I don’t know where you are in the life cycle of raising daughters.

Maybe your little ones are running circles around the backyard as you lounge on the deck trying to read this. You might be sitting on hard bleachers at a soccer game as your 10-year-old chases a ball across a field, or perhaps you’re waiting in a dance-bag strewn lobby for your 7-year-old to finish her weekly ballet class.

It could be that you’re trying to figure out how to keep your pre-teen occupied all summer, or you’re pondering the logistics of adding another vehicle so your newly minted driver can get herself to her first summer job each day.

Or perhaps your girl is anticipating college, about to enter the workforce or struggling to understand her own teenage daughter.

Wherever You Are

I have some words for you today. I don’t know that I’d call them words of advice, necessarily. I’m certainly not going to assume every sentence will apply directly to you. I do hope, though, that what you read will help you see God’s hand on your girl’s life—and on your own.

There have been times, in my own tenure as a mom, when I dreaded what was coming in my daughters’ lives because of how that that particular season or event went in my own life. Puberty. Middle school. That first real breakup. Learning to drive. Starting a new grade (or a new school, or a new anything, really).

You get the idea.

I know they have to go through this, I would think, but I don’t want it to be as hard for them as it was for me.

Who Can Tell?

There’s no way of knowing, of course, what’s going to be difficult for our girls. We might be able to make some fairly accurate predictions based on their own personalities and past experiences, but there’s always a chance they might surprise us. With their skills, their resilience, their courage, their strength and their maturity levels.

When your hunches come true, though, and you see your girl struggling in ways that you know all too well, I want you to remember this.

Because of what you experienced as a girl or young woman—the choices you made, the emotions you felt, the rejection you experienced—you will be able to help her.

You Went First

The struggles you faced were not for nothing. Even if you didn’t think so at the time—even if you strain to see it now—God used them to plant seeds of empathy, wisdom, faith and perhaps even boldness in you, and you can use that fruit to help your girl.

No, your daughter won’t always want your help. Maybe even more often, you will have no idea how to help—what to do or what to say.

In the moment, though, God will give you the words. Many of those words will come in prayer—just between you and Him—and always, those words will be the most fruitful, the most powerful, the most life-changing.

You Can Do It

I know you may not always feel equipped or adequate, but this job of parenting? You can do it, Mom.

You are right mother for your girl, no matter what you think. No matter what she may say in the heat of the moment, when she’s trying for all she’s worth to push every last one of your buttons.

She may not realize it now, but you’re the mom she needs because you are the mom God gave her.

She may not realize this until you are old and gray and possibly in a nursing home, and even then she still might not get it. But that doesn’t let you off the hook. You’re not in this for what she gives to you. You’re in it because God gave her to you.

Work in Progress

Your girl is a work in progress, just like you. God will allow challenging people, circumstances and events into her life that will mold her character and shape her faith, just as He does in your life.

It’s a lifelong process, being her mother.

So keep loving her. Keep listening to her. Keep praying for her. Keep believing in her.

Take it from a mom who is also a daughter. This is what our girls need most—during every season of their lives.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Let’s Have Coffee, Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory (with new host Mary Geisen), Faith on Fire, Faith ‘n Friends and Grace & Truth.