A letter to my daughter...

[PaulSacramento]

Never has my love for my daughters been put so nicely into words....please read:

http://thecripplegate.com/an-open-lette ... map=%5B%5D


Dear L.Y.,

In a box somewhere in the garage there is footage of the two of us. Although it’s lost in storage, it streams in my memory. I am holding you. You fit neatly in my two hands. My heart fits perfectly around your little finger – small as it was. It is a long time ago. It is the embodiment of that worn out metaphor we reach for to describe fathers and daughters. “Tied around fingers” or something like that. Clearly, I am entwined. I’ve always been. Quietly, I bend down and whisper something to you. It’s hard to make out what I’m saying on this fuzzy old tape. But, I know exactly what I said. I’ve been saying it for fourteen years. You have heard me say it in word and deed every day since. “You will always be this child here in my hands. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I love you.” It is fourteen years ago, but it is easily today.

One day, if God wills, you will know how deeply a parent loves a child. It is the bottomless vein in a parent’s heart. But, you will never know how intensely a father loves a daughter. It’s hard to put into words. It is a mixture of strength and softness unique to this bond. A father’s love hovers like a citadel over the untouched treasure of his daughter’s life. (This is why your dad acts like a suspicious sniper around you.) A daughter thrives within its safe barrier. A father’s love for his daughter is a preservative against a thousand ills seeking to infect the innocence of her life.

Is it any wonder ladies are reduced to tears as they look back on the landscape of their life and cannot see a father’s sweetness? It is a deep regret… and needless. Girls need dads. Neglect here is cruel. The worst thing a dad can do sometimes is nothing. It seems I counsel the ubiquitous broken young lady on a weekly basis. She is the lost young woman who seeks self-worth in the affection of a young man – never having received it from dad. Hers is a deep pain. Tenderness is a sublime power in a father’s hand. It is amazing what time spent showing love at eight does for a little girl when she is twenty-eight. It builds a confidence as few things can. It is a foundation set deep in the heart.

You do not fully realize it now, but one day in the midst of life’s many hardships you’ll see what I’ve been doing all these years. You’ll see what I whispered to you many years ago. In the darkness of your pain, you’ll reach down and suddenly feel a foundation beneath you. I know you love me. I know you respect me more than any other man on this earth. But, I have not been turning your heart to me all these years, as much as to My God. My leadership of your life is intended to provide you the slightest glimpse of His awesome power over all things, including you. I know My God will steady you.

When the time comes you will sense a steadfastness you had not sensed before. There in that moment, His love will be my greatest gift to you. A vision of a mighty God, which I have painstakingly opened to you conversation by conversation & tenderness by tenderness, will come up and catch you. My own love, incomplete and imperfect, will now make sense in the infinite shadow of His. You will bend down quietly before your life and say, “Thank you, Daddy. God is Great. He has neither left me nor forsaken me.” Your earthly father will be content in being overshadowed by your Heavenly one. You are not mine. You are His. I will rejoice from within the cleft of His greatness as I watch my daughter worship from knees I once put Band-Aids on.

I pray that my care for you brings into sharp focus the love of Our Savior. Unconditional. Sacrificial. Patient. True. Serving. Consistent. Present. I pray my sincere affection is a contrast to the many deceptions that parade as love in this world. I pray the sight of your father in broken worship of Christ gives you the courage to raise your own heart up in praise before mankind. I pray my transparent confession of sin and weakness will incline you to retreat into Christ’s righteousness at the sight of your own. I pray most earnestly that you will have not merely copied your father’s faith, but sincerely found the Lord Jesus Christ as the supreme object of your own.

Dear child, do not settle. Love a man who loves Christ more than you – and you more than himself. Be attracted to tenderness, lowliness, self-restraint, consistency and sacrifice. Seek that man who carries the imprint of our Lord’s cross upon his life. Love that man who does not live in fear of your emotions, but in fear of your Lord. Don’t marry a boy… no matter how old he may be. Do not fall for the first young man who comes along and shows you attention. Rather, follow that man whom comes along and resembles the unconditional grace of your Lord Jesus.

I am so sorry about the condition of the average young male. I regret that they confuse lust with love. I am saddened that they are more proficient at gaming than at balancing a checkbook. I cringe that they know more of sports trivia than doctrine. I apologize that they know better how to handle a gun (which is completely respectable in one sense) than how to treat a lady. I know godliness in a man is hard to find. But, find it. Otherwise, you will spend your life raising the man you thought you married. The church and this culture are filled with boys masquerading as men. Let them pass.

The man you are looking for is no boy. He is a servant. He cares for your needs above his own. If I am at all the man I claim to be, you may look at your father’s love for your mother and know what it is I’m describing. You should be able to recognize it when you see it. That man who will lay down his life for yours is the type of man you can easily give yours to. The man who sacrifices himself is easy to serve sacrificially.

By God’s grace, I have only intended my own love to serve as a high-water mark in your soul. None except Christ’s love for you will rise above mine. This way, when that man – whom I pray for everyday – comes along and exceeds your father’s love, you will willingly give him your heart. And I (secretly desiring to shoot him and bury his remains in an undisclosed location) will lovingly pass on my treasure to that man who stormed the fortress of a father’s love with a weapon as meager as a servant’s apron.

Your Dad

1 Corinthians 2:2

[RickD]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

[PaulSacramento]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

I didn't mean to bring up painful feelings, I am sorry my friend.
My wife and I lose a little one between my two daughters, the pain is still very real.

[RickD]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

I didn't mean to bring up painful feelings, I am sorry my friend.
My wife and I lose a little one between my two daughters, the pain is still very real.

That's ok Paul. I'm usually fine. Except when I read stuff like this. I realize that I'll never have those Daddy-daughter moments.

[PaulSacramento]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

I didn't mean to bring up painful feelings, I am sorry my friend.
My wife and I lose a little one between my two daughters, the pain is still very real.

That's ok Paul. I'm usually fine. Except when I read stuff like this. I realize that I'll never have those Daddy-daughter moments.

And some of us will never have father-son moments...
We are blessed by what we DO have though

[RickD]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

I didn't mean to bring up painful feelings, I am sorry my friend.
My wife and I lose a little one between my two daughters, the pain is still very real.

That's ok Paul. I'm usually fine. Except when I read stuff like this. I realize that I'll never have those Daddy-daughter moments.

And some of us will never have father-son moments...
We are blessed by what we DO have though

Absolutely!

And when my son was born, the doctor said it was a miracle he even made it to term. I guess the placenta was barely attached or something.

[Byblos]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

Your allergies are infectious.

We are forever blessed with 2 wonderful sons but God did not see to it to bless us with a daughter. Perhaps he knew I'd be a total sap of a father. My close friend has a daughter whom I've known since she was born. Today she's 18 and at college she proudly declares that she has 2 daddies. At first they look at her funny, that is until they find out both her daddies are married, to women.

[RickD]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

Your allergies are infectious.

We are forever blessed with 2 wonderful sons but God did not see to it to bless us with a daughter. Perhaps he knew I'd be a total sap of a father. My close friend has a daughter whom I've known since she was born. Today she's 18 and at college she proudly declares that she has 2 daddies. At first they look at her funny, that is until they find out both her daddies are married, to women.

Wow Byblos, you have a very "open" marriage!

[Byblos]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

Your allergies are infectious.

We are forever blessed with 2 wonderful sons but God did not see to it to bless us with a daughter. Perhaps he knew I'd be a total sap of a father. My close friend has a daughter whom I've known since she was born. Today she's 18 and at college she proudly declares that she has 2 daddies. At first they look at her funny, that is until they find out both her daddies are married, to women.

Wow Byblos, you have a very "open" marriage!

Well, he's Jewish so I guess I'm not breaking any Catholic laws .

[RickD]

As The Lord blessed us with one beautiful son, and my wife lost at least two children during pregnancy, this hits home big time for me. I've always wanted a daughter.

And no, those aren't tears, I have allergies.

Your allergies are infectious.

We are forever blessed with 2 wonderful sons but God did not see to it to bless us with a daughter. Perhaps he knew I'd be a total sap of a father. My close friend has a daughter whom I've known since she was born. Today she's 18 and at college she proudly declares that she has 2 daddies. At first they look at her funny, that is until they find out both her daddies are married, to women.

Wow Byblos, you have a very "open" marriage!

Well, he's Jewish so I guess I'm not breaking any Catholic laws .

Oy vey!!

[1over137]

I hope i will be blessed with kid/kids

[Nessa]

I hope i will be blessed with kid/kids

I am praying for you today

[IceMobster]

So where did those kids of yours who died during pregnancy end up? Hell because of the original sin or? If you are going to say heaven because the kids are innocent, what is the use of baptism and removing the original sin, then?

[Philip]

ICE: So where did those kids of yours who died during pregnancy end up? Hell because of the original sin or? If you are going to say heaven because the kids are innocent, what is the use of baptism and removing the original sin, then?

Clearly, there is much that Ice doesn't understand. People end up in hell because they knowingly reject God - and for their OWN unforgiven sins - and NOT for the sins of Adam. Babies in the womb have not yet sinned. What babies and all of us inherit from Adam is a human sin NATURE - the inevitability that they will eventually begin to sin, as do all humans. Baptism removes NO sin.

[Kurieuo]

So where did those kids of yours who died during pregnancy end up? Hell because of the original sin or? If you are going to say heaven because the kids are innocent, what is the use of baptism and removing the original sin, then?

The trickier question is more who they are?

Part of our life here enables us to develop freely into the persons we are. Babies, they haven't had that chance. So then, does God provide them with another opportunity to develop themselves? If so, then it stands to reason they'll be judged according to whoever they become. Perhaps God just accepts them as undeveloped humans and doesn't give them such an opportunity however.

Think about when we die, do you think who are or have become in life isn't simply dismissed? We might be different in certain respects, but you'll still be you and I'll still be "me". So then, it is reasonable to assume that a baby will still be their unmaturated "baby self."

Now if you can find Scripture which tells us of such a situation hereafter, then please present it to me. I think you'll find the only clear scenario described within Scripture applies to those who have matured enough to make a decision one way or another. Everything else people say, "oh they go immediately to hell" or "get a free ticket to heaven" is just talking from ignorance really.

As an aside, I had to double-take on your post IceMobster. I like you and all, and know you probably didn't mean to rub in salt, but the smart undertones I'm picking up on I find quite distasteful. If I had a baby die, and you tried being smart about such to try drive whatever point you thought was valid, I wouldn't be so rational in my response as above. You'd see my face snap away from a smile, I'd be so peeved my hands would probably wrap around your neck. Because, we just do not know, that not knowing would, your words are a low blow into a very painful spot. Wrong time and place to try make your point, perhaps I misread your words, but I find a bit of arsiness behind them.