Focusing the Hearts of Our Daughters

Our school season continues to slowly evolve. I find it much nicer and less stressful to sit back and watch this happen than try to cram my plans into everyone else's. Life happens. Duty calls. Storms threaten and the economy drops you on your head. What I might think is most beneficial to my children might be the last thing they are interested in, the think they buck the most.

I find it gracefully freeing to not fight...to not try to win or control...to not have it "my way"...but to blissfully trust and let God lead the way.

It's a joy and a privilege to take all that God plants in my path and call it all a blessing within my home.

Yesterday Chelsea and I attended our Keeper's Club Kick-Off Gathering at Heather's house. It was a chance to get reacquainted and plan for the new learning year.

Heather's living room fairly danced with Christian girls, friends, young women.

This little group is focused on training our daughters to be keepers of the home...in serve, in spirit, in their hearts.

"To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others." ~ Pope John Paul II

Little Keepers, learning the art of friendship, enjoyed precious time spent together.

There are always little brothers thrown into the mix and they take great pleasure in this free playtime, backyard trampolines & treehouses, and the array of snacks which the daughters diligently prepare for their guests.

The moms skirted the family table, laughing, talking, and making plans over coffee, tea, lemonade, and planners.
September: Cross-Stitching & Diligence

October: Doll-Making & Soap-Making

November: Bread Making

December: Community Service Project

January: Cleaning

February: Card Embossing

March: Bicycling

April: Etiquette/Table-setting

May: Keeper's Banquet

Each month one mother volunteers to teach the virtue, oversee the activity, and provide the refreshments. In this way we plan ten tasks for the girls to learn. At this meeting it was also the joint agreement of the mothers to instill the proper attitude within the hearts and minds of our daughters while they are learning the various skills. Many of us have pre-teen daughters and these years are potted with emotions and yearnings and restless ideals. It is our duty to not only train these girls but to focus them, balance them, and guide them in the correct spirit of service and good-will.

With this in mind, each meeting will begin with prayer and Scripture.

At home, I plan to read, discuss and share Stacy McDonald's wonderful book Raising Maidens of Virtue with my girls before each monthly meeting. Each chapter scripts a story, a lesson, a set of discussion questions and ideas for the mother and daughter to share. It covers a wide-volume of areas within the hearts of our daughters from the noble calling wives & mothers bear to the "taming of the tainted tongue", loving one's home, "dwelling in unity" as a family, the care and pitfalls of being a "lady of leisure", and, of course, caring and keeping "the heart of a maiden."

So many areas of our society have taken away from the home, have captured the hearts of our children and led them away.

"Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire." ~ Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II told us:

"As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live."

He also exhorts us with the reminder that:

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song." ~ Pope John Paul II

This is our purpose. This is what we strive to do within our families and home. This is what our little Keepers group is trying to encourage. We are teaching our daughters to stem the tide, to respect and love their families as they deserve, guide them to envision and embrace their future homes as God envisions it, and to give of themselves to their families as Christ gave of himself to us...in love, service, and life.