Five Things My Daughter Needs to Know Before She Leaves for College This Weekend

My sweet daughter Emily is leaving for college this weekend and I’ve had these crazy “mother thoughts” about her leaving. (Will she eat balanced meals? Will the other kids treat her well? Will she recognize shady men and get away from them, because who wants a swindler for a son-in-law?)

Every child has their own special gifts, and Emily’s gifts are those of compassion and giving. She has always had a soft spot in her heart for kids with special needs, been concerned about the poor or those devastated by natural disasters, enough to donate her own money or organize a supplies drive for those affected.

In the home, she’s always ready to give a hug to someone who’s down or out of sorts. She’s the encourager to the little ones, the quality time spender. She’s the one who makes the stuffed animals stay fresh comments to get a laugh out of the little ones and a rise out of mom. She’s my “Let’s run to TJ Maxx!” girl. The house won’t be the same without her.

Before my sensitive one goes to college there are five things she needs to know.

1. No matter what happens, come success or failure, Mom and Dad will always be FOR you. Your worth isn’t based on grades or popularity or outward appearance. We love you. Period.

2. You need to KNOW that your worth, your identity is in Christ, in His work on your behalf and the drastic measures God took to redeem you. His love for you is unfathomable and not based on performance.

The world pumps out the messages that will ensnare you if you’re not grounded in the truth. Stuff like, 

• You need guys to notice you to make you feel worthwhile.
• You need to be thin to be beautiful.
• You need to have top grades to be anything on campus.
• You need the right clothes, shoes, bags, etc…to live the cool “Abercrombie” life.
• You need this drink or this drug to get you through the day.
• You need to do ________ to fit in.

I wish the lies stopped there, but after college, they continue:

• Everyone’s getting married, having children, buying a house, amassing money. You’re nothing if you don’t have it all.

Listen, come singleness, barrenness, or widowhood, your worth, your identity is not in meeting outward norms. In Christ, you have all that you need. And by the way, don’t choose friends who believe above said lies. They’ll affect you negatively and drag you in the wrong direction.

3. When you do bad things, you need to know that you are still loved and accepted by God.  Confess and repent, yes. But He loves you–not because you are mostly a good girl and just sometimes bad, but because God is loving and He chose to pursue you because it made Him happy to do so. Performance based love is a man-made love. Unconditional love is what we enjoy in Christ.

4. Everyone’s looking for happiness, but you can never be truly happy if you ignore the the First Commandment.  People ignore the very first commandment because they have other desires and think these desires will bring them delight.  Wisdom teaches us otherwise. You can’t ignore the command to love the Lord with all your heart and be truly happy.  Augustine put it this way, “Man’s happiness is God himself.” and Richard Sibbes said, “Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy.” We were made to love God and use things. Don’t love things and use God when convenient.

5. Finding God’s will is not some mysterious thing. We know that it’s His written will for us to:

• to “walk worthy of the Lord,” (Eph. 4:1)
• to live out the “good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”(Eph. 2:10)
• to be “imitators of God…and walk in love.” (Eph. 5:1,2)
• to “know the will of the Lord…to be filled with the Spirit.” (Eph. 5: 17,18)

If you focus on being obedient to God’s written will, you won’t need to worry about the “unknown.”  God will lead you when you don’t know. He’ll open or close doors. He’ll direct steps and answer prayer. He’ll make the way obvious. Just do the next right thing.

{6. You can always come home to mama! ;)}

I love you, Emmy!!