For the Stay-At-Home Graduate

To all of you graduates, who have marked this exciting event in your life – you’re finished! And congratulations to you! A few months ago I wrote a blog post about the time leading up to graduation. But for some, there can still be as many questions after graduation as there are before. I feel a desire to write to daughters–stay-at-home daughters to be exact–who aren’t heading off to college this fall like most everyone else.

What to do? You know college isn’t it, but what is? Well, I can’t tell you what to do. I think for us, stay-at-home daughter-hood will look different for each lady. But I can tell you a little bit about how I went through those first few months after graduation, and I hope that this will help you and encourage you as you seek God’s direction.

The first two weeks or so for me were difficult. Every single day I would just try to adjust to this new phase of life in which I didn’t have to get up each morning to get to work on the English paper I hadn’t finished the night before, or to take that science test I had been studying for.

It was all done. Completed. Finished.

As I was beginning to write this post,, I brainstormed the things I did pretty much all that year (before, during, and after graduation), and I want to share those five things with you.

Pray. While I really am not as good about praying as often as I ought, I did do a lot of praying before, during, and after graduation. “Pray without ceasing.”1 Thessalonians 5:17. I prayed for comfort and contentment with wherever He led me. I prayed for lots of guidance to clearly know His will for me and my life. I prayed that He would show me how to go about and pursue the things He had me focus on during this time in my life.

Always be faithful in your prayer! Something from a recent sermon that really stuck with me is that prayer is the most important thing in your relationship with God. You cannot grow in your relationship with God, or know His will for you life, or even be a godly witness to others if your prayer life it non-existent. Prayer is so important!

Read what other stay-at-home daughters did. I found so much encouragement through reading what other stay-at-home daughters have to say about their journey, beliefs, and convictions. Even before the decision was made clear to me that this was the path I was to take, I started following the Stay-At-Home Daughter Blog. I think my mom subscribed me, and I started reading a post here and there and eventually got excited and looked forward to each time there was a new one to read. I really do think that reading about her perspective on the stay-at-home daughter life helped nudge me to think about that as a possibility. There are many, many stay-at-home daughters who have blogs that you can follow and I strongly encourage you to do so!

Made a list of {prayerfully thought out} goals. I mentioned earlier that I prayed that God would show me how to pursue the things He led me to focus on during this time in life. Once it became clear to me that God was laying ministry on my heart, along with preparation for marriage and motherhood, I sat down to make a list of goals I wanted to pursue and accomplish in the next two or three years. I came up with a long list of things that fell under the two areas I needed to focus on: ministry (both to my family, and those around me in my community) and preparing for the future. Some projects on my list were organizing a book club (ministry), volunteering at my local Crisis Pregnancy Center (ministry), learning how to can (preparation), and learning how to knit (preparation).

Dive into Scripture. Now, I am not trying to say that you need to wait until after you graduate to start reading the Bible. From the moment we accept Jesus as our personal Savior we should strive to be in the Word daily. But as a young daughter at home–still single–this is the golden opportunity to put all of our heart and energy into growing in God’s Word – a widely overlooked opportunity that we will not have once we are married and have families of our own. Make it a priority to dive into Scripture daily! This is the ideal time to dig deep and learn more.

Let God direct my steps – which is a daily decision. This is big. And this part really should be in all caps: WHICH IS A DAILY DECISION.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart: and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” –Proverbs 3:5-6

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”–Isaiah 55:8-9

It takes daily surrender to give this up to God. We want to control our direction; we want to be in charge of our steps, but we cannot. There’s no way to do that well. I needed to give up that desire for control. I couldn’t see God’s plan for me, but I knew it was greater than anything I could plan myself. I want to be in the center of His will for me, and that means to “trust in the Lord” and take comfort in the fact that His ways are higher than mine.

This time in life is exciting and stressful at the same time. It is a time of enormous growth, challenge, and blessing. I hope that you can be encouraged from this to lean on the Solid Rock because, as the hymn goes, “all other ground is sinking sand.”