Wynter Pitts - She Is Yours: Trusting God As You Raise the Girl He Gave You

Wynter Pitts is the founder of For Girls Like You, a ministry to young girls and their parents that also includes a quarterly print magazine, journal, and other print and online resources.

At For Girls Like You, we have a passion and drive to introduce young girls to Christian values in a way that they are able to understand and digest so they can walk passionately and boldly in who God has created them to be.

We are dedicated to exposing girls to all the things they love (travel, positive role models, creative projects, and more) without the negative messages, imagery, and advertising that often appear in mainstream entertainment. We want every article, interview, and photo to support a Christ-centered system for our young girls!

Each issue of For Girls Like You is fun and colorful, featuring contributions and interviews from familiar faces as well as everyday girls who are choosing to live and shine for Christ. From designing clothing to researching biblical principles, this magazine supports parents efforts to raise beautiful and healthy daughters whose identity is wrapped up in the love of Jesus.

For more information or to subscribe to the magazine, visit www.forgirlslikeyou.com

O ver the years of parenting our girls, one of the most useful pieces of advice weve received is from our pediatrician. Without fail, toward the end of every visit, he says, Now remember: You cant control whether your kids will eat, but you can control the options available to them.

Although this piece of advice is about encouraging our daughters to eat a well-balanced diet, we think the words ring true in other circumstancesincluding how we approach their relationship with God.

We cant force our daughters to have a relationship with their Creator, but we can surround them with the evidence of His love and opportunities to partake in His truth. As parents, we can control how much time we spend with the Lord as a family and commit to renewing our minds with His strength.

At initial glance, this may seem like a daunting task. You might think, I dont have the time, or I dont want to bore my kids, but I promise you that both of those thoughts are distractions from what the Lord wants to do through you and your girls. Whether you practice family prayers in the mornings before school, lead a dinnertime Scripture reading and prayer (devotions), or share the days highs and lows at bedtime, we encourage you to be intentional in your efforts. Help everyone in your family to experience a renewed mind.

Allocating time to spend with God together is crucial. Our girls will imitate our actions, and they need examples of what spiritual exercise looks like. Sunday school is not enough because corporate worship is naturally geared toward corporate growth. Personal growth must be modeled at home.

There is no getting around the fact that Gods plan for your daughter involves your relationship with God, your commitment to His Word, and your preparation for each day of her life. The Lord has given our family some of the sweetest moments together when weve intentionally spent time renewing our minds and aligning our wills with His.

We are committed to growing in Gods Word personally and demonstrating through example how our daughters can live out Gods perfect will for them.

This lesson requires more than teaching. Our example is just as crucial as taking them to the Bible. If youre taking them to Gods Word but not living it yourself, they will see hypocrisy. It is critical for what you do and what you say to be in alignment. As a child of God yourself, you are His image bearer. The degree that your lifeyour attitudes and actionsreflects the character of God will be the degree to which they experience what the love of God looks like. Your life is a litmus test for your girls of whether Gods Word is true, real, and worth applying to their lives.

Dont let this reality scare you. It sometimes scares us because our initial reaction is to remember all the mistakes weve made. We will make similar mistakes tomorrow, next week, next yearor even in the next hour! But the good news of the gospel is that there is always grace. Leading our girls to the truth of the gospel means teaching them about the grace of God, which Jesus brought through His life, burial, and resurrection. It also means modeling that grace. Our leadership should include humbly, transparently, and authentically seeking Gods grace as we fail Him, as well as seeking grace when we fail our girls. Leadership includes extending that same grace to them, remembering that without grace we would not be where we are today.

In each chapter, it is our hope that you learn something new about God, His Word, yourself, or your daughter that will benefit you on this journey. Even more earnestly, we pray you will apply what you learn or what the Holy Spirit reveals so that your daughters relationship with God may be enhanced by what she observes in your life.

WYNTER | I have a vivid memory of being a new bride, sitting on our sky-blue sofa and making the call to tell Jonathan we were pregnant. The call went something like this.

Me: Hey! You are not going to believe this

Jonathan: What is it?

Me: Well, you know how I havent been feeling well?

Jonathan: Mm-hm.

Me: Well, today my aunt told me she had a dream about a beautiful, curly-haired baby girl with big brown eyesYou know what that means, right?

Jonathan: [silence]

Me: It means someone in the family is pregnant

Jonathan: [silence]

Me: Its us! I took a test!

Jonathan: Whoa, babe!

[A few moments of nervous laughter, followed by more silence.]

Jonathan: Okay, let me go. I just started a round.

Me: Huh? Youre just going to keep golfing?

Jonathan: YepI mean, well, I wasOkay, Ill just play nine.

Me: Yeah, good idea.

Now, many years later, we laugh at this exchange often. But let me be honest: The longer I sat alone on that couch while Jonathan finished his round of golf, the more I wondered if God had made a mistake. Better yet, I wondered why we had let this happen. It was not the plan.

JONATHAN | Wynter is referring to a phone conversation that took place just two short months after wed said I do. It also happened to be two weeks after our college graduation.

Our goal was to get married while keeping in step with everything our peers were doing. We had a five-year plan. I cant help but laugh as I write this because our plan was to settle down, climb the corporate ladder, build wealth, and travel the world together before adding children to our lives. Getting pregnant right after we got married was not our plan.

Needless to say, I am so grateful for our lack of planning ability in this particular area. Had our plans played out, our lives would look drastically different. Instead of climbing ladders, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a three-month-old baby girl. Our second baby girl arrived two and a half years later, and a set of fraternal twin girls just two and a half years after that!

So, here we are. Four girls in all.

At one point or another, you realize that parenting is a charge you are completely unprepared for. Thankfully, no matter how adequate or inadequate we feel, God has graciously given us His Word as a template. We have an example to follow as we prepare to raise the daughters He gave us.