Anonymous writes in reply to the posting My 16 Year Old Daughter Isn’t Pure Any More

I can understand your upset, but you cannot punish a 16 year old like this, grounding them and forcing them to read verses. Even though she made a terrible mistake. It is hers and hers alone to make, punishing her is not going to sort the problem. And 16 being the age of consent, means its out of your hands, she is an adult now an makes her own decisions. If she wanted to remain pure (which i would have), then she would have. But she didnt and she made that choice, yes you can confront her, but punishing her, for a choice she decided to make, is up to her.

Beloved by Him replies…

Dear Anonymous,

You are right–ultimately, each person is responsible for the decisions that they make before God. In addition, children are responsible to honor their parents, even if they do not agree with them. Parents also have to answer to the Lord for how they raise their children. So in other words, no one is exempt from their accountability. But as the ones with the God-given authority, parents must make every good effort to train up their children in the way that they should go. If a parent feels that a consequence is appropriate for a minor child, then they have the right to issue it as they see fit, as long as it is not harmful. In this case, the mom did not want to resort to such a tedious punishment, but wanted to find a way to reach out to her daughter without isolating her. But even if she had chosen to make her daughter copy the verses, it is not an unreasonable action; in fact, it may have implanted a word in her daughter’s spirit that could ultimately take root and grow into a positive conviction to choose God’s best plan for her life.

Regardless of how old we are, we always need to consider not just whether something is lawful, but if it is helpful in our spiritual walk with the Lord. Losing our purity is never helpful, and can lead us in a direction that goes away from God. So because the mom wants the best for her daughter, she has an obligation to keep her from what can be harmful to her. As it says in I Corinthians 13, love always protects. Discipline isn’t supposed to be fun, or it wouldn’t benefit those who are trained by it (Heb. 12:11). Parents aren’t perfect, but it’s far better to try to correct a child than to leave them to their own destruction (Prov. 19:18). So if mom seems tough, we have to look at the reason for the reaction. This mom loves the Lord and her daughter, and hopefully that love will lead her to make the right decisions in her parenting.

Thanks for your comment.

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