Shannon Ethridge - Preparing Your Daughter for Every Womans Battle: Creative Conversations About Sexual and Emotional Integrity

Praise for
Preparing Your Daughter for Every Womans Battle

Preparing Your Daughter for Every Womans Battle is a book for every mom of a young daughter. If you read this book and integrate it into your relationship with your daughter while she is young, you will lay a firm foundation for the potentially stressful and stormy days of adolescence. Too many moms wait until the storms come to discuss these important matters with their children. If you want your daughter to pursue purity, then dont wait to read this book!

S HARON H ERSH , author of Mom, Everyone Else Does!

When has there been a more urgent time for this newest addition to the series? Shannon Ethridge answers the questions anxious mothers are asking, and in a thorough, straight-on way. I wish I had this book when my daughter was growing up.

N ANCY R UE , author of the Lily and the Sophie series

Being in ZOEgirl has taught me to be very careful about the things I endorse or represent, but this book is one that I can stand behind completely. Preparing Your Daughter is the perfect tool for opening up the lines of communication between you and your child on some very tough topics: love, lust, singleness, marriage, and all thats in-between. Beyond that, it will help your daughter discover first and foremost Gods unconditional love for her as well as increase the likelihood that she will embark on a healthy, whole, and enjoyable journey toward feminine maturity.

C HRISSY C ONWAY of ZOEgirl

Readers Rave About
Preparing Your Daughter for Every Womans Battle

I just wanted to tell you what a great response Ive had to doing a Preparing Your Daughter for Every Womans Battle class with moms and daughters. Many of them have commented they wish there had been something like your book when we were growing up. Thanks so much for writing this book. Im really seeing how Im not the only one in my community who feels this is such a strong and urgent need with our younger generation. God bless you! Melissa

Thank you for your courage, strength, and love for Christ and for others. I am a Christian father who had been suffering for years with drug addictions, sexual immorality, and many internal issues. I have two wonderful, beautiful Christian daughters, ages thirteen and sixteen. I prayed to Jesus for help, strength, and guidance in raising them as a single parent. He answered me loud and clear when I heard a Christian radio talk show featuring your book. Christ touched me through your testimony. Thank you for your courage to share your life and wisdom. I am sharing all you have to offer with my daughters to strengthen them for their future. I want to give your books, DVDs, and tapes to every woman I know. You will never really know the blessing and answer to my prayers you have been. God bless! Robert

I am twenty-nine and a mother of a ten-year-old girl. We are currently reading your book, and I really love it! Its been a great conversation (and confession) starter. It has helped me deal with my past sexual abuse, giving me understanding of the things I was still bringing into my relationship with my husband. I feel like Ive been freed and empowered. I have the tools to guide my daughter and other young women. I appreciate the honesty with which you talk about your past. It reminds me of how God restores our lives so that we can glorify Him and at the same time help restore other lives. R.M.

Thank you for your message and your ministry! I heard you speak in Toronto, and I shed tears when I logged on to your Web site. To a divorced father of a ten-year-old daughter, this is the best, most valuable ministry Ive ever encountered. I am planning to use your books and DVDs to help guide her into womanhood. Im also going to share them with my girlfriend who has been raped and abused, as I sense these materials could be the answer to years of prayer for her. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Al

I was reading your book with my twelve-year-old daughter and felt so convicted. How could I help my girls when I have struggled with sexual integrity my whole life? The fantasies, the flirting, the self-gratification, the desire to be the bad girl were tormenting me, yet it felt so good at the same time. I was about to just give up and tell my wonderful husband of eleven years that I couldnt resist the temptation to have an affair any longer. (I was definitely mistaking intensity for intimacy.) I didnt understand why I was struggling with this problem/disease for all these years and couldnt find anything that really helpeduntil Every Womans Battle. Now I am ready to fall in love with Jesus instead! Your book was right on time and almost like you wrote it just for me! I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for your book has saved my life, marriage, and family. I plan on using it in a study at our church so I can bring Gods healing to other women, and Ive already got so many moms reading Preparing Your Daughter for Every Womans Battle that were going to start a weekly study group with our girls. Hopefully we can give them the big dose of preventative medicine that many of us wish our moms couldve given us! Kat

P REPARING Y OUR D AUGHTER FOR E VERY W OMANS B ATTLE
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( MSG ) are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( NLT ) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

eISBN: 978-0-307-55123-8

Copyright 2005, 2010, by Shannon Ethridge

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ethridge, Shannon.

Preparing your daughter for every womans battle / Shannon Ethridge. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

1. SexReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Sex instruction for girlsReligious aspectsChristianity. 3. Child rearingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.
BT708.E85 2005
241.6608352dc22

2005002223

v3.1

To all of Gods princesses,
especially the one who will someday
call herself Mrs. Matthew Thomas Ethridge.

Growing up, I remember my mom saying to me that monsters live in the dark. Whether it was being jealous of someone, or having a fear of something, or even being embarrassed about something Id thought or done, she would say that to me. This has proven true over and over in my life! The more I bottle things up inside, and the more I try to hide whats really going on, the bigger the issue gets. It sounds so simple, doesnt it? But in the moment, whatever your monster is, all you know is (a) its big, (b) its scary, and (c) its more than likely shamefulbecause its in the dark. You cant imagine being freed from it and not living in fear of it anymore! Why? Because it means youd have to acknowledge it, and the pit-feeling you get in your stomach when you think about that makes it feel even more impossible.