 I was laying on the surgical table right after delivering our fifth child who was our fourth son and the thought hit me, God is answering my prayer. On our first date Scott and I got into a conversation about the dearth of godly men and we both felt it so deeply that he said we need to just stop right now and pray about this and so we did in the middle of our first date and as I lay on that table I thought God you are answering that prayer but this is a really slow way how do we raise up godly men well we give birth to them and then we teach them how do we raise godly men and women in a sex saturated culture in a way that they know the power of purity and I don't know if you've noticed some of the reports but in this sex obsessed society there are young men and women choosing sterilization to be certain that they will divorce the sex they desire from the babies that might come how do we guide our teens into a better way there is a better way and I I don't know again exactly what your the pressure that you feel but I think parents and godparents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and even older siblings are just sidelined in so many circumstances as if we have nothing to say and I want to tell you God has given you something to say so how do we anticipate delight rather than disaster with our teens I visited a friend who had just had her baby three weeks earlier and she was whole I was actually holding him little Michael and all of a sudden I noticed she was crying and I said why are you crying and she said I only have 13 years until he's a teen I didn't even know how to console her she had lived life as a pretty wild teenager did not know the Lord and she already anticipated that her son was going to live the same way I didn't share her fears my mom had planted the seed in my heart early that the teen years are the best years and we love our children at every stage of life the teen years are no less significant we can encourage them to the hilt and believe the best before we talk about purity I just want to go over a few ideas about how we can build and strengthen our relationship with our teenagers you are essential to the well-being of your teens we need to fill their emotional reservoirs letting them know they are wonderful people we enjoy knowing that many of the people are going to deplete those emotional reserves some of their teachers or teammates coaches fellow students and at times friends or siblings we pray for balance between loving our children unconditionally and wanting to fix them wanting to fix them that's how god loves us he loves us so much but too much to let us just be the way we are he wants to love us into change and sometimes even though they're just as big as the adults around us we can forget they still need affection they still need affirmation they need to feel our pleasure in them rather than a critical spirit toward them we need to keep building family culture creating memories whether or not the teenager seems interested in joining in just require it we work together play together worship together sing together and we draw them back into family life while still giving them the freedom to be with their friends strong family identity helps them maintain their bearings during times of turbulence that can knock them off balance there are times that we can feel disconnected from a child one mother spoke to me in past years and she said I feel like I'm going through labor again it can be very challenging but we bring these concerns before the lord in prayer and we ask him for wisdom we lead with trust rather than distrust and if trust has been broken we look for the ways to rebuild that trust we try to anticipate their needs so they'll know we're taking their needs seriously and that often takes care of some of the arguments that that you might have we link rewards with responsibilities privileges with productivity money with good management and a loss of these rewards for punishments and we pray for creative ways to express our love our ministry of presence can be more important with our teenagers than when they were very little talking to them when they come home from school absorbing some of the negativity of the day talking about the important things that they want to talk about you know their world becomes so big in the teen years and they have ideas about theology and god and politics and being able to care for them when they're ill even though they're big they still are small I'm not sure why but teens like to talk at night and that can be a real challenge when you're doing the great stretch when I had my last baby my oldest was 16 he actually drove the two oldest to the hospital to meet their little brother that was a little bizarre and for me to hold the baby and watch two over six foot tall sons walk in the room was amazing and I remember being up throughout the night with my baby up early in the morning with my young child who was four and at night my teens wanted to talk I remember begging please my baby is going to be up in 30 minutes I have to go to bed and I would say god do you think I'm young enough to do this apparently he did and not wanting to miss those conversations with our teens I tried to to grab naps to make up for the gaps in my sleeplessness adolescence crave respect and dignity but they still need to be guided with both kindness and from discipline our desire for them to grow in emotional health and moral maturity includes talking about their flaws faults weaknesses sins but we do it with kindness and you can jot these proverbs up and look at these and and ask the lord how how do I need to help in my relationship with my teenager if we're not careful we can break their spirit proverbs 18 14 we can even produce a broken heart in proverbs 18 8 and we could have a broken relationship proverbs 16 28 and 17 9 we will have conflict but we can have healthy resolution of those conflicts and you know junior hires like to argue so if you teach them apologetics they'll argue for the faith instead of arguing against you know stumbling blocks can be stepping stones and our teens also have to adjust to our sins and weaknesses and foibles and hopefully we'll have the humility to ask for forgiveness now how can we help our teens know the power of purity well it begins with purity of the heart right for us and for our teenagers purity of heart is the upright undivided love for god and others according to the catechism in second timothy 222 it says quote so shun youthful passions and aim at righteousness faith love and peace along with those who call upon the name of the lord with a pure heart and quote we need to challenge our teens and let our teens challenge us in going deeper in our relationship with the lord we need purity of mind for ourselves and our teens dwelling on pure thoughts is one of those ways we can pursue purity of mind Philippians 4 8 says this quote finally brethren whatever is true whatever is honorable whatever is just whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is gracious if there is any excellence if there is anything worthy of praise think about these things end quote there's a difference between temptations which we cannot control and lingering on those temptations which we can we are not passive victims of sin we're either willing cooperators or courageous resistors by the grace of god when my little boys were the littlest i was praying about how i would communicate purity down the road they were just i think four and two at the time and the passage i came across was psalm 19 9 and 11 and it says how shall the young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to thy word thy word have i laid up in my heart that i might not sin against thee memorizing scripture alongside your your teens even younger but definitely by the teen years will help them put god's word in their heart and strengthen their resolve to pursue purity we need transformed thinking we don't even realize all the messages we are inundated with from our culture even just down to commercials and and the passage that i have taken as my life versus romans 12 1 and 2 verse 2 is this do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is the will of god what is good and acceptable to and perfect and quote this isn't just true for us as adults this is every bit is true for our children and so how do we have transformed thinking we've got to have renewal of our minds we've got to talk about what does it mean to be a man or a woman what is the act of marriage and why is it only for marriage did god make a mistake when he made you is there a point to being a son or daughter of god that is absolutely connected to being born created as a boy or girl and that's how we prove the will of god and then we pursue purity of our body that is chastity you know chastity is both a gift of grace from the holy spirit by virtue of our baptism so that we can imitate christ's purity as an expression of our purity of heart but it is also an act of obedience a faith filled response as we develop this virtue through temperance we apply our reason to our central passions and appetites our capacity to renounce ourselves and make sacrifices can and must grow chastity is a witness to god's faithfulness and love it's not a negative it's not i can't have sex with anybody i want to have it it's positive i understand the gift of my body and i want to give my body to god i want to imitate my heavenly father in holiness saint jose maria escrava gave this quote and i just love it by divine vocation some are called to live this purity in marriage others forgoing all human love are called to correspond solely and passionately to god's love far from being slaves to sensuality both the married and the unmarried are to be masters of their body and heart in order to give themselves unstintingly to others the catechism says chastity includes an apprenticeship in self mastery and this is an ongoing process right it has to be developed at every stage in life it's it's like developing muscles there's natural growth to this virtue through many good decisions and it starts early we need to help our children understand the difference that they have freedom in christ and that doesn't mean license to do whatever they want our teens can either govern their passions and find peace in that or they can let their passions rule and be very unhappy to know you can say no is an important piece of knowledge for our teenagers because our culture is saying you can't say no you don't want to say no why would you ever say no right but we know what real freedom is in christ we have to set an example we need to live marital joy in front of them one time my daughter came up and said i have been praying and praying for a sibling and i just want to know is it possible and i said yes and i don't want you to ask me that again but she just thought i'm not wasting time on this prayer if you know it's really not even an option one of my friends works in a crisis pregnancy center and she was just newly expecting her ninth baby and she said i don't understand what i'm seeing i'm seeing mothers and daughters come in and they get the news that she is pregnant and they are upset but they're not really upset and she said i get the sense that the mother is thinking well there'll be a baby in the house again and i don't have to go through a pregnancy and delivery and the daughter is thinking there'll be a baby in the house and i won't have to do all the care for the baby and she said i'm wondering if teenagers are having babies because their parents won't and we can communicate with our kids that just as you need water and food and sleep to actually be able to live you do need love to be able to survive but you're not gonna die without sex don't equate sex with love it's an expression of love who has to be chased everyone in their state in life for the consecrated they make a complete gift of their bodies to our lord for the unmarried people they refrain from the act of marriage until they actually become married and for married people it's being faithful to your one and only according to the catechism 2337 we also need not only purity in our bodies but purity in our interaction with others and this is just as true of adults as it is for our teens we need greater self-discipline over our feelings and our imaginations we are better able to rectify our intentions as we develop those moral virtues that ted was talking about and that scott referenced last night how we speak with discretion and watch sharing too many details about intimacy the importance of purity in speech and conduct including how we joke how we dress modestly refusing to unveil what should remain hidden the man and woman you marry is the only person that you should see naked or desire we need the power of the sacraments to be able to live this you know sunday mass is non-negotiable obviously but there is a limited time that you can decide your teenagers will come with you for a daily mass and i remember many times even in the haun house hearing do we have to go to mass this is a daily not a weekly and i would say no we and they would chime in get to and you know we'd go to mass and we come back and they were more docile because they'd been with jesus you had that's a limited time offer for you to decide that they're going to go and then you let god do what god needs to do in their hearts in their lives remember god is not looking for us to check it off our list i took care of my sunday obligation he wants your monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday and saturday he wants all of your heart all of your mind all of your strength and all of your soul and he wants the same of your teenagers so you need to take this to heart before you can then talk about it with your children not that you live it perfectly but you need to go home from this time together and say you know what i am going to be more committed to jesus than ever before by the grace of god through the power of the sacraments and i want this for you sweetheart don't hold back giving your child a challenge to believe we dance around it we don't want to offend we don't know how to say carefully or whatever you've earned the right to be heard by being a parent or a grandparent or a godparent or an aunt or an uncle confession is there any good reason we're not going to confession or taking our children to confession i remember before i was catholic i became convinced confession was the sacrament and when scott was acting up one day i said to him when was the last time you went to confession he said well i know i can't say that to you now but someday i will and then he went and he came back and he was more docile because he met our lord in the sacrament and the lord gave him that grace it keeps some kids out of trouble one of my friends knew every saturday her father was going to take all 10 of them to confession and she said we acted differently on friday night at parties than a lot of friends because i didn't want to say all that stuff in confession we have to acknowledge to our children we still struggle with sin i mean same paul talks about it in roman 7 it is critical that we continue to struggle their life of prayer and the sacraments will empower them to help form their character and strengthen their resolve how much as parents do we care for their bodies and how much longer will their souls exist than their bodies we've got to get the big picture in our minds sometimes our children's hesitancy to go to daily mass had to do with sin and scott made it clear to our teenagers you never have to tell me why but if you need to get to confession because you are coming with us to mass if you need to get to confession you say the word and i will find a priest that is real love now human development rather than how to have sex should be the focus of health education for adolescents and that's something that we can do far too many schools go give information to children intentionally breaking down their sense of modesty and shame typically even in my high school so we're talking 45 years plus almost 50 years they went over methods of contraception and abortion as a failsafe they need strategies for abstaining from sexual intercourse for the well-being of their own physical bodies the well-being of future relationships and we can provide something better now there's some keys and it starts young we need to listen before we answer sometimes as parents we don't know what a child's really asking for instance jimmy came into the kitchen and asked mommy where did johnny come from and the mom takes a deep breath and she assumes this is the moment and she's gonna talk about where babies come from and she explains it and at the end he said oh i thought he came from chicago oh no we don't know what they don't know one of my good friends had a three-year-old a two-year-old a fairly young baby and it just found out she was expecting so she put the baby down for a nap her husband was home and she went on a walk with her three-year-old and two-year-old and as they walked she wanted to share the good news and she said you know what i have in my in my tummy what i have a baby and the and the and the two-year-old began to cry what's wrong and she goes you wait the baby sometimes we give information on a need to know basis my mother found herself in a dilemma my mom is very very modest she was in her bedroom when my three-year-old brother sixteen years my junior bounded into the room and said mom what's in my pants she thought should i be the modern mother and use the term or should i do what i've always done and be quite indirect she thought no it's it's time to be the modern mother and so she said the technical term and he broke into a grin and he said no it isn't it's a penny at which point my mother wanted to get back that word to preserve a child's innocence we give him information he needs when he needs it for his own body to deepen our bond of love and respect with our child and to encourage his or her own natural sense of modesty we honor our child with a private conversation about puberty and the act of marriage dad to son mom to daughter and we state our openness to answer questions but we don't need to fill in every blank at the very beginning preparation for adolescence is very important and we want them to understand the difference between natural processes and actual sin we prepare them for puberty so we can enter into it with them with joy knowing that they are maturing instead of fearing changes over which they don't seem to have control after i shared with hannah the details about puberty i told her that when she had her first cycle i wanted to take her out for a very special celebration that she had become a woman and i i said you know we're not going to do this with grand fan you know fanfare in the family which of course she was most relieved that i wasn't going to do that together but when the day arrived she just quietly told me i said do you need anything she said i'm all set and i said okay i will let dad know that you and i will not be here this evening and we went out and had a very special time acknowledging that she had become a woman i wish there was a clearer demarcation for young men become young boys becoming men that's that's harder to discern but dads can still have that conversation with them about their bodies developing and and what all that means and how beautiful it is because now they can become fathers and they'll have added responsibility this is a great opportunity to make it clear sperm only goes where it can be fruitful in your wife let me say it again sperm only goes where it can be fruitful in your wife so that means all other expressions of release sexually are are wrong even in marriage okay even in marriage without going into detail describing aberrant sexual behavior a father can clarify what moral behavior is and what it is not and our child's sense of shame for shameful acts is a gift it is god-given and it's not an impulse to be squelched by a lot of information in a mixed sex class each of us mother and father can acknowledge the beauty of god's gift to them able to become a mother able to become a father and what should proceed that always marriage and the responsibility especially for the boys to honor any woman who will not be his spouse as well as the woman who someday may be his spouse when our children turn 13 we had a special routine now if your children haven't reached 13 yet you might want to jot this down as an idea we gave them a gold ring it was a chastity ring it was a purity ring something that we wanted them to have be a symbol to them whether or not anyone else knew that and then we took them on an overnight to a hotel and it was a fun time went I took Hannah and then Scott got to go five times because we have five cents they went to a hotel we would go out for dinner we would go to a movie we would see movies in the hotel room you might might do bowling might do skating might do swimming lots and lots of fun and then we lined up calls from our relatives same sex relatives so aunts for Hannah and grandmother and uncles and grandfather for the boys and it was a call to chastity every member of the family on my side called and gave this charge to chastity and we had a notebook for the kids to write down the comments the scriptures the thoughts this is this is part of what you can give that sense of generational backup you know support encouragement there is a right way to do things and you have choices and we want you to honor the Lord and honor our family with those choices we want to remain approachable as questions emerge so that they perceive us as trustworthy guides and if we don't tell them their curiosity will be satisfied by someone else and we might lose that sense of trust that we will not withhold knowledge from them you know former abortion clinic manager abby johnson talked about her strategy before she became a christian and before she left the clinic and their goal was to get into classes as young as possible even as early as kindergarten and the goal was to get the children to distrust their parents that's the goal she knew that if a child's natural inclination to modesty could be broken and trust in their parents called into question early by the time they were upper middle school students they would be clients at her clinic she knew junior and senior high students and i'm almost quoting here this was from her talk rarely use contraception well and she could bank on as many as three abortions a year per girl do not be naive the evil one has many people who are hunting our young men and women to weaken their resolve to knock them off balance to misuse their passions to lower their resolve with alcohol and drugs and to leave broken bodies broken relationships and broken lives in the wake but that is not god's plan and you and i are an intimate part of what is god's plan for purity at an east who was taking a class on human development in which they were to care for a doll around the clock for a few weeks we had gathered together for a christmas celebration this was a particular assignment over the break and all of a sudden the dolls started crying they're they use computer chips so things are programmed into the into this doll and of course you know it's one thing when it's a baby that you know you could pick up and cuddle and you know soothe it is so annoying to have this doll like you know and i'm looking at her and like allison can can i like rock the doll for you or something and she said no no i've got a computer chip in my wrist and i am the only one that can hold this baby um and i really at that point could tell what they're trying to do is discourage the kids from having kids they're not trying to teach them how you care for a baby so the baby was set to cry every couple of hours there's no father in the picture there's no boy in the class that they're sharing responsibility and all of a sudden she said you know i've just got to shut this baby up and so she she goes watch this trick and she took a diaper and stuck the diaper in the mouth and she said you know the same computer chip that's in the diaper is in the pacifier and when i can't find the pacifier just stick a diaper in the mouth i'm like wow this is not how you care for a baby and she said i'm just glad i did this because now i don't know if i ever want to have kids and i said i want to tell you something this isn't anything like having a baby if you had a fussy baby your mom and i here would be walking the block with that little baby we would cuddle that baby and hold him or her close and and you would nuzzle your baby and draw him or her close you would have a husband who would do split shift with you if you had a really colicky baby and this doll doesn't look at you doesn't smile at you doesn't coot you believe me this has nothing to do with being open to a baby more than any curriculum your marriage my marriage is the key for having our children understand that connection between love and life and in the context of committed love children are such a blessing now we need to share the joy there are some people who won't talk about sex being beautiful in marriage because they're afraid that their kids are going to think well then why do i have to wait but the whole point is that there is joy in waiting my dad never held back how beautiful his intimacy with my mom was no details no details i wouldn't want to hear it and he wouldn't want to share it but he would say our sex life has never been better and i kind of look at him going wow dementia hit early no i did it i might have thought it but i didn't say and he and i said how and he said because i know her better you see this intimacy is about loving the person giving yourself it's not about what you get it's what you give god bless you and so as we know each other better we enter into that intimacy in a a richer way and and scripture talks about you know adam new eve and she conceived so the idea of knowing is really intimately bound with the act of marriage we need to teach them what hosea maria escorfa said it is easier to avoid temptations than to resist them they've got to have a game plan before they're confronted with different situations and they need to avoid and identify a near occasion of sin as the saying goes don't heat the oven when you can't cook the roast we need to emphasize the advantages of chastity you know when they try to talk if you ever watch those contraception commercials you know you have the lovely couple that's dancing or playing the piano together singing and then they say side effects include heart attack stroke you know that you're not listening to any of these cataclysmic things that could occur guess what chastity doesn't have any of those side effects the possibility of a solid marriage that's one of the consequences no bad memories that's one of the consequences no diseases that's one of the consequences you know this whole monkey pox thing is unbelievable and you know the cdc doesn't even have chastity as a recommendation oh man i can't get started on that now friends are very significant and can be either supporters or detractors when it comes to this teaching the right kind of friends can support your teenagers and strengthen their resolve you know first chrithians 1533 says bad company corrupts good morals so we have to take that to heart it matters who the friends are that you allow your children and grandchildren to surround themselves with but st paul speaking to st timothy who was young and second timothy 222 that's easy to remember two tim 222 it says quote pursue righteousness faith love and peace with those who call on the lord from a pure heart catechism 2347 says quote the virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship and leads to spiritual communion end quote they will help each other grow in chastity that's catechism 2350 friends in their peer group can help bond together to say we're gonna stand against this culture of death for a culture of life which includes chastity we have to remember that being the parent of the teen may not mean we are the very closest confidant of our child during those years but parents keep parenting friendship will come wonderful friendship but you have not called to be your teenager's buddy you have been called to be your teenager's mom or dad talk to your kids about pornography that it is seductive that it is destructive and that it is highly addictive they are exposed younger and younger and now we know from the videos they're even teachers who are misusing classroom space and intimate friendship with your children and talking about things they should never discuss there is a difference between lust and love and lust will never be satisfied but we can purify lustful thoughts through prayer through distraction you can't keep thinking a lustful thought and think of the blessed virgin Mary you just can't do it so when you're in a bind say a Hail Mary call on your guardian angel being alone in a secluded place on a date is a way to court disaster not love we have to be aware and they have to be aware that alcohol even one drink can lower inhibition the time of day matters you know it's amazing the difference between before midnight and after midnight and part of how we need to understand how our bodies are designed for the girls is that God has made them so that at a particular point in her cycle she desires physical intimacy when she's ovulating she may even have the thought I don't even care if I get pregnant you know and then 15 minutes later say oh my gosh what did I do she needs to be aware of that and sensitive to her body so that she can put added safeguards that is not the best time to be going off in an isolated place with someone God's designed our bodies so that arousal leads to the marital embrace like kindling to a fire and that's good news that's good news we want the home fires to burn right but in the fireplace in the fireplace fire offers what light heat warm romance but if it escapes the fireplace it causes damage and destruction and even death first Corinthians 6 18 to 20 quote shun immorality every other sin which a man commits outside the body but the immoral man sins against his own body do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which you have within you you are not your own you were bought with a price so glorify God in your body and quote do a do a scripture study with your teen on this another translation which I actually like better is instead of shun fornication sorry immorality it says flee fornication flee what's the picture it's like a house is burning and someone saying gee I wonder if I could get a little close to the fire without getting burned maybe I could walk right maybe I could even sneak in the house for a little bit and then run out the back door no if someone screamed flee you are going to run in the opposite direction okay run as if your life depended on it the goal isn't to see how close to the fire you can get without getting burned now some sins in dating relationships may only seem venial but how often is the path to mortal sin beaten down made more convenient through these venial sins Proverbs 4 14 and 15 quote do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil men avoid it do not go on it turn away from it and pass on and quote which woman will be a future maid isn't clear but listen to this instruction from first Thessalonians 4 3 to 6 quote for this is the will of God your sanctification that you abstain from unchastity that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor not in the passion of lust like even who do not know God and quote that would be a great passage to pray with your teen what about during engagement you know the song of Solomon cautions don't stir up love until it please until it can be satisfied we have to understand some actions can result in defrauding committing the sin of defrauding our beloved because we cannot satisfy it yet with the act of marriage so we need to really put some boundaries and when your child is engaged say how are you continuing to protect your chastity so that you are saving yourself for your wedding night they need to be aware of their weaknesses but also aware of the strength they can bring to the other and they both have to be strong men cannot count on women saying no women cannot count on the man saying no and if you don't actually desire to have sexual intercourse break the engagement of course you desire each other of course you desire to give yourself to the other but you form that boundary to preserve to protect each other and if the other person is unwilling to be strong but is actually urging your child to go ahead they need to rethink this relationship we can't be naive there was a young couple who had guarded their chastity and the night they got engaged they went and had this very intense prayer time giving thanks to God for each other and one thing led to another the only time they had sexual intercourse and she got pregnant now they still got married they have a beautiful child that child was conceived in love but you know what that was a tough way to start marriage we've got to find our voice on cohabitation men and women not even just to save money it gives an appearance of evil at the very least it increases the opportunity for temptation to become sin and as Saint Paul says in Ephesians 5 3 but fornication and all impurity and covetousness must not even be named among you as is fitting among saints premarital sex cuts off grace needed for a healthy good relationship and you can't go to confession and be forgiven if you don't intend to stop if you don't go to confession and you still receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin you've compounded mortal sin I had one person who told me we just do our best to get them married how is that the right foundation for marriage they need to make a commitment to seek chastity from that moment on one of them needs to move out and then they need to go to confession and get things right with God to have the right foundation for their marriage you don't get the grace of marriage before you're married it's a sacramental grace no wonder couples cohabit and then say well we tried it and it didn't work they didn't try marriage you can't try a sacrament all they know is cohabiting doesn't work but chastity for marriage strengthens us for chastity in marriage the goal is self control of our bodies and our passions instead of being controlled by our desires and passions as one writer said passionate love wasn't meant to travel from place to place but to rest at home god isn't against sex it was his idea okay we are to delight in our spouse his proverbs 5 18 and 19 says let your fountain be blessed rejoice in the wife of your youth a lovely hind a graceful dough let her affection fill you at all times with delight be infatuated with her love Hebrews 13 for marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure for god will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral now what does that mean it means pornography doesn't play a role in your marriage bed i want to be clear about this i was out in california and a woman came up to me and she said my husband's asked me to watch some videos and she said i don't really like it but he said it will help improve our sex life and i do want to work on our marriage what should i do and i said this is quasi adultery you are being aroused by someone who is not your spouse and then using each other to get release i said this is not of god and you need to destroy it if you just put it away someone might stumble onto it all sexual acts apart from sexual intercourse where sperm can be fruitful in your wife is immoral and serious sin i want to tell you about this after i raised my daughter and i'm sure some of you are thinking oh i wish i could do a do-over with my kids well you may have a chance with your grandchildren after i raised my daughter i read kurtis martin's wife's book michael ann martin's wonderful book girls night out having fun with your daughter while raising a woman of god and i am going to do something this summer with my two oldest granddaughters picking up on her idea with her daughter i'm going to take this china cup with me when i go out to kansas and i'm going to have a little date out with my granddaughter veronica i'm also going to bring a paper cup and i'm going to put them on the table i'm going to have a little prepared talk and we're going to talk about what are the differences between the cups now obviously they both can hold something liquid uh they could hold something delicious um uh they they function but how are they different and i want to use it as an illustration about the beauty of her purity that it's fragile that it's valuable that it's to be treated with care the paper cup is cheap it's throwawayable easily damaged destroyed trampled on i want her to know i'm gonna do the same thing with Naomi who's 13 each of us is a treasured vessel according to the lord he is the one who made us who redeemed us who tells us every day how valuable we are we want to respect the dignity of the other instead of treating each other like objects to be used now i have seen this particular Lennox cup in tj maxx for years and they were expensive and i wasn't sure how i wanted to do this so fast forward a couple weeks ago i'm buying gifts down at a mall down south and i i walk in and these are on super discounts uh five dollars a cup and it's Lennox it's really nice nice china and so i did the math real quickly in my mind and i gathered up and i bought 16 and i think i'm gonna have i'm gonna talk to scott about it but i really want scott to do something similar with our young grandsons but our youngest grandson is is not old enough to have this conversation with and i think what we'll do is like a beer stein or a really cool coffee mug um but something very similar so i think we can do men or women and as i walked up to the counter uh i put him down on the counter and the woman said wow you're really into china and my first thought was should i tell her why no i don't think i better tell her why absolutely i'm gonna tell her why and so i said well let me tell you i read this book and it inspired me i really want to give my granddaughters a challenge to purity and so i want them to have something really beautiful as an illustration and then i want them to keep it as a as a keepsake of our time together and a reminder of how precious they are and how precious their purity is and i just took a deep breath i said i already have 12 granddaughters so i better get 16 you know so that i have enough and she and and i looked at her and she went up top and she gave me this big high five and she said there's some there's some ladies in this department store that need to have that talk i tried not to look around to make eye contact with anyone she was hearing and she said you know what i'm gonna do the same thing when i end work today i'm gonna go buy some china cups and i'm gonna take out some of the girls in my neighborhood who i'm close to and i'm gonna give them a challenge of purity praise god we need to pray for the strength dear brothers and sisters we have to pray for the strength to be part of the bulwark for our children and our grandchildren and our god children in a culture that is continuously beating against their values and their virtues scott says this world isn't a playground it's a battleground and we have enemies we have enemies we need to marshal the host of heaven who want to assist us we need to ask our guardian angel to go with our guardian angel of our child who's going out on a date i remember being out on a date once and uh this guy was like i guess he thought he'd paid for a date and he was really looking forward to necking and and he leaned in and i was like um you know i'm really not sure i'm interested and he said mommy and daddy are thousands of miles away and i said my lord jesus christ is right over your shoulder take me home we need to pray with our children and pray for our children we do not need to live in fear about this okay we can be confident in coming before the throne of mercy asking god for what we know he desires which is holy marriages holy families godly offspring right st peter says in first peter five seven and eight cast all your anxieties on him for he cares about you be sober be watchful your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour we don't live in fear for chastity for us or for our children but we pray and we're watchful and every day we choose christ to be the light of our lives may he give us the grace to live our state in life well and may he raise up many generations of faithful disciples god bless you thank you