I recently shared a message for young men. Having done that, I asked my friend Melissa Edgington if she would write an equivalent letter for young women. She kindly did so and allowed me to share it here.

Somewhere out there in the great, wide world, someone is praying for you. She probably doesn’t know you and you probably don’t know her. You may not meet one another for many more years. But she’s praying for you nonetheless and has been for a very long time. 
She is the mother of a son. She is a mother who once cradled a swaddled baby boy in her arms, bleary-eyed and sleep deprived, yet electric with the knowledge that this chubby-cheeked wonder was her own. She is a mother who thrilled at the sight of freshly plucked flowers clutched in a little boy’s outstretched hand. By day she laughed and groaned her way through his original knock-knock jokes, and by night she dreamt of what kind of man he would become, praying ceaselessly first for his salvation and then for his spiritual strength. She is a mother who implored the Creator of the Universe to make him into a man after God’s own heart.
From the time that she first laid eyes on this boy, she knew that he would one day fall in love with a woman. She has always understood that she is building a boy, body and heart and soul, to give away, both to the Lord’s service and to you. One part of her mission as a mother is the learning to let go a little bit, milestone by milestone, year by year, helping him stand on his own, helping him depend on Christ, and helping him become a man who will lead a family in devotion to the Lord and love his wife as Christ loves the church.
This mother has cooperated with Christ in bringing up a boy, training him, loving him, disciplining him, discipling him, and she has poured out everything that her heart can hold that might bless this child, her son, her treasure. In all of this she has prayed for you and is praying for you still.
She prayed for you in your childhood, for your safety and nurturing. She prayed that you would come to know Christ and that you would grow in your understanding of who He is and your role in His kingdom. She prayed that the Lord would protect you from the evil intentions of others, that He would rescue you from those would might seek to do you harm. 
And she prays for you still. For your heart, that it would beat for Christ alone. For your spirit, that it would be refreshed by the truth of God’s word. For your mind, that it would be filled with the goodness of God and thoughts that are true, right, noble, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. She prays that you are developing spiritual disciplines that bring you to thankfulness in difficult circumstances, to reliance on the One who has the answers, and to peace that passes all understanding. She prays that you are growing into a woman who has a passion for God’s people and a desire to serve the Lord. She prays that you will love her son, unconditionally, unendingly, and with tenderness and grace. And she asks the Lord to allow you and her precious child, her boy, to live a long and beautiful life of sacrifice and service, side by side, arm in arm.
She prays for you now. You will one day meet and fall in love with her cherished one, and all of these years, perhaps you never imagined that you have been carried on the wings of his mother’s prayers. Take comfort in knowing that somewhere, a mother is praying for you. Seek the Lord, dear girl, and grow in your love for Him so that you may become God’s good answer to a mother’s prayers.

Much has been written about the biblical concept of “meekness.” Many have pointed out that of all the attributes God expects of us, and of all the attributes so wonderfully displayed in Christ, none is so rare as this. Yet perhaps no attribute is quite so difficult to define. What, then, is meekness?

In some ways meekness is best defined by what it is not. Meekness is the opposite of self-assertion, the opposite of acting as if my will should triumph over God’s or even that my will should necessarily triumph over any man’s. It is the opposite of insisting that this world would be a better place if God and man alike just did things my way. Therefore, it is the opposite of grumbling against God’s providence as it’s expressed through circumstances or even through the hands of men.
When Jesus said “blessed are the meek,” he carefully placed this beatitude after two others—after “blessed are those who are poor in spirit” and “blessed are those who mourn.” God’s blessings are upon those who come to him with empty hands—with an awareness that they are fully dependent upon God’s grace. And God’s blessings are upon those who come to him with broken hearts—with deep sorrow over their sin and sinfulness. People who come to God in this way will naturally relate to him with a quiet spirit—with what we know as meekness. And such quietness before God will express itself in kindness and gentleness toward men.
The meek person, then, remembers that he came to God with empty hands; he remembers that he stands before God with a broken heart; and so he has a quiet spirit. He is submissive before God and gentle toward others, especially in sorrows, especially in losses, especially when he’s being led through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The meek person is gentle toward others even when insulted by them, even when scorned by them, even when harmed by them. He trusts that even if he is distressed and bewildered today, God will eventually make his purpose clear and then he, like God, will judge it all so very good, all so very necessary, all so very wise.
A forest fire rages in Northern Ontario and we see the smoke of it blanket the sun even here in the city. It passes through the trees and seems to have left the land completely devoid of life. But no sooner has the fire gone out and the ground cooled, that new sprouts begin to push up from the ground. There’s life and beauty even amidst the ashes. That’s you and me, Christian, when it seems that God’s providence has scorched and burned us. We submit to him, we submit to his purposes, and we display fresh evidences of his grace even in our sorrow, even with shattered hearts. We act in meekness.
In the orchards outside my city the apple trees are bearing their fruit. And in these weeks of harvest, people like you and me go out into the orchards and ravage those trees. We pick them bare. Does the tree give up? Does it shrivel up and die? No, it just begins the process again so that at next year’s harvest it will once again be full of fruit. That’s you and me, Christian, when people hurt us and harm us and take advantage of us. Even then we display the fruit of the spirit. Even then—especially then—we act in meekness.
It may well be true that no attribute of the Christian is more rare than meekness, but perhaps that is only because no attribute is more precious—and no attribute more consistent with the character of Jesus who is himself the very picture of meekness—who is “gentle and lowly in heart” and who offers precious rest for our souls.

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