Dannah Gresh: “My mom looks in the mirror and tells herself out loud every day how ugly and fat she is. And she’s in tears,” and she’s like, “I think my mom’s beautiful, and I look just like her.”
John Fuller: That’s Dannah Gresh, and she joins us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, sharing how you, as a mom, can help your daughter grow in confidence, faith, and emotional strength. I’m John Fuller, and welcome to the show.
Jim Daly: Here’s a neon sign. Us parents, we want … I know grammatically that’s incorrect, but we want the same thing. We want certainly a great marriage, as good as it can be. And we want to raise our kids to be as healthy as they can be. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically. And that is universal. I sat in Kenya with a PhD in child development, Dr. Lillian Wahome, and I said, “Lilian, what we have to share around the world at Focus on the Family, will it be relevant? Here in Africa, will it be relevant?” And she smiled and looked at me and said, “It’s just like an American to think you invented the family-”
John: (Laughs).
Jim: … which is a great line. And, uh, she went on to say, “That is the universal language. Everybody around the world wants those things.” And it is so true. But guess what? You have to be mindful about it. You gotta know as a parent, how do we shape this child’s heart, and spirit, and, you know, desires? It’s a good job to have, but it’s demanding. And you need to be intentional about it. Sometimes we wonder, “Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things?” And guess what? We are gonna make mistakes.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: How many of us as parents want the do-over? I know that was me. But today, we wanna talk with our guest, Dannah Gresh, about how to do it wisely between moms and daughters.
John: Mm-hmm. Yeah, Dannah’s, uh, got some great insights, and she’s the founder of True Girl. She’s a popular speaker and podcast host, and a bestselling author of a number of books. And, uh, we’re talking today about one of those called 8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters: How to Talk About Cool Fashion, True Beauty, and Dignity.
Jim: Dannah, welcome back. It’s great to have you at Focus on the Family.
Dannah: Well, thanks for having me again.
Jim: Yeah. Now this, you’re talking, of course, to literally millions. But here’s John and I, sitting here talking to you about the bond between moms and daughters.
Dannah: (Laughs).
Jim: So, but let me ask you that. There is something special. Um-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: You know, I feel some ways for Jean, my wife, we have two sons. We didn’t have a daughter, and I think she really missed that.
Dannah: Mm.
Jim: She didn’t have that experience. She loves our boys, and she loves being a mom of boys. But, you know, for the moms that didn’t have a girl, that’s gonna be … And for dads too.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: You know, it’s just a hole that we’re not gonna experience that. Speak to that special bond between a mom and a daughter, and what’s going on there?
Dannah: It’s … I don’t know what’s going on there.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: I remember when my fir- I have one by birth and one by adoption, and when that first one came by birth I remember distinctly thinking, “I just gave birth to my best friend.”
Jim: Oh, wow.
Dannah: I just-
Jim: Wow.
Dannah: I didn’t think that when my son was born.
Jim: Huh.
Dannah: And fast-forward now, my girls and my daughter in love, who I call the wife of my son, there’s three of them, and we get together once a month for discipleship. I just ask, “How can I pray for you?” And their hearts just gush with everything.
Jim: Oh, that’s sweet.
Dannah: And I pray over them and just keep tabs. But, you know, I was having a really bad day on my last birthday, just a no-good, very bad day.
Jim: Hmm.
Dannah: And one of my girls picked me up, took me to coffee, and just loved on me.
Jim: Oh, that’s beautiful.
Dannah: And gave me a note that said, it was that one I gave birth to, “You are my best friend in the whole world.” There … I don’t know.
Jim: Aw.
Dannah: But also, if you saw snapshots of it, you would be like, “They don’t like each other.” So, it’s a complicated relationship.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: And, um, it’s good to have someone mentoring you and guiding you, um, how to do it well.
Jim: Yeah. You know, in that regard, uh, some of the principles that you mentioned in 8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters, is full attention.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: Now, John and I, remember you’re talking to two guys here (laughs).
Dannah: (laughs).
Jim: Really? That would freak me out. Full attention?
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: But it’s important for your daughter to-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … feel, as a mom, that she’s got your attention.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: How did you learn that, or were there some things that you had to change to give your full attention?
Dannah: Well, I learned it ministering to these moms and daughters.
Jim: Mm.
Dannah: And I didn’t learn it from my own mothering, even though I needed to. What happened was, I started interviewing girls. I’m kind of a research geek.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: I like sociology. I like learning from psychology. I think psychology’s very helpful in helping us diagnose things,. Not always the end remedy, because that’s Jesus, but, so I do a lot of focus groups and surveys. And as I was informally researching teenagers or doing focus groups with teens, I was like, “What do you need from your mom?”
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: They’re like, “Well, her attention. Like, she sits down and looks her friends in the eyes when she’s talking to them, but when she’s talking to me, she’s taking out the trash. She’s emptying the dishwasher. She’s…” And it was like my heart was arrested-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: … because this was a girl who thought I was the perfect mom because I was, like, asking her questions about her and her mom’s relationship. And I’m looking at my relationship with my daughter, guilty as can be of the same thing. And I realized I need to just push reset. I love … I tell moms all the time, “Push the reset button.”
Jim: Yeah. (laughs).
Dannah: “Don’t give in to the guilt. Mom guilt is such a tool of the enemy, but push the reset button. Do you need to, like, really sit down and totally look her in the eye?” That’s what one teenage girl called it. “Really, like, totally sit down and look me in the eye.” And if you do, make a date to do that.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: Even if it might be once a week. It might be once a month, because the reality is, there will be dishes to put away, and there’ll be trash to take out, and there will be laundry to fold.
Jim: Let me, let me ask you this because I’m thinking of Jean. She’s very efficient that way. And you know, I think she would say … just when we’re talking, like, she’ll be scurrying around the kitchen and doing exactly that.
Dannah: Yep.
Jim: It would be efficiency for her. She can be totally plugged in and hearing me, and I’m sitting in my oversized, needing-to-be-replaced chair.
Dannah: (Laughs).
Jim: It’s losing stuffing.
Dannah: (Laughs).
Jim: I love this thing. Jean’s like, “We gotta get a new chair.”
Dannah: (Laughs).
Jim: But, um, you know, but she’s in that zone of “I’ve got a lot to do.”
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: “I’ve got a list in my head.”
Dannah: Mm-hmm.
Jim: “I’ve got to get some things done, and I’ll be listening to you.” So, you know, for that mom-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … what is it communicating to the daughter to be able to stop?
Dannah: It’s communicating love. It’s saying you matter.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: And there’s probably no more important thing to tell our children, boys or girls.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: They’re … we are the first encounter with the love of God that they will ever have.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: You know, uh, in a healthy family, we are the first encounter with the love of God. And you know what? That really matters when they sin more than when they’re behaving like angels.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: Again, survey, I love surveys. When I wrote Lies Girls Believe, I surveyed 1,500 seven to 12-year-old girls.
Jim: Wow.
Dannah: One of the questions I asked … these are church-going girls. Do you know God loves you? And of course, they did. 98, 99% of them were so sure. I-
Jim: That’s higher than I thought it would be.
Dannah: I am loved by God.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: In follow-up conversations, we asked them about sin, and then we revisited that question. And they felt a lot less loved by God when we talked about their sin. And don’t we all?
Jim: Absolutely.
Dannah: Don’t we all struggle with that our whole life?
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: We think that God is distant. I’ve described that feeling of separation, which is very theological, and biblical, and real. Sin separates us from God like bad Wi-Fi.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: It’s not, it’s not that the signal’s not out there. I just can’t reach the love of God. I can’t feel the love of God. I can’t hear the voice of God. So, I think it’s really important that we’re attentive to our kids and loving them when they sin. The Word of God says that God loved us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn’t have to put it that way-
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: … in the Word, but He did because He knew we were gonna lose that connection.
Jim: Yeah, it’s a good analogy. You know, the other thing, again, this applies to all of us as parents. But specifically between mom and daughter. That ability to guide without sounding like the old Charlie Brown thing-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: “… wa, wa, wa.”
Dannah: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: “…wa, wa,” and that’s all they hear when you’re giving-
Dannah: Killjoy too.
Jim: Yeah. So how, how do you do that in a way that your daughter can actually be engaged and listen, and respond, and be who she is-
Dannah: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … and how God created her. And listening to the guidance that you as mom wanna provide. That that’s an art.
Dannah: Yeah. So there’s certainly those moments where you’re trying to get out the door to church and-
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: I don’t know why church is so hard to get out the door on time for.
Jim: It’s kind of irony, isn’t it?
Dannah: It goes crazy, um, that you have to be directive. But whenever there’s the space and the time, rather than being directive, you could, you should be inquisitive.
John: And Dannah, girls can especially be prone to all these lies in the culture. And so I can see myself as the dad, and I would guess moms feel the same thing, of responding back kind of blindly and kind of textbooky, “I don’t feel like I look good.” Or-
Dannah: Yeah.
John: “I don’t measure up. I’m not part of the, you know, the right crowd at school.” “Oh, honey, you’re fine.” You’re whatever. So how can a mom avoid those kind of pat answers-
Dannah: Yeah.
John: … and hear what’s going on and address what’s really under the surface?
Dannah: Yeah. Bend questions, not to beat a dead horse, but “why are you feeling that way? Why do you feel ugly? Why do you feel like you don’t measure up?” And start to get to the bottom of the pit of the lies. A lot of times, I’ve always said this: emotions are good. They’re good tools of God. He created them, right? And after He finished creating everything, He looked at the world, and He said, “It is good.” And then, after He created us, He said, “It is very good.” So everything about us is good, including all of our emotions. That includes grief, sadness, the emotions we don’t like that much, stress, but our emotions are also, they’re meant to be messengers. They come, and they tell us something, and then you respond to it.
For example, a girl is saying, “I just feel really insecure when I show up at school, or unattractive.” Maybe it’s because she’s rushing through her day and not brushing her teeth before she heads out the door, not brushing her hair. And, like, there’s actually something practical you can do so that she walks out the door feeling a little more prepared for the day, right?
John: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: Then the emotion goes away. But if it doesn’t, and it’s there, and we don’t know why, or it’s what I call a sticky emotion, it’s just stuck to her like glue. That’s when you can say, “Is there a lie here that she might be believing?” And when it comes to her beauty and body image, the lies are so prevalent. I’m so grateful. I was a teenager during the kind of era of the supermodels.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: There were, like, 20 perfect women on planet earth that I had to compare myself to, okay? Our girls today are coming of age in a filtered world where they have to compare themselves to everybody’s untruthful version of themselves.
Jim: Yeah.
John: Hmm. Yeah.
Dannah: That’s gonna create lies in their little hearts.
Jim: Yeah. You know, many girls feel the pressure to maybe live a dual life-
Dannah: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … if I could say it that way.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: Um, and again, boys do as well. I’m not saying that, but we’re concentrating on moms and daughters. How does a mom … I guess, how does she first surface that-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … and then talk about it, and create an environment? This is probably the way to eliminate it is create an environment where your daughter can be honest with you.
Dannah: Yeah. Well, so way back in the 2000s, I think 2007, 2008. I was doing research for Lies Young Women Believe, which is for teens, and one of the big lies they believed, and they verbalized this, was, “It’s okay to be one person at school and a different person at home.”
Jim: Wow.
Dannah: “It’s okay to be one person at church and a different person in my neighborhood.” And they … the girls were literally, the teenage girls, were actually saying, “I don’t think this is okay, but I believe it, and I’m doing it.”
Jim: Huh.
Dannah: Um, the Bible calls that being double-minded.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: And the Bible says, “A double-minded person is unstable in all their ways.” Now fast-forward to today. The internet and social media has dramatically put that desire to be a different person on steroids.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: They’re showing up on social media. It’s not even a close version of who they are sometimes, and it does make them unstable. So, if you see that or sense that in your daughter, it’s really an important thing to address.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: And just sit her down and say, “You know, I’ve, I saw this social media post. I don’t know that girl. Can you tell me a little bit-
Jim: Mm.
Dannah: … about what made you want to present yourself like that?”
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: And again, you start with the questions. And I’m not saying that you don’t, at some point … if what she’s posting is dangerous for her or, um, really creating some cognitive dissonance in her heart, and you’re seeing that, you might have to discipline. You might have to say, “Let’s take, you know, let’s take social media away for a while. Let’s take the phone away for a while.” But as much as possible, lead her to an understanding of how destabilizing it is to live as two different people.
Jim: Yeah. I mean, the practical application of that, it sounds right, and it’s so hard to do-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … for some parents. I mean, you know, it’s a draconian measure. You know, you’re, (laughs) … I can hear the mom and-
Dannah: Of taking the phone away?
Jim: Yeah, the mom and dad chat. “You sure we want to do that?” And of course, she’s gonna go through the roof.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: But those are good things to consider, right?
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: And good things to do.
John: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and our guest today is Dannah Gresh. We’re talking about some of the content in her book, 8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters: How to Talk About Cool Fashion, True Beauty, and Dignity.
Jim: (laughs).
John: Get a copy of the book from us here and find other helpful resources for your journey as a mom at our website and, uh, that’s focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Dannah: And let me talk to you, you know, as dads. There’s nothing like the power of a dad-
John: Hmm.
Dannah: … to say, “You’re beautiful.”
Jim: That’s good.
Dannah: “You’re, you look adorable today.”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: “You go out there, girl, and you just-
Jim: Uh-huh.
Dannah: “… show up in this world because you look fantastic.” That means so much, but we also have to get down to the bottom of she has to feel that value innately in herself-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: … not in how her hair looks.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: Not in … But if there’s a lie there, we gotta address it.
Jim: Yeah, that’s good. How did your mom help you with that idea of body positivity? I mean-
Dannah: Oh, my mom, first of all, world’s best mom.
Jim: (Laughs).
John: Hmm.
Dannah: Literally, there’s an award with her name on it. It says, “World’s Best Mom.” Uh, she was so good at asking the questions.
John: Mm.
Dannah: And she was so good at, I think, not making it all about my external beauty but also about my internal worth. You know, that’s the mistake we make in trying to address the body image issues, is we try to make them feel good about their outside. That never really fixes it, and that’s deteriorating.
John: Hmm.
Dannah: So what we have to do is fix the inside. My mom was great at saying, “You showed up in strength today.”
Jim: Oh (laughs), that’s an interesting word.
Dannah: “You showed up. Yeah, I was proud of how you showed up with courage today.” She complimented the inside stuff. And, you know, 1 Peter 3:3 and 4 says, don’t be obsessed with, this is the Dannah paraphrase, with the outward beauty of, you know, beautiful hairstyle, jewelry, and fine clothes. But instead, be concerned with the inner beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. So, when we say to our daughters, “You showed up with gentleness today.”
John: Hmm.
Dannah: “You showed up with helpfulness today.”
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: Believe it or not, that goes a really long way in fighting these body image issues. And I think that’s one of the things my mom…I just heard her say over and over again, complimenting the internal qualities of beauty that she saw God cultivating in my life.
Jim: I think, you know, one of the difficulties, again, just in parenting in general, is we forget the positive attributes.
Dannah: Mm.
Jim: You know, we’re concentrating-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … on the C.
John: Yeah.
Jim: “What happened? I thought you were gonna get an A.”
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: I mean, and you can filter that down to everything. Uh, probably a mom and a daughter, it could be a couple of things that I’d love your response to. One is a mom who, uh, is saying the right things-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … but is, um, in her own actions, showing anxiety-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … about her body image-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … etc. So the daughter’s gonna pick up on that, you know?
Dannah: Absolutely.
Jim: Uh, what you do is more powerful than what you say, so she’s gonna learn from mom that she’s worried about her looks, or-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … something. That’s part of it. And then the other part is, how does that, how does a mom effectively, again, help put that daughter at ease?
Dannah: Yeah. There’s incredible research that what a mom says when she sees herself in the mirror is what a daughter believes-
Jim: Wow, that’s good.
Dannah: “… when she sees herself in the mirror.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: And the first time I heard this wasn’t from research or anything. It was from a teenage girl who was gorgeous. And she said, “My mom’s on a diet.” And I gotta tell you the diet because this is so crazy. She was on a hot dog and ice cream diet to lose weight.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: Yes. I don’t know.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: Apparently, this mom thought-
Jim: Now, that’s my kind of diet.
Dannah: … that if she only ate hot dogs and-
Jim: I like that.
Dannah: I don’t know. But anyway-
John: We don’t endorse that, by the way.
Jim: Hot dogs and ice cream.
John: And it’s not health advice from Focus on the Family.
Dannah: No, no, no. We’re not endorsing this. But this mom had tried diet after diet, fad after fad.
Jim: (Laughs).
Dannah: And this teenage girl said, “My mom looks in the mirror and tells-
Jim: Oh, man.
Dannah: … herself out loud every day how ugly and fat she is.” And she’s in tears, and she’s like, “I think my mom’s beautiful-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: “… and I look just like her. So what does this say about me?” Like, she was, this is, was a very verbal and, um, mentally aware 15-year-old girl I was talking to.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: Because most girls wouldn’t be able to verbalize that.
Jim: Right.
Dannah: That was the first time I heard it, and then research really does indicate that that’s true. So you moms, your daughters need to hear you say, instead of when you get back from a run, how bad you feel-
Jim: Right (laughs). Yeah.
Dannah: … about your body, they need you to hear you say, “Man, my legs were strong and fast today. That felt good.”
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: And when you look in the mirror, they don’t need to see you make faces at yourself. They need to see you affirming what God has created in you.
John: Mm.
Dannah: You are a masterpiece created by God. That’s what Ephesians says about us in 2:10, Ephesians 2:10. You are a masterpiece created by God. That word masterpiece is the word poiēma, and it basically is the name in that time used for an artist’s highest work. Their opus if you will.
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: So, that’s what we are to God. Look at how beautiful this world is: sunsets and northern lights. My husband is so tired of my obsession with chasing the northern lights.
John: (Laughs).
Dannah: We are obsessed with the beauty God’s created, and yet all of that pales in comparison to His poiēma, His masterpiece, which is us. We have to plant that truth-
Jim: Yeah.
Dannah: … in our daughters. And the best way we plant that is by believing it about ourselves. This truth is better caught than taught.
Jim: Yeah. Dannah, I wanna ask this question because I think it’s endemic in the church, and again, this is general parenting 101, and it applies to both boys and girls that we are parenting. But leaning into the daughter-mother relationship, we project a certain perfection in Christian households.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: And I get it. We wanna live by the tenets of the faith. We wanna pursue God with all our heart.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: We wanna do everything well. And even, you know, projecting to our children, sometimes without honesty, if I could say it that boldly, uh, what we are as a family. Speak to the danger of that. And I think one of the dangers is your kids then go off to college or do whatever, and they’ve been bottled up in this fairly tight, more legalistic system, and then they’re not prepared for what they’re gonna encounter.
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: So, how does our honesty as a parent, as a mom with our daughter-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … how does that prepare her, maybe better-
Dannah: Yeah.
Jim: … than trying to project perfection?
Dannah: Yeah. We were big in the Gresh home, raising our kids to do two things. One, we said, “I’m sorry-”
Jim: Mm-hmm. We did that.
Dannah: … when we parented poorly. Mom just lost her cool. Dad just was so busy that he ignored you, whatever. We, we would-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Dannah: We would stop and say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have responded to you that way. Will you forgive me?” That goes a long way, because when you present this picture perfection, it’s crazy-making. You know, it’s, our kids know we’re not perfect. They see it.
Jim: Right, (laughs).
Dannah: They see all our sin.
Jim: Better than anyone.
Dannah: They see our … when the kids would see Bob and I fight, and when it wasn’t fair, especially, we would sit down and apologize that they watched us fight and that we didn’t fight fair. If you don’t do that, it’s like … I think a great example is, if you walk into a room that smells like smoke, but you can’t see any smoke in the air. You can’t see any cigarettes in anyone’s hands. And you’re like, “It seems like someone was smoking in here.” And they say, “No, nobody was smoking in here.” You start to not trust your sense of smell, right? It’s, that’s what we do to our kids when we aren’t transparent to say, “Yeah, there’s been some sin in this house. Your smelling is right.”
Jim: The aroma is accurate.
Dannah: The aroma is accurate.
Jim: Mm.
Dannah: That is a skill they need for the rest of their lives.
Jim: Mm.
Dannah: And if there’s hiding, and posturing, and legalism, to use your word, I detest legalism. Rules are okay, but rules without relationship are, are devastating to the future of our child.
Jim: Right. Leads to rebellion.
Dannah: It leads to absolute rebellion. And so, I think saying “I’m sorry,” but the other thing we said, and I don’t know if you should do this because, honestly, I think it, we could have said it better. But we told them we’d pay for the counseling in the future for what we were messing up.
Jim: (Laughs) I think we all said that as parents.
John: (laughs).
Dannah: Uh, and we were just like, “We’re going to pay for it.”
Jim: Yeah, we’ll pay ahead (laughs).
Dannah: And so, I think what we gave our kids is, even to this day, this honest, open, transparent conversation, to where sometimes when I get together with my girls on monthly discipleship night, they’ll say, “I was really frustrated with you because …” And they’ll tell me, like, I wasn’t available to them, or I seemed like I was too busy right now. And then I talk through that, and that helps me push my reset button. It’s still an open relationship, and they need to feel that way with Jesus. It’s not that they need to feel that way with me. They need to feel that way with the Lord, and that sets them on a trajectory for wholeness their whole life.
Jim: Yeah. So good. Dannah, it’s flown by, the time here, so thanks for being with us once again. It’s always good to have you here.
Let me turn to the listener. Focus on the Family is here to help you and your family to thrive in Christ. We wanna equip you. Both mom and dad, as you’re raising the next generation. When you are grounded in the Lord, your relationships can flourish. They actually should flourish. That doesn’t mean everything’s gonna be perfect, but you’ll be able to walk the parenting journey knowing you’re not alone. We offer a library of trusted resources, articles, programs like this one, videos, and so much more. It’s all created by our parenting team to help you stay informed, stay encouraged, and equip you for every stage of your parenting journey.
In fact, we have a video series with Dannah and Christian influencer and mom, Whitney Lowe. It’s free. You can sign up for that. They go even deeper into ways you can connect with your daughter. Help her manage emotions, build healthy body confidence, grow in her identity in Christ, and handle conflict in positive ways. That’s the answer to so many concerns of moms and parents. The series targets moms with younger girls, so you can look ahead and start implementing some strategies to tighten your bond as she grows.
We also have Dannah’s wonderful book, Eight Great Dates for Moms and Daughters. You’ll find lots of fun, easy-to-use ideas for strengthening your relationship with your daughter, all centered on God’s truth. And when you make a monthly pledge today of any amount, we’ll send you the book as our way of saying thank you for supporting the ministry of Focus on the Family. Of course, uh, if you can’t commit to that monthly amount, we understand. We’ll be happy to send it to you for a one-time gift of any amount.
Let me share this note from Julie, who wrote in to tell us this, but also you, the donors. She said, “I can’t even begin to express how much Focus on the Family has meant to me over the years. I relied on you while raising my own daughters, and now they listen to the broadcast too. I also mentor a young woman at church and regularly point her to your resources. They’ve made such a meaningful difference in how I’ve parented.”
John: Oh, I love that.
Jim: And it is a great testimony. Julie, thank you for those words of encouragement. That means a lot to the team here at Focus. When you donate to Focus on the Family, you’re helping folks like Julie strengthen her marriage and raise her children in positive, healthy ways. But this kind of ministry is only possible with your support. Uh, you can provide that much-needed help when you do your ministry through Focus on the Family, so please donate today.
John: Yeah, donate. Look for that new video series with Dannah. Make a monthly pledge as you can and get your copy of 8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
And coming up next time, you’ll hear some simple encouragement about how you can transform your marriage.
Jason Benham: You know, the essential element of love is sacrifice. And when you sacrifice, God, your Father, who is also your father-in-law, will bring the transformation that’s needed in your heart-
John: Mm-hmm.
Jason: … and your mind, and your life, and He’ll transform your relationship.
John: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
