Christian women, this is the path for which we will labor to prepare her. We have sought to consider how to prepare her, how to evaluate a suitor, and what a God-honoring courtship should look like when the time comes.

One preacher recently noted that a daughter is the greatest gift that a father will ever have to give away. The father not only has the responsibility to train up his daughter in the Lord, but he must also prepare her to be a gift to her future husband. This was fleshed out in a story about a young godly couple who were married in the summer of 2001 (see this LINK). In this story, the father did not stop at the traditional "Her mother and I do" when giving this greatest gift away:

"In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I commission you to take my daughter. I have raised her with a sacred purity as few girls have ever been raised. Today, I give her to you. You are to be the loving lord in your home and over her. Cherish and love her and never forget what a rare gift God has given to you."

Shona and I pray that we will never abuse our parental authority, but we have an intense hope that God will honor our efforts to be true to His Word and that He will help us to be faithful regardless of how counter-cultural our home may be.