Knowing who you are...

A lesson handout I made for the girls,
Original size HERE, right click and "save image as..."

As I have mentioned before, I volunteer at my church to teach, organize, plan, and maintain a Young Women's organization with girls who are 12 to 18 years old. Every Sunday other volunteers and I rotate on teaching a Sunday school lesson; recently I taught a lesson on the importance of knowing that they are daughters of God. When I first started preparing this lesson I really didn't understand how important that knowledge is, or even what a big responsibility it is. 

The thing that stuck out the most to me was when we listed the characteristics the "ideal father" and the "ideal daughter" on the board. The class came up with some of the following:

-Provides for our physical and emotional needs 

-Comforts

-Loves

-Teaches

-Protects

-Listens

After we listed these qualities, the class discussed the qualities the "ideal daughter" needs to have in order to reciprocate the amazing characteristics of the father. Some of the these qualities were:

-Shows appreciation

-Grateful

-Obedient

-Serves

-Respectful

-Talks to her dad and seeks advice

It was when we were comparing the characteristics of the "ideal father" to the characteristics of our Heavenly Father that I had an epiphany. As I was looking at the long list of characteristics that a father should show his daughter, I realized that fathers have a heavy load. However, I then looked at the equally long list of characteristics that daughters should have towards their fathers, and realized that daughters have a lot of responsibilities as well!

Being a Daughter of God requires a lot of effort on our part. Just as we are always daughters to our fathers, no matter what we do, we will always be daughters to our Heavenly Father. However, in order to honor the title of being a "daughter" we must reciprocate our father's love. Although it does require a lot of work on our part, if we put forth the effort and do our best, the rewards FAR outweigh what we give. As we seek counsel from our Heavenly Father we will be given advice. As we listen and obey our Heavenly Father we will be guided and protected. As we are grateful for all that our Heavenly Father gives us we will be blessed even more. As we serve our Heavenly Father he will comfort us. As we love Him, we will feel of his love. 

Even though seeing the blessings of being a Daughter of God requires us to seek after our Heavenly Father, this knowledge will carry us through the darkest of times as our Heavenly Father understands us perfectly, therefore is able to comfort us perfectly.