A Letter to My Daughter

My darling,

By the time you read this, I may have told you all of it already — but some things bear saying twice, and some things the written word holds differently than the spoken one.

You were wanted before you existed. Loved before you had done anything to earn it. The delight that your father and I felt when you arrived was a pale shadow of the delight God has in you — the One who knit you together, who knew you before I knew you, who has plans for your life that I cannot fully imagine.

You will encounter people who are not kind. You will face situations that feel impossible. You will make mistakes that seem irreparable and discover, in time, that they are not. And through all of it, you will be held by a love that does not waver based on your performance or your feelings or the quality of your faith on any given day.

You do not have to be exceptional to be loved. You are loved entirely as yourself — the quiet version, the unsure version, the version that cries in the car and doesn't know what she believes on a given Tuesday.

Be brave. Be kind. Be honest. And when you are tired and uncertain, come home — to God, and to us.

All my love, Mama