Dear Daughter – Did I Miss The Miracle?

Dear Daughter,

You float in high heels, person to person.  You don’t see me watching….but I notice you; the one so poised, so soft and strong, so full of hope, so unafraid of tackling all of who you are….with no regrets…

How bravely you find your own wings in a world bent on clipping, stiffling, chaining people down where logic wins, time passes by…and regrets pile, realizing life has passed too quickly and you have nothing left.

But that won’t happen to you dear bravely bounding daughter.  I just know it.

Still, I don’t want to miss the miracle.  So I watch you, wondering…how could you have been mine, a mom so undeserving?

I held your little toes so.  Nursed you in the rocking chair that cold February, while your dad and your brother built a crooked snowman, outside our house once the size of our present day living room.

I loved you then.  I love you still.  Yet, on this crucial day of your graduation…this launching to your future….I wonder, and think….Did I miss the miracle?

I hoped so big for you.  Labored over wishes and dreams for you.  Lost sleep praying, and tossing and turning, hoping you wouldn’t turn into what I used to be….

Dreaming…

Maybe our God is bigger, than generations of small thinking.  Maybe lots of love can launch you far past what even my mind can conjure up for you…

But still I wonder, in this far thinking, large stretching, continually praying mother…

Did I miss the miracle?

When you climbed up on the dining room table, while this mother of a toddler rushed to the bathroom.  Finding you sitting there like the queen of the world…so proud of yourself, that gravitity couldn’t keep you down.

Or when you were drawn to beauty, and sparkles, and shining things glittering…was I too busy trying to fit my life into schedules of naps, and duty, and dishes?  Or living in the tomorrows hopes or yesterdays regrets?  Did I miss the today in every one of life’s steps?

Your dad stands on the cement foundation of our home, announcing over the crowd on this day of sunshine, not one cloud tauntingly in the sky…

He says how proud he is, how brave you are.  He stands strong, though I know we are both crumbling on the inside as we see a grown woman in the place of our little girl.

I retreat from my emotions….because that little girl I rocked now stands next to her boyfriend, getting ready to leave him, us, all she knows….to travel to far off lands like I have prayed for her countless nights…

And yet, I can’t stand the reality that your little hands can’t be held forever.  Little toes can’t be played with as I rock you on that February day so long ago….

For real dreamers are like that day when I took you for a walk down Rucker Street, then surprised you with Ann of Green-Gables theater tickets.  And how she sang on that stage before us, her heading on her own real life, earth shaking journey stating…. 

Real Dreamers are fearless, bold explorers who will die if they don’t take hold all they are destined to be….

She sang with such conviction.  “Fear and excitement always prefaces each and every great adventure”. Her words ring true today.

And yet, all walking forward, leaves back something.

Little miracles, I fight for in my mind.  The ones I wrestle to remember before it’s too late.  The ones I war with, against time…

Yet, I am not the dream maker, just the recipient. 

So, I step outdoors again to face the little girl in a woman’s body.  All grown up.  Ready to face the world.

“We couldn’t be more proud”.…I start to announce, trying not to embarrass you in front of so many.  Still crumbling on the inside where non-dreamers can’t see.   

I try to not to look at you, because the reality that breaks me…that you will be gone for six months in Bible training, and to another country for six months…though you are just eighteen.

And yet miracles, even those tucked tight somewhere unrecognized in the cuddling moments quiet together on a King sized bed, or climbing ladders despite me telling you to keep grounded, here on land, standing on hard soil where it is safe….

Climbers, and dreamers, and flyers were never to be chained down.  Landed.  Filled with regret like I have been…Because in the past I have feared man, instead of choosing to please God.

Yes, miracles makers count the cost, but don’t trust self, or any of our own resources….Miracle makers only look up to The Maker of every good thing….

Otherwise they just may miss the miracle.

The miracles in those little moments make the great moments.  Miracle makers press forward…even when tomorrow at times seems scary.

“I can’t even image how we got so lucky to have a daughter like you”….I look at my husband, still strong upon our foundation.  I need words.  I need strength. As dozens and dozens of family and friends see the miracle of a child following her dreams, living so bravely, in ways I can’t explain, still wondering in retrospect….

Did I miss the miracle?

So, go daughter. Live the uniquely design, God creation you, YOU were meant to live.  Not mine. Not others.  Be everything you ever dreamed and were meant to be. For the clock does not stop ticking, dreams don’t fade though hearts may slow or minds may rationalize away the miracle awaiting each and ever heart that simply dares to dream.

Party dies.  Balloons sag and a full day of cupcakes, and children, and adults speaking life into you…get still in this quiet place.

I wrap my arms around you.  You and I…these dreaming daughters of a God who never misses even the smallest miracles.  I choke, unable to breath here, holding you again. Remembering then. When you were little.

Your quiet.  Still.  My heart crushed as the prayers of sleepless nights are here.  Now.  Coming.

But yet, I wonder, and wait, and try to breathe under the wait of it all…

Finally, getting this moment.  You here.  Now.  Me holding, cleaving, wishing, and still dreaming…that you fly high, live bold for a God who is omnipresent, even when I can’t be…

And when you look back and see how I have failed, how my mind and heart and health cut your childhood short and the world wants you to camp on the “life isn’t fair” notion….

Would you know that there are few things in this world that I give greater thanks for…

You.  My bright star from heaven who I held that cold winter as an infant.  God so alive and calling you now towards missions….

This gift here. Before us. This moment….

For although too often….I was lost dreaming, looking for the miracle…I now see daughter….

That the hard, the pain, the tears, the laughter, the quiet waking moments….all of them… 

They were the miracle. 

All my love to you.  Now.  Always.  Forever.
Mom


I am not going to lie….I am kind of a mess as I write this.  My older daughter just had her graduation, sending off party last night to YWAM. “It goes so fast” I used to here other, whimsical mother’s say to me.  But, it. Is. True.  Every last word.

Parenting really is a gift with moment by moment miracles in it…ones we often fail to see.

Here is a a three minute video, from my daughter, sharing her story.  Thanks for so faithfully loving my family through all of our journeys…. My Daughter’s Story.

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