Duties to our Little Sisters
Posted April 20, 2007, by Eliza

One of the purposes of this site is to proclaim the vast opportunities for daughters at home, and the duties of daughters at home. And one of those almost frighteningly important opportunities for us is to influence and shape the upcoming generation of Christian leaders — our own brothers and sisters. Don’t miss this opportunity, girls. Don’t waste it by being impatient for Mr. Darcy to arrive and take you away. You are already in the most important battle, the battle for the home and family, right where you are. Learn to love your duty now, and prove yourself faithful with your situation, investing your time and zeal in these gifts God has given you.

Earlier we gave you an article on our relationships with our brothers. Now we are pleased to share with you an excellent article about how we can disciple our younger sisters.

Setting an Example of Faithful Daughterhood for our Younger Sisters
By Rebecca Sisk

Sisters are a great and wonderful gift from the Lord. I am so blessed to have my little sisters, Wendi and Hannah, in my life. I am considerably older than they -– 10 and 17 years, respectively—but I am thankful for that because I can have a much greater influence on them for good than had I been closer to their ages. I have come out of my “wild” years, and now stand with a hope and vision of helping my sweet sisters avoid the mistakes that I made, and to help them give their hearts completely to our father. Thankfully, neither of them will remember my rebellious days, and I hope they will only remember me as a faithful daughter whose heart is in the home.

I was not introduced to the idea of faithful daughterhood until I was around the age of fourteen, in 2002. My parents had homeschooled me and my siblings from the beginning (I am the oldest of five children), desiring that we not be educated in the filth that they had. I don’t think that they fully realized then what they were doing, or how completely they were following the leading of the Lord. Our family reached a turning point in 1999 and began to turn towards a more conservative worldview and lifestyle. I didn’t completely agree with some of the changes that we made, such as Daddy saying that our family was not going to date in order to find a life partner, but now I see that the reason for my disagreement was that I didn’t fully understand how important the changes were. Now I see how much of a help and support I could been to my father then, instead of being the selfish rebel that I was. I enjoyed listening to worldly music, flirting with boys, and was not extremely careful how I dressed. Our family has always dressed modestly, but I was pushing the limits as much as I could. I didn’t even realize what I was doing or that I was walking down a path to destruction. The Lord began to speak to me and call me to Him gently, and my rebel’s heart came back to Him and to my father. Today, looking at some of my friends that I was with during my rebel years, I have a clear picture of where I would be if God hadn’t rescued me. These girls (some of them homeschooled!) are gone from their father’s house, in and out of relationships with young men, and they have become bitter towards God without even realizing it. Feminism has such a hold on their hearts that a miracle from God is all that can save them. I am so thankful that God pulled me from this lifestyle. Some of the lessons that He had to teach me were hard, and some of the things He had to do make my heart tender again were quite painful, but it was so worth it!

Now back to the original subject: sisters. They are precious little bundles of love and joy that are a delight to have in our lives, and they have been given to us for reason. They are watching us, watching our every move, how we handle each situation that comes our way, how we respect and revere Daddy, whether we are delighted to be women of God, or whether we are discontent with where God has placed us. It is our God-given privilege to live out a life of faithfulness and holiness before them and show them the way.

“The aged women likewise, they that be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” ~Titus 2:3-5 KJV

Titus 2:3-5 is one of the most quoted passages of Scripture on the role of women. It is instructing older, married women to mentor and teach younger women to love their husbands and children, and to be keepers at home. I think that it is also applicable to young women mentoring younger girls. Many of us are the first generation of faithful daughters. We have very few role models to look to and observe how they lived in their father’s house until marriage. Our mothers are living out how a Godly wife should be, but many of our mothers weren’t raised as we are being raised. They didn’t come into the fullness of the Truth until much later in life. I know many wives that have had to completely rethink and re-prioritize everything once their eyes were opened to the truth found in God’s Word. Likewise, we must search the Scriptures and find how we should live in a manner that is pleasing to God.

For those of you who do not have sisters, you can mentor and disciple younger girls who do not have older sisters. You can do this even if you do have younger sisters.

Practical Ways to Mentor Your Little Sisters

Here are some practical ways you can have a Godly influence on your younger sisters:

~ Pray for your younger sisters. Pray that God will help them to become virtuous young ladies that love Him and are completely surrendered to Him.

~ Pray with your little sisters. Sometimes little girls need to be instructed how to pray and how to approach the throne of the Father. They need to be shown what to pray for. Wendi and I share a room, and at night we pray together. We pray for our father and mother, that God would strengthen them and give our father direction for our family, that we would do God’s will in everything. We pray for our brothers, that God would bless them and help them to become Godly men of vision, strong spiritual leaders, and that God would bless them with Proverbs 31 wives and a quiver full of arrows. We pray much the same for our future husbands: that God would multiply and increase their borders, let them be strong, visionary men of God, desire many children, that God would draw them to Him, and give them guidance for their lives. For our own selves we pray this: that we would become virtuous women of God that God would give is meek, quiet, submissive, and gentle spirits and that our hearts would belong completely to Daddy and be submitted to him in all things. We ask that God would help us to be feminine, modest and powerful through Him. We ask the Lord to help us be a blessing and encouragement to Daddy and Mama, to our brothers, that we would help them to become Godly men, and that we would be an encouragement and help to each other.

~Let them help you. We must give them opportunity to practice what we encourage them to do. Yes, the job may take longer, and the mess bigger to clean up, but one day when they are older all of the “helping” will pay off. We should show them what a joy and privilege it is to be a helper, fulfilling the role God created for us.
~Set a good example of what a godly young woman should be. Children learn by example, and can spot a hypocrite a mile away. As I said earlier, they are watching every move we make. How quick are we to lose our temper and snap at a brother, or how is our attitude towards Mom today? If we pray for, and say that we want to be Godly women, but still lose our temper and haven’t really made any outward changes, our sisters and brothers will notice. For the sake of future generations, not just our own children and grandchildren, but for our siblings’ children and grandchildren, we must be Godly and virtuous in every aspect of our lives. In considering our present actions and when thinking about an important decision that must be made, remember this: what we do today affects tomorrow. Not just ours and our children’s future and our grand children’s future, but our siblings’ and their descendants’ futures as well. Their decisions will be based, in one way or another, on what and how they saw us live out our lives before God and before them.

We must be faithful daughters, honoring and respecting our parents, being patient and loving with our siblings. When they see a true difference in our lives, it will make them desire and want it too. We must live in a way that makes them want what we have and pursue God with their whole hearts. They will be challenged to find deeper depths in God because older sister is so changed and happy. They will know it is real because they will see it lived out every day before their eyes.

Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. ~Proverbs 31:30 KJV

Rebecca Sisk is the oldest of a homeschooling family of 5 siblings. She is blessed to be able to serve her father and family at home and finds fulfillment in being a stay-at-home daughter and helpmeet-in-training.