Last year, over the Christmas break, I had an opportunity to spend time with my nieces in a way that was fun and intentional and something that I pray will impact
them for years to come.
My nieces are 13, 14, and 15 and were 6, 7, and 8 when I
moved to Memphis to work with teenage girls.
One of the things that I desperately wanted to do was to make sure that
I invested in my nieces as they moved into their teenage years, which led to
this fun time with them.
I told the girls to be dressed and ready for a breakfast date (on a cold Saturday morning) by 8:00 am and we proceeded to venture to Cracker Barrel. I then requested a table in the far back corner of the restaurant. I had individually wrapped each of them a gift box that consisted of the following items below, along with several bible verses and we had a fun and delightful “girls bible
study” - right in the middle of Cracker Barrel. After we had ordered our meal, the girls were
able to open their gift box and I would tell them what to get out first…
Items in their gift boxes:
“Bible signed by me and 4 godly college girls. Each of us
had written and shared a testimony of what God’s Word meant to us and we had all went through the bible underlining and highlighting many of our favorite
passages and verses.” The girls didn’t want to put them down… they read and
read and were seemingly mesmerized by this J
I also included a picture of the 4 girls who had signed their bibles – so they
would have a visual of godly, beautiful, role models.
Next in their gift box was a compact mirror. This mirror was used to talk about the verses
in James 1:22-25 where we must be doers of the Word and not hearers only and this was a comparison of someone who must look intently into God’s Word daily as you
look into a mirror… we discussed how many times we look daily into a mirror and
it’s usually to see if we look ok and if there is anything that needs fixing J thus we talked about
how God’s Word will show us if there is anything in our heart that needs
fixing.
After the mirror they got out their next gift, which was a
watch. We used the verses in
Ecclesiastes 3 to discuss the verses where it says “There is a time for
everything and a season for every activity under the Sun.” and we also went to
the passage in Matthew 26:41 where Jesus tells his disciples to “WATCH and pray
so that you will not fall into temptation, the Spirit is willing but the flesh
is weak.” There was a lot of discussion on how we can "keep Watch" in our own spiritual lives! (loved hearing their hearts on this)
Following the mirror and the Watch, the girls were asked to
get out their bottle of perfume. We then
looked up in our bibles 2 Corinthians 2:15 & 16 which talked
about being the aroma of God and fragrance of Christ. We discussed how we can daily do this.
Next up, the girls were given a pear of pearl earrings- (unfortunately they weren’t real pearls, but pretty pearls nonetheless J)… We then looked up
the verse in Matthew 7:6 where it talks about not casting your pearls to pigs/swine…
the girls loved this verse and we talked about their value and the importance
of guarding themselves from ungodly boys who do not have their best interest at heart….
Last, but not least, we opened our last box inside our big
box and each of my nieces got one of my rings from over the years. They
immediately ask me if this was their purity ring… UMMM , OF COURSE IT IS J J J
We talked about several different passages from Proverbs
11:22 which says “Like a gold ring in a pigs snout, is a beautiful woman who
shows no discretions” they loved this verse also J we also talked about the verses in 1
Corinthians 6 which talks about our bodies being the temple of God.
We really had a blast that Saturday morning at Cracker
Barrel and our waitress said that she was completely in awe of what we were
doing and with tears in her eyes, she thanked the girls for being so sweet and
nice. My nieces then wanted to leave her
a good tip and we left her a Christmas card also…
My desire is to continue this tradition every year -with
taking them to breakfast each Christmas and giving them gift boxes full of fun things that will open up conversations and lead into bible study.
May we all seek to be intentional in reaching and teaching this upcoming generation the truths of God's Word!
Blessings from the Hollowell Home!
Leslie
