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To My Sweet Daughter on Your First Day of School

Dear Brooklyn,


I'm walking upstairs to go to bed, thinking about tomorrow and our plans for the day, and it hits me like a ton of bricks...tomorrow you are starting kindergarten at Blackwell Elementary.  I am thrilled for you and the adventures I know you will have. But I am in tears because you, my baby girl, are growing up into a big scary world where I cannot protect you.  


So I turn to the Lord for comfort and wisdom and grace to get through this step which I know feels so much bigger to me than it will to you, and He leads me to one of my favorite passages, Psalm 139.  As I read it, I realize that tonight, it is not for me. It is for you.  You can't read yet (won't be able to say that next year!!) and while I would like to run upstairs and drill these words into your head, I think doing so would do more harm than good! So for now, I'll put it here and pray it for you.


O Lord, you have searched Brooklyn, and you know her. You know when she sits and when she is awake. You know her stories and her dreams; her plans and her quirks. You are her teacher, training her, calling her to be Yours. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can she go from Your Spirit? Where can she flee from Your presence? If she goes to public school, You are there. If she falls in with the wrong crowd or gets lost a sea of corruption, even there Your hand will guide her, Your right hand will hold her fast. Even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You. 
For You created her inside and out.  You knit her together in my womb.  I praise You because she is fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Her frame was not hidden from You when You made her in the secret place. When she was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw her unformed body. All the days ordained for her are written in your book before one of them came to be. 
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you...And so is she.   

Comments

  1. MimiAugust 17, 2011 at 12:37 AM

    Beautiful......you are a amazing mom...Brooklyn will cherish this letter many, many times in years to come ....blessings to you and your family

    ReplyDelete

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