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When I was a classroom teacher, every new year brought with it a brand new set of students. I would always spend the first few days getting to know the kids in my class and, equally important, giving them the opportunity to get to know me. The real me.

I had them complete a writing assignment called “Who Am I?” which was essentially a chance for them to unpack themselves, their experiences, and their perspective (how they view the world). I always gave them the choice of responding in narrative or poetic form, whatever their preference. They’d bring them back in and spend several minutes reading theirs aloud for the group. It was the most amazing way to build rapport and connection between us and to help the students understand more about each other before any of the academic stuff started.

Their second assignment was to create an Identity Road Map that I first modeled for them on the whiteboard. I’d create a life starting point [BIRTH] and then a sort of ‘Wizard of Oz – Dorothy’s-yellow-brick-road-style’ steps through the major events of my life up to the present day [CURRENT DATE]

And I walked them through MY life. My stuff. The wholeness of me – the sports and unhealthy competitive spirit, the college scholarship, the first job out of college that didn’t align with my giftings, the first cancer battle and treatment/quarantine, becoming a teacher, meeting my husband and dating, marriage, becoming a mom, starting a business…I would park us at each of the stops for a bit and talk to them about how these experiences helped to define me, my perspective, the seasons of life that changed me or caused me to stretch and grow.

The entire course of the school year was set on a completely different trajectory because the students experienced an adult being open and honest about mistakes, challenges, failures, successes over time and they were able to learn about all of those things in the safety and privacy of our classroom.

It was also an indirect, safe way for me to “tell” them (not with words but by my past actions, feelings and current expectations of them not only that I am willing to share personal information with them but that I care to know about them personally and the stops they’ve taken on their own road that have shaped the people they are.

When we ourselves are vulnerable, it creates a culture of openness and honesty inside our families and we want that type of culture established in our relationships with our daughters and the girls we mentor. It makes the mentor-mentee relationship a space safe to share – where feelings and fears belong and can be worked through together.

All of the research shows that vulnerability is necessary for cultivating solid, long-term relationships: not just for romantic partnerships or family dynamics, but for any meaningful interaction there needs to be laid a foundation of real trust and a framework for authentic connection.

Action Steps: Take inventory of your life right now. Think about the significant events of your life [BIRTH] to [CURRENT DATE]. What are the “stops” along the way that have shaped the person you are?

What were the important moments, seasons in your life that contribute to the whole of you – your perspective, what you know about life, faith, family, friends, the world. Were there times in the course of your life’s journey when you experienced:

Got some ideas? Great. Write them down.

Remember, the idea here is that you are going to encourage your girl to view being vulnerable as a necessary and vital component for establishing and maintaining healthy relationships.

You’re going to show her how to do that by modeling it for her.

The goal is to support her to consider vulnerability, not as a quality that she either possesses or not, but rather as a skill that she will continually work to improve over time.

You might be asking – What is the point? Maybe that’s coming from your own struggle with letting people into your business or sharing your own insecurities, fears, and challenges with others. Believe me, I get it. I grew up under the impression that sharing your feelings meant you were weak.

Teaching her the skill of vulnerability is important – as women, our ability to communicate with openness and honesty is essential to increasing things like comfort and confidence.

But the single most important reason your girl needs to get good at being vulnerable is this.

Vulnerability inspires credibility.

Credibility – ‘the quality or state of being trusted’

Her willingness to be open and honest with the people she meets, interacts with, and leads will dictate how credible she is to others. How much people trust in and believe in her.

Ready for a challenge? Take the list you created of significant life events and share them with your girl this week. You can do one or a few at a time. During each ‘stop’, talk to your daughter about the significance of that particular event.

What did you experience?

In what ways was it challenging?

What did you learn from it?

How did it shape you as a person?

This will give you a chance to show her what vulnerability in action looks like. Celebrate together the fact that you are modeling openness and honesty so that she can follow the example you are setting for her!

BONUS: Use the questions below as a guide to foster meaningful discussion with your girl around the topic of vulnerability.

1. Is it hard for you to share some of these details of your personal life with another person? Why or why not?
2. What role did friends and family play in supporting you during these significant life events?
3. What did that teach you about letting people in?
4. How do you tend to respond to failure?
5. What are some ways you can encourage each other/hold each other accountable to communicate with openness and honesty?

I would love to hear about your experience taking your girl/s through this activity. Be sure to leave a comment below or post about it on social and be sure to tag me [IG: erin.weidemann / FB: ErinWeidemannOfficial].

Have an awesome day!

If you’re looking for ways to encourage the girls you know to learn more about how God wants them to lead, check out my FREE video series, 3 Keys To Unlocking Her True Potential. These topics changed my approach to motherhood forever.

Also, if you want to strengthen your daughter’s identity and faith, be sure to check out my book series, The Adventures of Rooney Cruz. It offers a simple, five-step approach to character development that will help you teach through the topics of beauty, identity, and purpose. You can get them here.

You know what gets me in the most trouble? It’s when I do or say something without stopping to actually think it through. It happens to all of us. Something goes down and we don’t pause to prepare before responding. We jump in head first. We fail to ask God to help us navigate the situation properly.

Be still before the Lord. wait patiently for him.

Psalm 37:7

Mom, your daughter need to know that patience isn’t simply about waiting. It’s about taking time alone with God (or getting in His Word) to allow Him to share something with her. Instead of rushing in to make a decision too quickly, God wants her to be still. When she is still, sitting quietly and without anything there to distract her, it gives her a chance to hear what God wants to tell her.

The next time your girl gets mad or frustrated about something, do you want to show her how to wait well? Here are for four fun and simple activities to help her slow down, get still, and make the best choice at the right time.

1. Draw a ‘still life’

Have your daughter draw a picture using Exodus 14:14 as her inspiration: God fighting nearby and her, quiet and still. She can color it and hang it in her room as a reminder of how God is in charge and it’s her job to wait for Him.

2. Read about Esther, The Belle of Patience

After Esther became the queen of Persia, her cousin Mordecai got into some trouble by refusing to bow to Haman, the king’s second in command. Haman got angry and came up with a plan to destroy Esther’s people. She faced a difficult choice. Instead of rushing in to talk to the king, Esther took her time. She prepared her heart by waiting and fasting. God helped Esther wait until the right time to act, and He can help your girl, too.

3. Make a Patience Clock

Help your daughter create one from scratch by decorating cardstock or you can build one together out of materials you have at home. Paint it, decorate it, dress it up. Help her add pictures and words that will help her remember to wait on the Lord and that His timing is perfect.

4. Quick Write Journal

With your daughter, take turns reading aloud Psalm 25:4-5. Have her write down 4-5 words or phrases that stick out to her (Some ideas: “your ways,” “guide me,” “my hope is in you,” and so on). She can add these words to her patience clock or write each of them on strips of paper to post in familiar places. It’s a great way for her to remind herself to always be looking and waiting for God’s plan, His purpose, and His timing.

As for God, his way is perfect; The Lord’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.

2 Samuel 22:31

God knows and has planned every detail of her life, and His plan is perfect. Because of this she can trust Him. And when she chooses to trust her Father, she is choosing to live the life He created for her.

I would love to know which of these activities worked for you and your daughter.  Let me know in the comments below.

Have an awesome day!

If you’re looking for tools and strategies to encourage your daughter, be sure to check out my free video series, 3 Keys To Unlocking Her True Potential. These topics changed my approach to motherhood forever . . .

Also, if you’re struggling to develop your daughter’s character and faith, check out my book series, The Adventures of Rooney Cruz. It offers a simple, five-step approach to character development that will help you overcome these challenges. We just released a brand new series devotional. You can get your copy by clicking here.

Rooney and I stopped by HomeGoods a few days ago to get some Christmas placemats for our kitchen table. It took all but five seconds before she abandoned our hunt and went meandering down the toy aisles that were overflowing with ‘stuff’.  She walked with purpose up and down each section, pointing out toys and games and figurines and dolls and cribs for the dolls and strollers for the dolls that were all going on her Christmas list.

Hold on a second.

In our house, we haven’t really decided on the Santa thing in general. She asked me about it last year and I told her the truth.

“The people who love you have purchased these gifts for you. Now, let’s write our thank you notes.”

We don’t really have a clear-cut approach to this whole Santa business, but we definitely have not discussed writing out an entire list of things we want for ourselves.

Moms, even though we battle cultural norms DAILY — like selfishness over service– can we still be intentional about flipping the focus this Christmas? You bet we can.

As a family, we’ve been having a blast doing the SANTA Switch this month to get ready for Christmas! I seriously can’t tell you how uplifting it has been these last few weeks. A BIG thank you to every one of you who sent in stories of how your family is noticing the needs of others and taking action to meet those needs. It’s so cool.

In my original podcast episode from a few weeks ago, I talked about our family’s first entry in our SANTA Switch journal where we had to track down a homeless man outside of the grocery store down the street from my parents’ house while we were there visiting.

Need some inspiration? Here are a three stories from last week to get your creative juices flowing.  🙂

November 11, 2018

Today is Veteran’s Day. While we were sitting in church we watched a video that paid tribute to the men and women of our military. Our pastor asked all of the veterans to raise their hands so we could honor them as a church family. My husband elbowed me. “I want to ask the people sitting in front of us who raised their hands if we can take them to lunch after church,” he whispered. Once the service was over, he got their attention and asked if they wanted to go. They did! So we met them at In N Out down the street, chatting with them over hamburgers. Jim was from Indiana and lives with his wife just a little south of us. Tony had just moved here from Detroit and he’d only been in town for two days so far. It was great getting to know that they hadn’t been attending our church for that long. They also showed us how to order Flying Dutchmans off of In N Out’s secret menu. 🙂

November 26, 2018

I was in New York City with my husband last week. We were walking down the street on the way to Times Square to decide where we should eat lunch. We noticed a mama, standing on the sidewalk in front of us. She was holding her infant son. It was cold and windy, and the baby had no hat. My husband was holding his new beanie in his hands when we saw her. He walked straight over to the woman and gave her the hat for her baby.

November 28, 2018

We were driving to Home Depot to get our Christmas tree. On the opposite side of the street, going the other direction, an ambulance passed us with its lights flashing and its sirens going off. After a few moments, my daughter (totally on her own) said, “Hey, we need to pray for those people the ambulance is going to help.” We prayed together in the car for wherever that ambulance was headed and for healing and safety for whoever was involved.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

if you love one another.

John 13:35

It’s not too late for you to hop on board the SANTA Switch Express! Start this fun and intentional Christmas tradition with your family. All you need is a journal, something to write with, and a commitment to notice the needs you see out in the world and do something about meeting them.

Seriously, who’s in? Keep it simple and let me know in the comments below where God leads your family as you look for people to bless.

Have an awesome day!

If you’re looking for ways to develop your daughter’s character and faith in God, check out my book series, The Adventures of Rooney Cruz. It offers a simple, five-step approach to character development that will help you strengthen her identity and increase her confidence. I just released a brand new series devotional. You can get your copy by clicking here.

There’s this old, crinkled up piece of paper that Brent hung up in our office a few years ago. It’s a picture of two doors: a closed one and a slightly open one with a bright light peaking through. Above that second door, it says,

“Until God opens the next door, praise Him in the hallway.”

Sometimes, we find ourselves in what feels like limbo, waiting for God to move. A hallway. Sometimes, it’s so dark that we can’t even see a door.

I wait on the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope.

Psalm 130:5

Seriously, waiting on God’s timing is not easy. But so often we turn patience into this strenuous exercise that wears us down until it wears us out.

Patience is about owning our time in the hallway. Choosing to praise Him when It feels like we’re in limbo between where we are and where we want to be.

Moms, we need to teach our girls to reject worry and instead master the art of hallway praising.

We’ve had that piece of paper up for over three years now, and I always notice it. I notice it every time I leave the house. I know that’s why Brent put it there. So we would see it. So we would remember what to do while we wait.

When I think back to how we started a brand new business with no experience when I was 8 months pregnant and only a couple years out of my most recent of several cancer diagnoses, I’m sure it seemed laughable to many.

I can only imagine the funny look you might have given me. Raised eyebrows, your face all scrunched up, holding your breath like, “Ohhh, Erin. Umm really? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

I can see you, and honestly that would maybe have been a reasonable reaction. After all, it didn’t seem like a safe choice. It didn’t seem very responsible, by everyday standards. But God’s standards rarely align with the world’s.

Because of the beautiful way God has moved in our lives, we prepared as best we could to step out of the hallway.

I didn’t necessarily feel ready when God nudged me that it was time, but I now spend quite a bit of my quiet time with Him thinking about many far away memories that still feel close, many significant moments that apart from each other seem unrelated, but together reveal a beautifully orchestrated plan for my own personal arrival to the hallway.

My childhood and never really feeling a connection to God.

My teen years and letting fear, insecurity, and self-doubt guide my thoughts, words, and actions.

My Early Twenties Rebellion, when I declared, “There is no God!” at my dad and lived the next several years in a wild, reckless tear of existence, willfully separated from any consciousness of Him.

My dark night of the soul, when I cried out for His help, protection, and deliverance from an awful, terrifying disease.

My struggle years later to accept romantic love and my resistance to accept His plan for me as a wife.

My heart slowly softening and the moment when I finally surrendered and turned back toward Him to listen.

And the miracle of bringing a life into this world after discounting completely any chance I might have to experience what it means to be called Mama.

Tip: It’s memories like these that should inform how we react to a season in the hallway. Ask yourself this question: Do we wait in worry, or do we rest, anticipating but never doubting what God is going to do?

Action: Grab a journal. Sit together with your daughter and discuss what areas of her life feel like a hallway right now. Write down her thoughts. Then (Mama), lead her in a prayer that praises God for each hallway – what she is waiting for the Lord to do and the ways He wants to prepare her heart while she is waiting on Him.

Pray. “Whenever we discover that one of us is in a hallway, waiting for God to do something, we will praise. Let’s wait together, listening intently for His voice. We will praise Him because, despite what we think we know about the hallway, His promises reign. His promises are true, they are good, and they do not fail.”

I would love to find out how these conversations go with your girls.  Let me know in the comments below!

In your corner,

Erin

*     *     *

If you’re looking for ways to encourage your daughter to learn more about how God wants her to lead, I would HIGHLY suggest you check our brand new mentorship series, Nurturing Her Unique Voice. Click here to learn more. These topics changed my approach to life, leadership, and motherhood forever…

Trying to impress people is exhausting. I should know. I spent a lot of my time as a young girl caring an awful lot about what other people thought. I don’t know what it was about that pressure to be something fantastic in the eyes of others. But, I succumbed to it more often than not.

I don’t have any idea why we as women think we’re better off caring about that. I just know it’s unhealthy, and it’s the perfect opportunity for the enemy to sneak in and mess with us.

It’s exhausting to keep up the appearance of having it all together, but it’s just as difficult to be real with people sometimes. I get it. Sometimes, it might feel a whole lot easier to just leave out the parts of our stories that make us look weak, the parts where we cringe because we’re thinking of a past mistake or a time when we lost control and, God forbid, needed some help. But, oh, that is right where God wants us.

Do we want to train our daughters to align their thinking with God’s design for their lives? YES!

Here are two simple ways to inspire your daughter to embrace her ‘real’ – the truest version of herself.

1. Help her form a better understanding of God, His nature, and His character.

Spend some time in God’s Word together. Take a look at the book of Exodus (a very popular book in our house because Rooney is obsessed with the story of Moses). In verses 6-7, God revealed himself as:

The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. 

Exodus 34:6-7 (NIV)

Love is the foundation of both the law and character of God. God wants us to learn to think as He thinks and do as He does. When we exercise His kind of love, we are expressing His image. When we reflect His character, we live authentically in our design as His children.

2. Affirm her as one of His created beings. A masterpiece with a mission.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

Who God IS informs everything He creates, including His children. Tell your daughter  the truth: there is work in the world that God prepared ahead of time for her to do, and that the work is GOOD. She can approach every day, every conversation, every circumstance as an opportunity to ask, “God, what do you have for me to DO in this situation? What is your will and how can I say Yes to the part you prepared for me to play in it?”

Her life’s journey is meant to be walked with God, and her story (the bumps, the bruises, the everything) is the mechanism she will use to connect with others, build meaningful friendships, and find ways to serve those around her.

Carve some time out today to pray for a boldness to care more about what matters most to God. Make a commitment together to choose authenticity and honesty and to hold each other accountable.

As mothers and daughters, it’s when we stop trying to impress that we will start to inspire.

Mother’s Day is almost here. It’s a day to celebrate the women in our lives, but it’s also a day that’s really hard for some. Some of us are missing mothers (and grandmothers) who are no longer here, and some of us are mourning the mothers we think we’ll never be.

I get that. For a long time, I believed I would never ever be a mother.

I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer at 26 and battled it for five years. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office with my own mom when he gave me the news. We didn’t catch it early; when they found it it had already metastasized into most of the lymph nodes in both sides of my neck, my chest and up the base of my skull. Shortly after that first diagnosis, I started to believe that a future – and milestones like marriage and motherhood or at the very least surviving – those things were going to be out of my reach.

It just goes to show how wrong you can be about God’s plans. How you can think you know everything about what’s going to happen, and then God shows up and surprises you in ways you never thought were possible.

I’ve learned that, a lot of the time, what God is doing isn’t for us to understand. Where He is taking us isn’t for us to know ahead of time. My mom would say we’re on a need to know basis and “we don’t need to know.”

But we try to, don’t we? We hold on tight because we want to know; we want to be in control. We want to believe that we hold the power in our lives and the situations we face. And every time we tighten our grip, we compete with the Lord for dominion over our own lives.

Now, when I was young, I was competitive.

I was that kid who would strike out and stomp my way back to the dugout and kick my helmet all the way down the fence. Or we’d be playing Checkers and you’d win and I’d stand up and flip the board and accuse you of cheating. My sister and I were playing go fish one day. I cheated and she caught me and then proceeded to chase me around the entire house. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and threw the door closed behind me just as she reached out and tried to catch it and sliced her hand wide open. 25 stitches. My mom loved that one.

Maybe that’s you today. Maybe there are parts of your life today that are ruled over by a competitive spirit, a desire to win in whatever capacity – your work, your relationships, you’re striving for personal achievement or to exercise your superiority over something. It’s a hard thing to come to terms with, but I want to challenge you.

God’s design for all of us is that we would choose eternal impact over earthly success. When we choose compassion over competition. Because the truth is this:

We can live in the freedom that God provides when we’re driven, not by our desire to win, but by doing His will. 

I think back to that first diagnosis often. When I do, I’m reminded of two amazing blessings that came out of it.

1: My strong and courageous mother who walked the path to healing right alongside me and

2: The incredible honor it is to carry forward her legacy, her love, and her example with my daughter, Rooney.

Let’s honor the women who have done this in our lives, both past and present. They are women who are learning to let go of competition and live out the truth of Psalm 62:1, just like we are.

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.

Dear Father,

Thank you for women: those who have taken on the role of mother in ways that extend far beyond biology and stretch beyond our homes, into our communities, and to the farthest corners of the world. May new life be breathed into each of these women today – may they feel your peace and protection as they continue to give of themselves, to sacrifice, to put the needs of others ahead of their own. May each woman be blessed today, appreciated and acknowledged for her work, her heart, and her commitment to being Mother in whatever ways you’ve called her to be that.

In Jesus’ name, Amen