Happy birthday to my daughter Alex!! WOW. Where did the time go? Being your dad has been one of the greatest joys in my life. I remember barely getting your mom to the hospital for your delivery! Teaching you to swing. Teaching you math for 30 minutes one day and deciding I would never do that again? I remember you losing one of your Care Bears(the pink one-the BEST one)and I had to go buy the whole set again just so you could regain something you had lost. Which in turn began a conversation where I said to you ?as sweet and wonderful as Care Bears are, they could never be as sweet as Jesus. The way you adore Care Bears is how we should adore Jesus.? I remember teaching you how to pray and sing. I remember you dancing and shouting out to God in our worship time ?JESUS I LOVE YOU MORE THAN CARE BEARS!? Now look at you. Everywhere you go you are bright as yellow. So what do I teach you now? You already know what you need to know. I guess it’s not about learning something new, but rather to deepen what you already know. I?ve loved God for over 30 years, but it means something different to me each year. My love for Him is becoming deeper. Wider. I find right now in my life that to fear God is just as beautiful to me as loving God. Actually they are intertwined. Without proper fear of God, one cannot properly love God. I am learning of a God so terrifying and mysterious and so ?OTHER? that my proper place is falling down on my face because I dare not look at Him-yet in that proper place of fear and awe He lifts me up and calls me a son and a friend. Perhaps after 3 thousand years in heaven I will think ?WOW Jesus’s love is EVEN SWEETER than I thought in the first 1 thousand years!? In short, what can I teach you now? I can teach you that the best is yet to come. Deeper, deeper, wider, deeper. Take a big breath. For the plunge will be cold and dark at first. But you have the Light of the world within you. And as Galadriel said to Frodo, ?It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.? Happy birthday little girl.
