One Day – Her Prince Will Come

This past Saturday, I attended a wedding of a young couple in our congregation. Seeing as I am a full time minister myself, it was delightful to be able to sit and enjoy the service instead of being involved.

My wife Kristen and I had talked about the wedding to our almost 4 year old, Josie. We told her we were going to a wedding and that she was going to see lots of girls in pretty dresses, and the one wearing the prettiest dress will be the bride. Josie was filled with excitement to be able to witness this event!

As the wedding processional began, Josie asked if she could sit in my lap so she could see everything as it was happening. She watched as the guys entered from behind the stage and took their places, and then as the bridesmaids came down one by one. She sat there saying “Oooh, look at the pretty dresses” and “I would look good in that dress” along with other things.

When the bride walked in, and as we all stood, Josie didn’t say anything. She just sat in my arms with her little mouth wide open, as if she was thinking “Wow, that is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen!”

As the service began, Josie sat down on the church pew and began playing with some toys she had brought with her. I listened as it began with the familiar words “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”, and immediately, I choked up.

You see, at that moment, I realized one day, my little girl’s prince will come.

One day, my little girl will no longer be my little girl, but my grown up woman who will leave the comforts of her father and mother and bond with someone else, to take care of her. And I’m not so sure I like that idea.

She’s my little girl.

It gives me a great appreciation for my Father-in-law, who had to learn to accept me before handing over his little princess to me to marry her. He had invested over 20 years in teaching her, paying for her to grow up, taking careful steps in what he said around her, watched how he acted around her, all for this nut to swoop in and take her away from him.

And one day, that’s going to happen to my little girl as well. That’s all a bit overwhelming to me. To the point, I’m tearing up as I’m writing this.

Okay, so Josie is only 4 years old. She’s not getting married anytime soon. But if I’m not careful – I’ll blink and the time we have together will be gone. So here are some promises I’m making to myself in order to best prepare my little girl to choose the right guy for her in the future.

1. I will pray for her, continuously, over and over again.
2. I will demonstrate the Father’s love to her, as God has done for me over and over again.
3. I will love her more than my job, my car, my friends, and all other things.
4. I will demonstrate to her how to love her future spouse, by continuously showing her how much I love her mother.
5. I will discipline her.
6. I will protect her.
7. I will let her fail, only so she can learn how to recover.
8. I will show her the importance of God in my life, and how all I have in life is because of Him.
9. I will provide for her.
10. I will tell her no.
11. I will make sure she knows how to respect herself.
12. I will, when the time is right, let her go.

Sure there are other things – too many to list right here.

Josie, you will always be my daughter, my love, my joy, my happiness. God has given you to me, and I will always cherish you. As you grow older, may God continuously give you wisdom, courage, and strength to do the right things.

And as you grow older, may God be preparing that prince for you. May he be a child of God, a devoted Christian, who will attempt with all of his being to love you more than I do. May I be able to let you go when the time is right.

One day, your prince will come.

The Joy of Giving (In other words – we’re doing something right!!)

Being a parent is really tough at times. Our child has gotten to terrible 3s. (The 2s weren’t so bad…but the 3s…let me just tell ya!)

She has reached an age where her vocabulary is full enough to talk back to us on purpose. She has become adventurous, louder, and extremely OCD about how everything should be lined up. Her imagination is on full blast, and she gets caught up into these imaginary worlds and often times forgets to come back to earth. She has darted away from us a few times in public, scaring us silly.

Sometimes, I feel like we’re going a stellar job raising her. Most of the time, I feel like a colossal failure. I see other kids sitting still in class, and ours decides that since a crayon is on the floor under the table, rather than tell the teacher, or wait till later, she hops up and pushes the girl next to her out of her chair so she can climb under and retrieve the crayon (remember, OCD, it has to be picked up now and put in its proper place).

I know, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. She is only 3. But that doesn’t mean she should chuck her tennis shoes down the stairs at someone’s head after class time at Life group does it? Or if she falls down the wooden stairs because she’s jumping on them in sock feet, she should learn her lesson and not do it again immediately after we wipe the tears away, right?

Enter Valentine’s day. We woke up and had heart shaped sweet rolls, and gave Josie a Veggie Tales movie about God’s love. She had a good day at Mother’s Day Out at Crieve Hall. I got home, and we sat down for dinner. We went through the mail, and Josie had a card from my parents, her grandmommy and granddaddy.

She opened up the card, and out fell a crisp $5 bill from them for Valentine’s Day. Immediately, all on her own, Josie said “Oh daddy, look, I can give this like the lady did at church!”. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was talking about at first, so we asked a few clarification questions.

Come to find out, she wanted to give all she had like the widow had done when she gave her two pennies to God. She wanted to give the $5.00 grandmmommy and granddaddy had sent her to God.

All of a sudden, the running from us, the random screaming, the hard times in parenting, the lack of sense in some of her decisions…didn’t matter.

I realized that she is listening, and paying attention. She isn’t just a bundle of energy ready to explode. She IS paying attention to her Sunday School lessons and Wednesday night lessons. She IS paying attention to what mommy and daddy are teaching her at home.

Never stop teaching your children what is right. Train them up in the way of the Lord, and they will not depart from it!